SEO for photographers: websites, social media, and Google Search

[Music]
Hello and welcome to another episode of
Search Off the Record, a podcast coming
to you from the Google Search team where
we talk all about search and who knows,
maybe have some fun along the way. My
name is John. I am a search advocate at
Google in Switzerland and I'm joined
today by a famous subject matter expert,
Martin, who's also on my team. Actually,
welcome to the podcast.
>> Hi, John. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
What subject matter am I? An expert of
JavaScript.
>> You're our designated subject matter
expert of SEO for photography. Whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What?
>> Well, I I heard you take some snapshots.
>> I do.
>> So, you're now a photographer, right?
>> Uh, oh god, I Oh, I know where this is
coming from. Okay. I think what you're
trying to get at is the fact that I do
take pictures and I recently got
accepted for like an exhibition kind of
thing. Does that make me like a
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
>> That's like You're an expert. You're an
expert.
>> Uh I don't know. Like there's proper
good photographers that I learn a lot
from. So I'm not sure if I'm an expert.
>> Well, I think for talking about SEO and
photography, it's like you you
understand a little bit of both and you
can probably bring in some some
information.
>> Okay. I think maybe positioning you as
the photography expert overall is is
perhaps a little exaggeration.
>> But this is a podcast, right? This is
not
>> fair, fair, fair, fair, fair.
>> Yeah.
>> And actually, I have like tons of
questions that I'm pretty sure other
photographers will also have because I'm
not like a content SEO expert really.
I'm more on the technical side of
things. And I recent recently realized I
built my photography website kind of
thing and I realized like I don't know
if this is reasonable for search or not
and if the content makes sense and I
have so many questions so this is going
to be interesting.
>> Okay, cool. Do you use JavaScript?
>> Um, actually that's a really good
question. I don't think I do. Let me
double check that I'm not saying
something that is that is not true. Uh,
I don't think there's JavaScript on this
page specifically because I believe
that's actually there there might be
because I think the light boxes are
using JavaScript.
>> Okay.
>> Um, so I have check, but I No, that's
that's a legitimate question. That's a
that's actually a really good question.
Do I use JavaScript? So, I'm I'm using a
content management system, which is very
unlike me normally, but I I'm like I
don't want to handcode everything here.
>> Okay, cool.
>> So, that's that's going to be
interesting. So I wonder what happens if
I disable JavaScript and then I am using
JavaScript.
>> Okay, so the light boxes are all
JavaScript. Yeah.
>> Okay, cool. So I mean why do
photographers have websites anyway? It's
like isn't Instagram enough?
>> Oh, touchy subject. You probably want
both a website and a presence on like
social media. But there are certain
challenges here. Number one, you do want
to have control over what you publish
and how you publish it. Uh as in like a
friend of mine recently told me when we
were at an exhibition like so the the
the the challenge with exhibitions is
it's not just your photo, it's your
photo in connection to everything that
is exhibited around it. So it's similar
to to Instagram. In Instagram, you
control your feed, but people are not
necessarily clicking on your account and
going through your portfolio, so to
speak, but they are on their home feed
and they see like their friends pasta
picture from yesterday and then like
some political news story that has a
picture attached to it as well. And then
someone's video of a birthday party and
then your photo of a landscape. And
depending on the context that or the the
the mind space that the person is in and
whatever gets shown around your picture,
your picture might just drown in it and
just like not fit. Uh or it might
actually be the perfect fit and you
actually can achieve the the emotional
connection that you want to achieve with
this photo. So you have zero control
over that uh on Instagram, on Facebook,
on blue sky, on whatever. You don't have
control over what people see on these
platforms. uh you can just be part of
it. Um and for photographers especially
those who are doing like more fine art
stuff uh where not just a single picture
tells a story but like a connect
collection of pictures tells a story. Um
you want a place where this story can
unfold and be told properly and that can
only happen on some space that you
control and that is generally your
website.
>> Okay,
>> that's one one aspect. The other aspect
is the business aspect. You need some
sort of like business card, right? Why
should you pick me for your wedding for
instance? I would never do weddings, but
>> Okay. I guess like there there different
types of photographers and they kind of
are online for different purposes.
>> Y
>> So if you were a wedding photographer in
London, you have kind of a different
purpose than if you're taking photos of
fish and publishing that because you
think they look cute.
>> Yeah. And the letter is me. So I don't
really need a website because I could
just put them on Instagram. Instagram
also does compression. So the photo
might not look as good as you would like
it to look. So that's also a problem.
But yeah, there are different types of
photographers. And for instance, I could
actually think of one that I don't know
if they need a website or not. And
that's people doing stock photography.
>> Oh, interesting. Yeah, that's Yeah,
>> there are people whose whole livelihood
depend on stock photography. So I don't
know if they need a website necessarily.
Oh, that's that's an interesting kind of
mix because my mental model was like
there's some photographers that are
hired for the task of taking a photo and
others that basically have value out of
what they have produced for their name.
And stock photography is almost like
well you're hiring yourself to take
photos of things that you're not selling
yourself directly but rather you're kind
of selling through a stock photography
service I guess.
>> Yeah. basically through a marketplace.
Yeah,
>> through a marketplace. Okay. It's almost
like the stock photography photographers
then are not like building a brand or
anything like that. It's really kind of
like the content
that they're providing.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's really an
interesting niche, I think. And also it
overlaps heavily with SEO because you
can't just go out and take a picture of
every tree in every house you see. Well,
you you can and you can upload that to
stock photo websites, but they are
probably not selling well enough. So,
you need to understand like what is in
demand? What are people specifically
looking for? Um, how do I phrase because
you like I recently realized this. I
took a picture of a skyscraper in Warso.
It looks really nice. It's like a glass
very tall glass building. The the clouds
reflect in it. The blue sky reflects in
it. kind of melts into the blue sky as
well because the glass is kind of tinted
slightly blue. And I'm like, well, if I
were to sell this on a stock photo
website, what would I sell it as?
Skyscraper? Skyscraper in Warso or more
like conceptualized? Because, you know,
like big heavy glass buildings with a
blue sky and sunlight and clouds on it.
a business, corporate, uh, success,
power, money, bank, financial, like how
would I how would I fra like same
picture you can frame so very
differently and I'm not sure they would
perform the same. I'm pretty sure they
wouldn't perform the same.
>> That's like very SEO related. I was like
how like what what do I want my business
or my content to be found for? And
that's very direct because I think with
these stock photography sites, you
basically list a set of keywords, right?
>> Yeah. You have a title, you have a
description, and you have keywords.
That's what you get.
>> Wow. That's
if SEO could only be so simple, right?
It's like here is the title of my page
and the keywords I want to rank for.
>> I don't think it's that easy for stock
photography websites because there you
have the exact same mechanics as you
have on the open web, like eb and flow
in terms of seasonality. So around the
holidays, people probably want holiday
themed or wintry themed or summery
themed depending on the season uh
photos. And then sometimes people need
more corporate kind of stuff. Sometimes
people need more family kind of stuff.
And there's lots of people competing for
a very small set of keywords that people
can because obviously like people
looking for photos, they won't like sit
down and research for 25 minutes what
they're going to call what they look
for. It's like, "Okay, so I need a
birthday." And then they type in
birthday. That's it.
>> Yeah.
>> And you're competing with I don't know
how many other people taking pictures of
birthday parties.
>> True. Okay. So, maybe for sake of this
podcast, we can skip stock photography.
>> Okay.
>> Um
because it feels like that's almost like
a topic of its own. also like use of
stock photos on your website, which I
know has been very controversial over
the years.
>> Um, and I I guess we could also skip
things like event photography or wedding
photography where people hire a
photographer
uh to kind of do the act of f taking a
photo because that's it sounds like
that's not what you're doing, right? No,
I just take pictures for the fun of it,
I believe. But then a bunch of people
are doing it as a business and I think
yeah, some of them just want to be
booked for time.
>> Yeah.
>> Have like hourly rates and others are
Yeah. Okay. I mean my my feeling is
those who are doing photography as a
service I guess it's like photography as
a service
>> is more like a traditional service type
website where you have on the one hand
you have the problem that they're
probably a lot of people competing for
very generic terms. It's like you want
event photographer in London. It's not
like event photographer for London
within a brick building for 15 people
who are doing something. It's not that
you're like searching for something very
niche. You're kind of like event
photographer London.
>> And at most you'll have
>> uh some preconception of like well I
know these people and I will just go to
their website directly.
>> Yeah. I mean fair enough. or you hand
out like business cards or you're
listing yourself in some place or you're
going to so for wedding photographers
I'm pretty sure they all go or most of
them probably go to like these wedding
kind of fairs these expos where
>> Oh yeah yeah so it's almost like the
traditional marketing there and probably
a lot also of working together with the
wedding planners. Yeah,
>> because like if someone plans a big
wedding, you want someone to just
organize everything.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. I think our wedding planner, we
had one um back in the day. I think she
suggested a photographer that we turned
down.
>> Okay. Well, they tried.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. But that that feels like more
traditional service type work where
basically you have to make sure that the
text on your pages is very clear that
you're also doing the usual SEO things
like I don't know connecting up with
others making sure that your pages are
easily findable easy to understand those
kind of things which
>> I've seen some photographers focus more
on the design aspect and then it's
almost like well it's like what is it
that you actually want to be found for.
It's not mentioned on this page.
>> Yeah, I think that's a that's a tricky
one because a bunch of them see
themselves as artists. I mean, my
photography isn't great, but I think
there are people who are legitimately
kind of in the art market. They
>> um they they ex exhibit their photos in
galleries and then sometimes these
photos get bought and it's the art
market. It's ridiculous. I recently
visited a really nice exposition in
Constance and I saw that you can buy the
pictures that hang there and um they're
like upwards of 3,000 bucks. And that
sounds ridiculous only if you don't
understand how much work went into these
and into like how much led to this
exhibition. And I think that's also a
very specific different kind of niche.
And I'm not sure people necessarily need
a website to kind of sell their
services. They need more of a website
that kind of explains
what is their artistic vision. And they
might actually have a website for each
exhibition, I guess. I don't know how
this is done.
>> Or at least like have a page for ex each
exhibition. H
>> like a category page.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. So, with your website, what is it
that you want to be found for?
>> Oh, man. I'm just like a hobbyist. I am
trying. So I'm I haven't actually done
any like optimization work on it. I just
wanted a place to like have all my
pictures in one place uh that I control.
>> Mhm.
>> So um I also used like the German word
unavasa which is underwater.photo
as my domain. Now it's out there. If you
want to look at not great pictures um go
there I guess.
>> I mean I sold a few prints so how bad
can they be? I exhibit some few of them.
So I think they're okay. We have some of
them in the office as well.
>> Yeah. Yeah, they're good.
>> Thank you. And I I just basically have
like a bunch of galleries and they are
each like a topical thing. So, for
instance, there's an exploring
underwater Switzerland.
>> Mhm.
>> Do I want to be found for that? I don't
care too much. But if I were interested
in that, I wouldn't know how
I could do that because I I can only
give like the the images a name.
>> Mhm. and then maybe have like some
descriptive text.
>> Okay.
>> And that's that's it.
>> But taking a step back, would you say
that your brand is Onavasa, that photo?
>> I think
>> or like like if people wanted to find
your photos, would they search for your
name or would they search for this
brand?
>> I'm I'm actually not so sure. Uh I think
unfortunately I believe I'm the brand.
>> Okay. So like
>> so it's almost like you I mean I I
didn't take a look at your website. It's
almost like you would want like your
domain name which is kind of this
generic term but you would have your
name as a big heading somewhere. It's
like this is Martin Splitz photo page.
So if someone is searching for Martin
Blitz photos
>> they could find it. like should should I
have that on the homepage or is it fine
if I have it in like an about me kind of
thing because as an artist so to speak
I'm not an artist but like this mindset
of like it's about my photos I don't
want me on the front page I want my
photos on the front page
>> I will give you the answer you want
which is it depends
>> beautiful so sorry no but I I think
fundamentally I I see a lot small
businesses make the mistake of taking a
generic term and calling it their brand.
>> So, kind of you're walking into that
trap because like underwater
photography, it's like
>> super
>> that's like what your domain name is.
Like if that were your brand,
>> you would have trouble ranking for that.
I mean,
>> I assume I assume there are lots of
people that do this. Whereas if your
brand were Martin Split Photos then like
people would be able to find you
immediately.
>> Okay.
>> I mean not to say that you should change
your website. I just like this is kind
of like the generic feedback I would
give anyone that is working like if if
you were a small business and you wanted
to be online that's kind of the
direction I would go. Okay.
>> So, kind of make it easy for people to
find you because being found for this
generic action is like pictures of fish,
like very simplified. Um, that's
probably going to be hard. Whereas, uh,
telling people is like, "Hi, I'm Martin.
You can find me on the internet as a
photographer." Like, they could find you
there.
>> Okay.
>> But I guess that all depends on like
what your ultimate goal is. And it
sounds like your goal is more like I
want to organize my photos and I will
send out links to people who are
actually interested.
>> Okay. But if I were to take the next
step and say like okay I want to make
some money off of my photos and for
instance sell prints which I think is a
is a business model that I've seen more
commonly these days. So in that case I
need some sort of brand I guess for
people to find me. Well, you don't need
a brand, but it's more that if you've
built up a reputation as being kind of
this underwater photography guy and they
remember your name, it's a lot easier to
find you with with a clear brand name.
>> True. Because I assume like the website
you you would be able to check in search
console like probably
is hard to find for generic terms.
>> I believe so. Yeah.
>> That brings me may maybe to the first
point like do you have search console
set up?
>> I I have search console set up. I should
probably look at it every now and then
as well. That might make sense.
>> Okay.
>> But I do have it set up.
>> I mean it's not going to make you rank
first. So
>> not
>> ah
>> I'm sorry. So sorry. But you see things
like what people are searching for which
which can be kind of insightful to kind
of see like oh well it's like you're
wrong John is like actually people are
searching for my brand name and I'm
ranking first for it which is great.
>> Uh yeah I don't think I am.
>> Okay. I need to fix that I think. Okay.
Mhm.
>> Okay. Then you have like the the gallery
pages which I guess are kind of like a
category page if it were an e-commerce
site
>> which
>> and probably on those category pages you
have text headings like which locations
what kind of photos some some kind of
classification
>> I don't have that actually the gallery
system that I use is a it's a theme for
the for the content management system
that I use um actually doesn't have that
like it it as just the like so if you go
to the website you see like exploring
underwater in Switzerland which is the
name of an album if you want to call it
a gallery
>> and then you click into it and then you
just have the images and like a little
bit of text for each of the images but
that's it there's like no freestanding
text.
>> Mhm.
>> Is that a problem?
>> So I mean I I guess it like all depends
like how you want to be found, right?
Like everything kind of boils down to
that. uh which could be like if you have
galleries for specific locations,
specific times like I don't know ice
diving in
uh I don't know a specific mountain lake
kind of thing. You could mention that in
the title or kind of like as text on a
gallery page like that which would make
it a little bit easier for people to
find that gallery. Like I assume a lot
of these are very niche terms and not a
lot of people would be searching for
like photos of fish under ice in this
mountain valley kind of thing.
>> Fair,
>> but they could and they would more
likely find your gallery page because
you're linking to that from your
homepage than some random photo that you
have on your website.
>> Mhm. Of course, like you're also
competing with that random photo on all
of the social media sites that you
published it where you also included
some of those words, right?
>> Yeah, true. Can Can they even be
indexed? Like I'm not even sure if like
the same photo shared on social media
can like take away my chance of
indexing.
>> Well, the web pages could show up. Like
if you're searching in web search
>> then it's like on the one hand the image
might be the same but the web pages are
going to be unique.
>> Uh because your website probably doesn't
look like Instagram or like all of these
other networks like everything kind of
around the image is very different.
>> Oh okay.
>> I I guess if you're looking at image
search specifically then it's possible
that we would recognize these as
duplicates. Maybe fold them together.
Hm.
>> I don't know.
>> Okay. So, but if I upload to my website
first and then wait quite long for it to
index and then Instagram or the other
platforms get indexed, then I will be
the canonical, right?
>> I don't think it works that way. Also,
it might not matter, right? Because
>> Oh, okay. If, for example, someone is
looking for a photo of someone diving in
this mountainous lake kind of thing and
they go to your Instagram,
>> like from Instagram, they can find your
website if they want to buy a photo. If
they're like, "Oh, I just want to look
at it because it's it's pretty and it's
calming."
It doesn't matter where they
>> Yeah, that's true. Then then the search
impression and the click would probably
also not matter that much because they
would just click on the website, go,
"Oh, it's a nice picture." And then just
jump off.
>> Yeah. I mean, maybe they would browse
your profile and
>> kind of follow you on the social network
or I don't know, depending on how good
your photos are or how good you describe
them.
>> Um, but that's almost like a different I
don't know user journey so to say.
>> Does Google penalize me or like dislike
me if I watermark my images?
>> No.
>> Oh, okay.
>> So, that's fine.
>> Oh, lucky me. The other thing I guess is
from the gallery page you link to your
individual photos as a landing page. Is
that correct or do you just have a
landing the gallery page?
>> That's a really good question. I believe
each picture has its own page.
Yes. Well, it's it's using fragments.
>> So it doesn't
>> So it doesn't. Okay, great. So all
right. So I Is that would I want each
image to have its individual landing
page? Is that a good thing?
>> I I think if you have something unique
to add to the image like a unique text,
longer description kind of thing and you
want people to explicitly visit that
image when they go from image search
then yes having a unique landing page
for the image makes a lot of sense
because then we can also understand this
is the primary image of this page and
here is some additional information
about this image. Mhm.
>> Uh whereas if you only have a gallery
page, then we're like, "Oh, there 50
images on this page and there's a bit of
text, but is this an image landing page
that someone might be looking for?"
>> Which perhaps not?
>> So, it's almost like if you're
interested in having your images
individually findable, definitely make
individual landing pages.
>> Oh, okay. All right. So, okay. I need to
make sure that my images can be landed
upon. Fair enough. Dang. Why does Why
does this use fragments? I don't know.
That's a
>> That's an odd one.
>> Well, luckily you know someone who knows
about SEO and fragments. So,
>> I know I can fix my website. Yay. But I
would just like wanted the gallery
system to just do it for me. But yeah,
that would that was uh too hopeful. I
guess the the other things that people
or SEOs often talk about when it comes
to images are file size, file type. Uh
do you know like how your site is doing
there or is this basically also like I'm
just using the CMS?
>> No, don't ask me.
>> No, no, no, no, no. I made sure that the
the the system so I I can disclose like
I'm using uh Hugo, which I believe
you've also used in the past.
>> Yeah.
>> As like a static site generator. um
calling it a CMS is a big word but
effectively it's a CMS kind of thing I
would say and uh it has what's called a
pipeline and it can actually process
images and it can generate like multiple
versions of an image so that you have
responsive images
>> oh fancy cool
>> yes I don't want to I I think I might
have like not deployed this yet I'm not
sure if I have deployed responsive
images yet but I want to make sure that
when you're on a on a small screen
device, you get like a smaller version
of the content, but if you're looking at
it on a bigger screen, you should get
the higher resolution version of it
because it's a photo after all that
you're coming to the website for. So,
giving you the best possible version for
the device that you're on is something
that I think makes sense.
>> Mhm.
>> So, that's uh that's something that that
we do. And you would call that
responsive images and I would argue that
that's a good thing to have.
>> Yeah, I think that's great.
>> Yeah. But
>> but
>> I don't think you'll rank first because
of it. I think the challenge with
regards to SEO, it's like, oh, these are
good practices.
>> Fair.
>> But just because you're doing these good
practices, you're not going to rank for
underwater photography Switzerland
automatically.
>> Fair.
>> You have to do more. And to be fair,
like I think on on the first version of
the website and maybe even still now to
this day, I'm not sure if I've actually
rolled it out. I might just deliver the
highest resolution anyways because I'm
like, you're coming to this website to
look at this photo. You you have the
time. Uh if it if it takes too long, it
takes long. I don't care.
>> But your core web vitals, Martin,
>> I know, but then again, like people are
here for the high resolution pictures,
so they'll I just have to deal with it,
I guess. I don't know. But maybe I roll
it out eventually. I don't know. Um, the
other thing is file types. I just use
JPEGs.
>> Oh, okay. Well, it's fine.
>> I mean, they work everywhere. I know
that we we support other file types. We
have it in our documentation. I know
that AVIF and WEBP are in there. Uh, I
think BMP is in there as well. So, we
have like a we can link the
documentation here.
>> Cool.
>> In the show notes. Um, we have like a
bunch of support. And since you take
photos, you obviously take videos, too,
because it's just like the same thing,
right?
>> Like videos are a whole different beast.
Oh my god. Um, they are different in in
how you make them, they're a lot more
effort because you have to like color
grade them and you have to edit them and
cut them and yada yada yada. And if you
put together a video coming from
multiple clips or multiple cameras, then
you have to make sure like the colors
match because one might be a little more
bluish, the other one might be warmer.
and oh god no so that that's a different
kind of skill set but I know that a lot
of photographers are also videographers
okay so yeah a bunch of people do the
same thing
>> yeah I I mean for video the I think the
main thing from our side is it should be
really the primary part of a page
>> if you want to show as a video
>> uh because if people are like explicitly
clicking on your video thumbnail they
want a video they don't want a big
gallery page with a lot of photos and
this random video attached I remember
that change. It's a relatively like a
year ago or something, right? That
hasn't always been the case.
>> Cool. I think this is pretty insightful.
>> Hopefully.
>> Yeah. Do Do you think photographers will
go away now that generative AI just
creates any image you want?
>> Ah, get out of here.
>> Get out of here. No. Come on. So, I Oh,
no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no. I mean, I do it as a hobby, so I I'm
not really impacted here. But I think
like a lot of photographers who studied
photography, who learn how light works,
how our perception works, how to elicit
different psychological responses or
emotional responses to an image. Um, I
don't think AI can do that and not
anytime soon. Like, of course, if you
need like a illustration chart for
something, then maybe it can actually
generate that for you. But that's not
really what photography is about. It's
about human connection through visuals.
And I think that for that to happen,
there needs to be a human on both sides
of that connection.
>> Cool. Okay. So, I I hope you picked up
some thoughts on photography websites.
And I guess like it's in my own best
interest that your photography website
doesn't perform that well in search so
that you continue working for us. Uh
but
>> don't worry about it. my photography
doesn't perform as well, so don't worry
about it.
>> Anyway, cool. Well, that's it for this
episode. Um, uh, if people want to find
you and chat more about photography,
where where is a good place to go? Do
you have a social network of your
choice?
>> Blue Sky is pretty good for this kind of
stuff. LinkedIn is more for the work
kind of topics.
>> Cool. Well, thanks for joining. Thanks
for being a subject matter expert.
>> Very happy to help. Yeah, I'm not sure
how about the expert part, but thank
you. Thank you so much for bringing this
up and I think if people out there have
follow-up questions, do definitely post
them in the comments on your podcast
platform of choice or on YouTube or go
into the office hours on
developers.google.com/arch
and ask us questions because I
understand there are lots of questions.
Even if you're not a photographer, but
from a different business or industry,
ask us. We're here to help.
>> Cool. Thanks a lot and thank you folks
for listening in and goodbye.
>> Bye-bye.
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We've been having fun with these podcast
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found them both entertaining and
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and goodbye.
[Music]