"As a London wedding photographer, shooting London couples and their London weddings is what I love the most."
Fascinating sentence, right? No? You don’t want to book me? We see this sort of sentence A LOT during our website reviews.
How about:
"I’ve lived in London for 20 years now know all the hidden spots the tourists don’t know about, all the best places for a cold beer (important!) and all the most beautiful photo spots. Whether you’re a fellow Londoner holding your wedding in your home town, or a visitor looking for a unique London engagement shoot, I’ll take you on a journey through this beautiful city, while you have a great time and get some gorgeous photos of yourselves."
Which sentence will make you want to look at my galleries and read my about me page - and get in touch to book a shoot?
SEO used to be about stuffing in loads of search terms and keywords. But things have changed. Google is smart. It sees past your keyword stuffing and knows when content is boring or irrelevant, and when your users find your site frustrating to use.
Ranking well (and ultimately getting bookings) is all about the user experience. We need to make sure our websites are useful, informative, interesting and easy to use. Ok that sounds like a lot of work. But it’s not!
These are the things you need to be thinking about when writing your blog or adding anything to your website:
Does the user find your site useful, enjoyable, informative?
If they searched "what’s the difference between a fine art and documentary wedding photographer?" and found your blog post that explains to them all the differences between the two, with text and images and solid information, then they will read it! If it’s written in a captivating and fun way, then they will also like you as a person and probably head to your about me page or your galleries - especially if you guide them there after reading the post. This leads me to bounce rate…
Is your site or post exactly what they were looking for?
If they searched "Newborn photographer in London" and clicked on a post that ended up being engagement shoots in London they’re going to click away. This is called a ‘bounce rate’ - the higher it is, the more people are leaving your site really quickly - ie they didn’t find what they were looking for, therefore Google assumes the content is not applicable and ranks you lower. Make sure each page is relevant and is actually about what it says in the title and the metadata (the snippet of text people read in the search listings).
Does it take them on a useful and easy journey from one page to another?
This will give you a low bounce rate (ie they didn’t ‘bounce’ off your site straight away) - it shows Google that your site is relevant and interesting to the searcher and therefore it means your SEO is on point and readers are happy, so it will rank you higher.
6 easy ways to improve the user experience
1. Have a simple and clear menu with no confusing items
For example, "meet me" in the menu could either be the "get in touch" or the "about me" page - confusing. So make it super clear! A confusing menu will make people leave in an instant. Go easy on the drop downs too.
2. Don’t have too much stuff on each page, or too many pages
Your site needs to give people the information they’re looking for as quickly and easily as possible. Remember, people skim websites, so that block of text will never be read, even by your mum. Break up text with killer images and snappy subheadings. Don't forget awesome testimonials too!
3. Write accurate titles
For every page or blog post, make sure the title is 100% accurate to the content on the page or post, and don’t make titles too long. Also, the url should pretty much match the title. So if your title is "Quirky East Quay wedding in Kent - Alicia and David" your url could be www.soandsophotography.com/quirky-east-quay-wedding-kent
4. Choose one headline font and one body font
It's the second most popular page on most websites! People are investing in you, so make sure you not only have an about me page but that's it's actually about you! If you can't write about yourself, don't worry you can use this personalisable about me page template.
5. Make it easy to navigate
Put call to actions at the bottom of every page - from contact links to links to your about me page or your galleries, make it so they don’t have to decide completely by themselves where to go next - show them where you want them to go. Take them on a journey and make it super easy for them to get the info and get in touch.
6. Encourage sharing
How? Make your content super useful and/or funny and people will want to share.
Giving your users a great experience will not only help you in the Google rankings but will also make it way more likely people will get in touch with you.
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If you need any help, book a website review, where I look at your whole website and help you with ways to improve the user experience and get those kick-ass clients to get in touch!
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