A great business-minded task you can work on during COVID-19 is SEO (aka Search Engine Optimization)! And I know a lot of people shutter at that acronym, but it gives me #allthehearteyes! But if you’re not feeling the writing and blogging that are the backbones of SEO, there are a few things you can do (fairly) quickly and easily that will at least give you a leg up in this department.

1) Set up a custom link for your Instagram account. Many people use Linktree for this, but as my wise friend Adam convinced me last year, you lose lots of what I call “Google magic” by sending your followers to an external link. Your best bet is to create a “hidden” Instagram page on your website that you can put multiple links on to refer to whenever you use #linkinbio or #linkinprofile

My custom Instagram page is www.hollybirchphotography.com/instagram. This page isn’t specifically linked on my website, but it isn’t private either. You can go to it with the direct link or by typing it in the address bar, or it is the link you see when you go to my Instagram profile. When you go to this page, this is what you see:

Basically I have all the important links that I would normally want to share on Instagram linked here. So instead of updating my IG web link (because you only get 1!) every time I write a new blog post, I simply ask my followers to visit my #linkinbio or #linkinprofile and they see these options where they can choose their own adventure! This also means I don’t have to change my IG link constantly to coordinate with my posts.

It also has handy links for anyone who comes across my Instagram link potential brides, commercial clients, or other photographers. This is also a great place to post any current specials or affiliate discounts (like my offer for 50% off your first year of Honeybook!).

Clicks on your website are great for SEO, so don’t lose that “Google Magic” by sending your followers to a third party site!

2) Set up Google My Business and make sure your business is verified. When you search for your business on Google, a profile of your business should show up on the right-hand side of the page (like what you see to here). For example, this is what you see when you search for your favorite local restaurant or search for attractions when on vacation. This listing should include your service area (or your actual location if you have a storefront), contact information, photos, and of course your website.

More than 90% of web searches are done on Google, so you want to use this powerful tool to your advantage! Don’t be left out — be sure to claim your listing.

3) Add Google Analytics to your site. This helps you monitor traffic to your site with stats for things like keywords, mobile users, location of site visitors, clicks, bounce rate, and lots more. Analytics is built-in on Squarespace sites (which is what I use), but it is easy to install on Wordpress sites and others I’m sure as well. It’s usually as simple as copying a bit of code onto a page on your website.

4) Sign up for Google Search Console. This separate & powerful Google tool helps identify issues with your website and searches to your website. It helps you see how your site handles and relates to the keywords you are trying to focus on. Use this tool to make sure your site is being crawled by Google, find and fix broken links, and see what inbound links you have (that is links coming from other sites, which is good for SEO). GSC usually emails me when something is incorrect on my site, which is helpful since I’m not checking up on my site every week or even monthly sometimes.

Both Google Analytics and Google Search Console are tools that will take a bit of time to install and set up, but then you can let them do their work. I would say I look at my stats a few times a year, though I’m sure some people do it more often. I just like to do a once-over every so often to make sure that nothing is broken or working incorrectly. It’s also nice to check my keywords and searches to make sure my blogging is doing what I want. :)

5) Write a single blog post. Just one, to start. Make it educational for the most clickability. Is that a word? Well, I just made it a word! ;) For example, most of my non-session/non-wedding posts are geared specifically toward brides/couples, or other photographers. Those two groups account for the majority of my searches and blog readers. Then once you get in the habit you can of blogging, you can write more!

A tip I often give to non-writers or bloggers is to type outside of your webhost like in a Word or Pages document. It’s less intimidating to write that way I think, and then you don’t focus on things like formatting or adding photos until your writing is complete. Also, you can use talk to text if you do better by recording your voice and then transcribing it. Google Docs has a voice typing feature that works great for this!

Maybe you don’t feel up to the task of completing all 5 of these right now, but choose just 1 or 2 that don’t sound too intimidating to get you on the path to some SEO goodness. Every little bit helps when it comes to SEO!

What questions do you have about any of the above 5 bullet points or SEO in general? Shoot me an email or leave a comment below and I’ll see if I can help!

Cover photo for this post by kDarling Photography.