Google regularly rolls out updates. Ultimately, it wants to reward those websites that create genuinely helpful content with higher rankings in the Google search results pages.
Websites that create spam and overly optimised content, created primarily for search engines rather than the end user, are penalised. Google wants to show its users the best results in it’s search engine results pages (SERPs).
So, I’m curious. How much organic traffic are you getting to your website? If the answer is, “not much”, that might be a sign that you need to UP the quality of your content.
How to improve your photography website in the eyes of Google
How can you do that, you might ask? Well, by creating a better overall experience and by ensuring all your content is genuinely helpful to your visitors.
For example, Google’s guidelines reviews:
- Does your content clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge?
- Does your site have a primary purpose or focus?
- After reading your content, will someone leave feeling they’ve learned enough about a topic to help achieve their goal?
- Will someone reading your content leave feeling like they’ve had a satisfying experience?
(See the Helpful Content guidelines (August 2022), as well as more recent algorithm update information (March 2024) in full for more insight and specific tips).
Review your Google Analytics data regularly
Something for you to do today: Visit your Google Analytics account to find out how your website is performing and compare organic traffic levels over the past few months.
*By the way, this is something you would ideally be doing often!
How to review your organic traffic within Google Analytics (G4)
To review the data relating to the organic traffic to your photography website, follow these steps:
Step 1:
Go to the left-hand side menu, select Reports. Then, go the top right-hand side of the screen to select the date range that you are interested in. By default it selects the last 28 days, but you may wish to review a longer time frame than this.
Step 2:
Then select Acquisition from the left-hand-side menu (this is where the data is about how you have acquired visitors), then Traffic Acquisition. You’ll then see a bar chart showing your traffic volumes per channel (something like the below), titled ‘Users by Session primary group channel’.
Step 3:
Review the chart to determine which channels are driving traffic (the number of users) over that period of time to your website. If you aren’t getting much organic traffic currently, it’s time to work on your SEO and content!
The above is a screenshot from my own Google Analytics data. My website consistently attracts about 80% of its total visits from Google each month.
This is a result of content I’ve created on my site over the years, ranking well for relevant keywords and therefore appearing in search results. My photography clients also get much of their website traffic organically via Google too because of the strategic blog content I help them to create.
Want me to help you get more organic traffic to your photography website?
If your organic traffic could do with a boost, then why not get in touch with me?
I offer both ‘done-for-you’ and ‘done-with-you’ style SEO services;
- you can join The Photographer’s Visibility Blueprint – my flagship course and group mentoring programme – to learn my SEO process
- or, hire me to help you better optimise your website and develop strategic search-optimised blog content that will boost your visibility in Google search results pages.
Find out more about how to work with me here.
Free SEO tips and marketing advice
Whether you’re ready to work with me or not though, do come and join my free PR-Savvy Photographers Facebook group (for professional photographers only), and subscribe to my Content Connection emails.
Both in the group, and via my emails, I share SEO and marketing tips with you, designed to help you attract more organic traffic to your photography website. Getting involved means that you’ll be among the first to know about any free workshops and training that I am releasing.
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