SEO for photographers: how to get your portfolio found on Google

SEO for photographers means helping Google understand what you shoot and where you work. Your portfolio can then show up when a client searches for that kind of photographer. To get there, use the words your clients type and describe each photo in its file name and alt text. Keep large images from slowing your site down, and fill in your Google Business Profile.

For example, your food photography business in London might run at forkandflashphoto.co.uk. You want restaurants looking for a photographer to find your site rather than someone else's. The same steps work for weddings, portraits or any other kind of photography.

What is photography SEO?

Photography SEO is search engine optimisation (SEO) for a photographer's website, and much of it is about the content of the page around each image.

Clients who don't know you yet search for the job, such as "food photographer London" or "wedding photographer Manchester". When your photography portfolio website shows up for that search, they can look through your work and get in touch from the same page. Even a small portfolio is worth the work, as long as each page says clearly what you shoot and where.

Find the SEO keywords your clients search for

Keywords are the words and phrases your clients type when they look for a photographer. The useful ones usually combine the type of photography, the place you work and sometimes the kind of client or occasion.

For your food photography business, start the list with terms such as:

• "food photographer London", the main search for what you do and where you do it.
• "restaurant photographer London", for a new menu or website.
• "food photography studio London", from brands that send their products to you.
• "product photography food", for food brands outside London.
• "photographer for restaurants", a broader search that's worth a page if restaurants are your main clients.

A wedding photographer builds the list the same way, for example "wedding photographer Manchester" or the name of a popular venue followed by "wedding photographer".

Keyword research tools help you check and grow that list. Google Keyword Planner and the free Ahrefs Keyword Generator suggest more search terms around the ones you start with. To use Keyword Planner, you must complete your Google Ads account setup by entering your billing information.

Pick the terms that match the work you want more of, not only the ones with the most searches. A small search such as "food photographer for cafés London" can bring exactly the client you're after.

Give each service its own page, title and address

Give each service you offer its own page, for example a restaurant photography page and a product photography page. Give each page one main keyword, and let related terms support it in the text. That keyword does the most work in five places:

• The page title. Also called the title tag, it's one of the sources Google uses for the clickable headline of your page in search results, such as "Restaurant photographer in London". It's worth putting the keyword near the start.
• The meta description. Google may show this short summary under the headline, so it's worth saying briefly what you shoot and where.
• The headings. One main heading says what the page is about, and smaller headings mark its parts.
• The text. A few paragraphs on the service, the clients you work with, the area you cover and how to reach you give Google and your visitors something to read.
• A short web address. Google recommends readable words in a URL, with hyphens between them, so forkandflashphoto.co.uk/restaurant-photography works better than forkandflashphoto.co.uk/index.php?page=gallery&cat=rp.

You might not need to edit any code for the title. Most content management systems, the software you build and edit your site with, can turn the title you write for a page into its title tag automatically. If your site runs on WordPress, an SEO plugin can add the description field, which WordPress doesn't include by default.

The keyword belongs where it reads naturally. Repeating the same keyword in sentence after sentence reads badly to the restaurant owner you want to win over.

Optimise your photos for search

A portfolio is mostly photos, so the words around them do a lot of work. Google says it reads the rest of the page, such as a caption or the image's title, to work out what a photo shows. The file name and the alt text add to that.

Name your photo files

Rename your photos before you upload them. Google describes the file name as a very light clue to what a photo shows, so keep the name short but descriptive. A pizza shot for a restaurant client could be wood-fired-pizza-restaurant-london.jpg rather than the camera's IMG_8273.jpg.

Check each file name for these points:

• It describes what's in the photo, with a keyword only where it matches what the photo shows.
• Hyphens separate the words, not spaces or underscores.
• It has no accents or special characters.
• Names in the same category start the same way, such as with restaurant or product, so your photo library stays easy to search.

Write alt text that describes the photo

Alt text is a short description of an image that screen readers read out to people who can't see it. Google also uses alt text, together with the content of the page, to understand what a photo is about. It calls alt text the most important attribute for describing an image.

Write it first for the person listening to a screen reader, and say what's in the photo in one sentence. For the pizza shot, "Wood-fired margherita pizza on a marble table at an Italian restaurant in London" does the job. Add a keyword only where it describes the photo, never a list of search terms.

Make your images load fast

Google points out that images are often the largest part of a page's size, which can make pages slow to load. Your whole site affects its page speed, but for photos, four habits help improve it:

• Compress each photo before you upload it, at the quality a screen needs rather than the full file from your camera. On WordPress, an image plugin such as Imagify can compress your photos for you.
• Save your photos in WebP where you can. Google's WebP format makes lossy images, the kind that drop a little detail to save space as JPEGs do, 25 to 34% smaller than comparable JPEGs at the same quality.
• Size each photo for the space it fills. A photo in a small grid doesn't need the full resolution of your camera.
• Turn on lazy loading, which tells the browser to hold back the photos further down a page until the visitor scrolls close to them.

To get WebP files, check whether your editing program offers WebP when you export. An image plugin may also convert your photos for you.

Check your portfolio on a phone

Google uses the mobile version of a site's content when it indexes and ranks pages, so the phone version of your portfolio is the one that counts. A responsive website adjusts its layout to the screen it's shown on, so your galleries work as well on a phone as on a laptop.

Open your site on your own phone and check the layout, the buttons and how quickly the galleries load. If the galleries are slow, the image habits above are the place to start. A layout that breaks on the phone is worth checking in the mobile view of your website builder or theme.

Get found in local searches

When someone searches for a business near them, Google shows local results on Google Maps and in Search. Your Google Business Profile is what appears there. If you work in one area, it's worth giving your profile as much care as your website.

Google says local results mainly depend on relevance, distance and prominence, which means how well known your business is. You can't pay for a better local ranking, but you can work on the parts you control in your Google Business Profile:

• Verify your business. This tells Google you're allowed to represent it, which makes your profile more likely to show up.
• Add your business category, your opening hours and photos of your work. Complete and accurate details make your profile more likely to appear in local results.
• Add your studio address if clients can visit you. If you travel to your clients instead, remove your address and enter only your service area.
• Ask your clients for a review, without offering anything in return, and reply to the ones you get. Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking.

Schema markup is code on your pages that labels details for search engines. On your website, local schema markup can tell Google details such as your business hours. Our local SEO guide covers that and the rest of local search in more detail.

Earn links from clients, venues and other photographers

Backlinks are links from other websites that point to yours. For local results, Google looks at how many websites link to your business as part of how well known it is. Aim for links from sites that know your work, such as clients, venues and local magazines, rather than any site that will link to you.

Ask for a link wherever your photos or your know-how appear:

• Ask clients to credit you with a link when they publish your photos. A restaurant that uses your shots on its menu page can add a line such as "Photos by Fork and Flash" with a link to forkandflashphoto.co.uk.
• Offer a few images to the venues you shoot at, local blogs, magazines or food writers in exchange for a credit link. Google's spam policies count a link given in return for goods or services as link spam unless it's marked nofollow or sponsored, so ask for one of those.
• Enter photography competitions that link to the websites of the photographers they shortlist.
• Write helpful guides for clients or other photographers, such as how a restaurant can prepare for a shoot, and share them in groups, forums and on social media.

Write about your shoots

A page or blog post about a real shoot puts words around your photos. Say who the client was, where you shot, what they needed and how you approached it. Those details add terms people search with, such as a restaurant's name. That gives the page more chances to show up in search. Post as often as suits you, as long as each post says something useful.

Turn visits into enquiries

SEO brings people to your site, and what they find there decides whether they get in touch:

• Show the photos that best show your style and strengths, not a full archive.
• Say what you shoot, for whom and what's included, with delivery times and packages where you can.
• Put a contact form and your email address where visitors can find them on each page, and add a phone number if you like.
• If you sell set sessions or packages, an online booking system lets clients pick a time without emailing back and forth.

If you're starting a new portfolio, create your photography website from a short chat with our Aida AI Website Builder, with galleries for your best shots.

What to check before you publish

Run through this list each time you add a page or a new gallery:

• Give each page one main keyword, in its title, its main heading and its text.
• Use one main heading on each page, with smaller headings for its parts.
• Write a separate meta description for each page.
• Give your photo files descriptive names, with hyphens between the words.
• Add alt text to each photo that says what it shows.
• Make sure your photos are compressed, saved as WebP where you can and sized for their space.
• Check that the site works well and loads quickly on your phone.
• Verify and complete your Google Business Profile.
• Ask your latest client for a credit link and a review.

How long SEO takes depends on the change. Google says some changes might take effect within hours and others could take several months. Give a change a few weeks before you judge the result. Not every change makes a visible difference.

If yours is a small local business, much of the SEO for your photography website is probably work you can do yourself. Appearing in Google's normal search results is free, so most of the work costs you time rather than money. If you'd rather spend that time shooting, our SEO service does the work on your website for you, from your texts and images to links and technical fixes.

If you already have a portfolio, go through the checklist on the pages you have, then write up your next shoot. If you're starting from scratch, build your photography portfolio with us and give every gallery its file names from the start.