Is there a way to make my website pop up first when photographers in my area are searched for?

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Question from Janel: “Is there a way to make your website pop up first when you specifically or photographers in for your area are searched for?”

Christina:  Yes, by setting up an account with Google and paying them to advertise you first on the pages that pop up in your location.

Jamie: Yep, work your behind off to get great SEO.

Kelly: SEO. Check out Tofurious. He’s a master of SEO

Stacy:  when i had a blog i would always title the entries like “Magnolia, AR children’s photographer”… and that seemed to make it pop up in the top lists

Chris: yes . its called search engine optimization . but ask any pro photographer , all their work is word of mouth , virtually none is from finding their website first in google .

A Vinyard Image: Chris is right. I have only had one person find me on my website all others word of mouth and the fabulous facebook!

Michelle: Google Adwords – they advertise for you. You pay per click. Check it out

Colin: In the UK very click on Google adwords costs approx 75p, so you could soon run up a big bill, for them to do the advert costs £60 per month, but I know a lot of successful photographers and they dont advertise on Google

Janel: Thanks to all! The reason I asked is I’m being referred but people struggle spelling my name & can’t find my website!

Jaye:  I get plenty of clients through Google searches, so what Chris said isn’t exactly true. I’d say maybe 25% come straight from Google. The trick is to get your page in the top five search results either through getting really good at SEO or paying Google to put it up top. I’ve done both ways and find clients actually skip those top ads and go straight to the top results, so unless Google send you free adword bucks I wouldn’t waste the money.

Jamie: I completely disagree with Chris. I’m not hiring someone I can’t find on the first page or two of google myself, and I get plenty of clients from google searches.

Cara:  SEO takes a LOT of work! And time. It won’t happen automatically (unless you are paying Google through Adwords) I currently get about half of my clients through google search, and half through word of mouth… but I’m currently trying to expand my google ranks to the city across the river from me and it’s really proving to be quite the task. Lots of hard work!

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