SEO Success Stories
SEO success. What does it mean? To me, it means your site shows up for multiple search terms in the first 2-3 pages. For very broad searches (state wedding photographer) it may mean page 5. It always means that if you blog about a venue, you show up. If you blog a location, you stand a very good chance of showing up for Location Type of Photographer (i.e. Syracuse wedding photographer)
I have been waiting to post this for awhile now. I wanted to accumulate some seo successes and show you what I do. I would rather show you than tell you. So below are some “results” files. When necessary I’ll explain what you’re seeing, post a few and link to the rest. If you want to download my entire success.zip file, go for it. It’s 30 MB of screenshots detailing my work for my own sites (Picture Infinity, StartingtoCook, Highonseo.com BestDayPhoto, NiltoMil) and client sites (all the rest).
SEO Results for Others
Paul Adams – South Wales wedding photographer
We started with Paul on page 12 of his Google results for “South Wales wedding photographer.” He has quickly climbed to page 3 for this term. To see more results for Paul click the keyword:
Maes Manor wedding photographer
Blue Mountain Photo Works – Greenville SC wedding photographer
Jason had strong SEO for awhile now (since I helped him originally a few years ago) and he’s kept up with it fairly well. Lately, it started to slip with some of Google’s new changes. Just a few tweaks in the right spot sometimes makes all the difference. Some venues Jason has shot at:
Furman bridal portraits (how about the top FOUR?)
Clemson wedding photographer (note TWO of my SEO clients back to back in the top 10!)
Death Valley engagement pictures (#1 and #2 for a location that is named after a famous landmark!)
Stephen Dohring – Tampa wedding photographer
Stephen is trying to optimize for a very tough city for wedding photographers. He is up against a lot of great SEO competition and we had some difficulty moving at first but his results on all but the hardest keywords show what we’ve known – good SEO practices work. To see some success:
Best Tampa wedding photography
Dunedin FL wedding photographer
Sandpearl wedding photographers
Gulf of Mexico destination wedding photographer
The photo is of one of my favorite results – Tampa engagement pictures.
Meg and Charles Baisden – Pensacola wedding photographers
Meg and Charles do excellent work on their own. They came to me with great SEO looking to push even further. My goal was to give them the best advice I could without screwing anything up. Hopefully we consider this a pretty good step in that direction.
Tampa FL wedding photographer (page 4 for a very tough keyword)
Pensacola FL wedding photographer – #1 for Google Places. Places results are based on SEO so I consider this a BIG win!
Florida wedding photographer (page 6 isn’t usually a win. Unless you’re talking an entire state.)
Santorini Greece wedding photography (yep!)
Florida destination wedding photographer
Mike & Rachel Mizzell – Charleston wedding photographers
This story is NOT a straightforward one. When Mike asked me to do his SEO I told him straight that he’d be better off changing websites than having SEO done. Instead, we’ve done a bit of both. After what seems like forever in getting site registrations transferred, new hosting setup and a site completely built, we have finally been able to start on Tillman Branch’s SEO. I think the results are a great start!
Charleston SC wedding photographer – Page 2 almost immediately!
Asheville NC wedding photographers – Not a “fantastic” result until you realize this is his second MAJOR city we’re optimizing. Not an easy thing in a short period of time.
Lowndes Grove Charleston wedding
Charleston bridal session (2nd, 4th and 5th!)
Asheville bridal session (4th AND 5th for the same search in the other city!)
Dana Andreasson – Asheville & Hickory NC portrait and wedding photographer
After optimizing Dana for a lot of Asheville results, I realized she’s also doing a lot of business in Hickory. Portraits AND weddings. 2 cities, 2 topics. Yep, this was going to be a hard one!
Hickory NC wedding photographer – 3rd. First Google Places result.
Hickory children’s photographer (Um, don’t ask.)
Robbin Knight – Charleston wedding photographer
Robbbbbin is a long-time good friend and one of the reasons I do SEO professionally. He has asked me to help him for YEARS. That’s how this whole thing began. So how did we do for good ole Robbin?
Charleston wedding photographer – #1 (This result was sent to me from someone in SC. It doesn’t show up on all localizations of Google but it rocks.)
Charleston wedding and portrait photographer – #5, 3rd Google Places result.
portrait photographer Charleston
Charleston engagement photography
Charleston SC wedding photographer
South Carolina wedding photographer
Sylvia Borgo – San Diego family photographer
Sylvia and I just started working together recently. She made one choice I’ve been steering SEO clients away from as much as possible lately – creating a brand new site before SEO’ing. Even though I think it will be a great long-term choice, SEO suffers temporarily when you change sites no matter how hard you work at it. So, knowing that, I’m pretty happy with where we are so far. Unlike a few of those above, you’ll see we’re focusing on San Diego, which is good. It’s a huge city and we need to focus.
San Diego newborn photographer
San Diego custom portraiture – #1!
beautiful San Diego portrait photography
So there it is! An in-depth look into what I do. When I get someone’s SEO completely done, it works like you’ve seen above. If my clients blog for a venue, they show up for that venue. If they blog about locations, the same. I want to do complete SEO work – not some half-wit job that makes one result look really great and doesn’t focus on overall SEO for later. This is how you’ll get found. Organic results for multiple terms.
I’m still working with several of these clients as well as 2-3 others whose results are too new to add to the success page yet. It all adds up to I’m VERY busy with SEO and that’s no joke or put-on. If you want SEO help, get in while the line is short because over the summer I’ll be doing less SEO and more wedding photography. I have no sales pitch other than the above. What I do works. Period.
My next post will be similar for my own sites to show you what I can do with a really hard SEO push and no time limits.
