When optimizing your website for search engines and selecting keywords to target, it is important to think about your business’s areas of specialization. Sometimes it's hard to narrow down what you are going to specialize in as a photographer and what is best to target for growing your business. You may find yourself stuck asking, do you offer just family portraits or do you offer multiple things (families, children, seniors, headshots) to help keep business coming in? And, how do you best market the services you offer? There is no set answer for everyone, but I do have some tips to help you decide what will be best for optimizing your website.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of a business with one main specialization.

Pros: 

Having one main specialization keeps your site simple, and it allows you to create a brand and style to attract that specific target market. It also allows you to expand on specific keywords and locations more because you have more room over someone adding keywords for multiple specializations. Another thing to keep in mind is that Google (and other search engines) may recommend a site to a user who specializes in family portraits over someone who specializes in families, seniors, children … because Google assumes that if it is the main thing you do you will have more experience in it.

Cons:

If your business is located in a small area focusing on one type of photography may not be feasible. Sometimes you have to cast a wider net to attract more traffic to your website to boost search engine optimization (SEO) and booking opportunities. It can also be hard to blog consistently with one main specialization, you have to stay creative with content ideas and active with session updates so you don’t run out of things to post about.

Now let’s review some pros and cons of a business with multiple specializations.

Pros:

Targeting multiple specializations can help drive more traffic to your website because you will have a larger potential audience, and the more traffic you get the more attention you will gain from Google (and other search engines). Having multiple specializations also encourages customers to reach out to you about different types of services. If you do multiple types of photography consistently and want to optimize your website for each of these specializations, you will want to have a page or gallery dedicated to each on your site. Those pages (or specializations) can each rank well in search results if you market and blog about them consistently. As a result, you will also have a large variety of potential content to blog about, which should help prevent you from getting stuck on figuring out what you can blog about while keeping your content fresh and unique. 

Cons:

It can take a little time to build rankings in multiple specializations because you have less room for more specific keywords and you have to market more to gain the same attention as someone who specializes in one area. You will need to keep up with blogs about each specialization and market each equally through your social media, so you may have to post more content and create a schedule to help keep you on track. You will also have to create a more general brand for your website so you will attract the different types of customers coming to the site.

Once you decide what you are going to specialize in you need to optimize your site to promote this to Google (and other search engines) as well as existing and potential clients. There are different strategies based on the number of specializations you have. The examples below provide tips to keep in mind when optimizing your website for search engines in an effort to grow your online presence.

One Main Specialization

Website Tips

If you only specialize in one area then your website navigation should be simple and clean. It is important to have pages with information clients need to book you: Home, Gallery, Contact. You can have other helpful pages such as Pricing, Reviews, FAQ … but try not to distract users with pages and information that doesn’t lead them to book with you. 

Keyword Tips

With one area of specialization, you have room to get specific with your keywords, which is great for search, but you do have to be careful to not duplicate keywords just to fill the space.

Home Page Keywords (12-15 unique):
Greensboro Family Portraits, Greensboro Family Photographer, Greensboro Family Pictures, Greensboro Family Photos, Winston Salem Family Portraits, Winston Salem Family Photographer, Winston Salem Family Pictures, Winston Salem Family Photos, High Point Family Portraits, High Point Family Photographer, High Point Family Pictures, High Point Family Photos, Triad NC Family Photographer, Triad NC Family Portraits

Pricing Page Keywords (12-15 unique based on what terms users would be searching that the pricing page would help them): 

Greensboro Family Portrait Pricing, Greensboro Family Photography Pricing, Greensboro Family Photoshoot, Greensboro Family Portrait Session Pricing, Winston Salem Family Portrait Pricing, Winston Salem Family Photography Pricing, Winston Salem Family Photoshoot, Winston Salem Family Portrait Session Pricing, High Point Family Portrait Pricing, High Point Family Photography Pricing, High Point Family Photoshoot, High Point Family Portrait Session Pricing, Triad NC Family Photography Pricing, Triad NC Family Portrait Pricing

Multiple Specializations

Website Tips

Even though you specialize in multiple areas, keep the site navigation as simple as possible to help guide people to the information they need to book you. Be careful not to overwhelm your website visitors with too much information or too many galleries for users to get lost in. Use drop-down menus to organize pages so that your website menu is organized and acts as a roadmap to direct people to information. Create a gallery for each of your main specialization areas, and use a simple page title with the main keyword for the page (e.g., family portrait gallery, senior portrait gallery).

Keyword Tips

When optimizing your site for multiple specializations use general keywords on the homepage so you can fit all of your specializations and locations (you are limited to 15 unique keywords per page). Then optimize your specialized gallery pages for more specific keywords or terms. You can see in the example below we did not list children in the home page keywords, but used the more general term “portraits and family photography” to help cover this. Then you can put keywords for children on the specialized gallery page.

Home Page Keywords (12-15 unique):
Greensboro Portrait Photographer, Greensboro Family Portraits, Greensboro Senior Portraits, Greensboro Engagement Photographer, Greensboro Headshots, Winston Salem Portrait Photographer, Winston Salem Family Portraits, Winston Salem Senior Portraits, Winston Salem Engagement Photographer, Winston Salem Headshots, High Point Portrait Photographer, High Point Family Portraits, High Point Senior Portraits, High Point Engagement Photographer, High Point Headshots

Pricing Page Keywords (12-15 unique based on what terms users would be searching that the pricing page would help them): 

Greensboro Portrait Photography Pricing, Greensboro Family Portrait Pricing, Greensboro Senior Portrait Pricing, Greensboro Engagement Photography Pricing, Greensboro Headshot Pricing, Winston Salem Portrait Photography Pricing, Winston Salem Family Portrait Pricing, Winston Salem Senior Portrait Pricing, Winston Salem Engagement Photography Pricing, Winston Salem Headshot Pricing, High Point Portrait Photography Pricing, High Point Family Portrait Pricing, High Point Senior Portrait Pricing, High Point Engagement Photography Pricing, High Point Headshot Pricing

I hope these examples help get you thinking about how to optimize your website and your business based on your areas of specialization. Remember there is no right or wrong answer, how you organize your website and optimize it for search engines depends on your specific market and how you market your business on your website. You can rank well in search engines by choosing either path (single area of specialization or multiple), just remember to create good content, optimize your website, and market consistently to reach success.

If you don’t have the time to optimize your website yourself, or want an expert to do it for you, check out our SEO GO service. If you purchase this service, our Pro Services team will optimize your website, and on a monthly basis, we will monitor it to make changes and provide a report with specific goals for your business to focus on for growth. Give us a call at 866.463.7620 to learn more.