Confused? Don't worry, Gabriel uncovers everything in simple, easy to follow steps and ideas on exactly what you need to do to rank well, no matter the changes Google makes to its search algorithm.
Gabriel Machuret is a true SEO specialist and he shares so much your head will be spinning following this episode of the podcast! When chasing Gabriel for this interview, I was a little concerned that it would be full of technical strategies, lots of jargon and real ‘cloak and dagger' type of advice… I was so wrong.
Here's some of what we cover:
With the amount of competition out there, you need to be great at SEO if you want to stand out from the crowd more than Wally does.
Premium Members
Premium members, you will be blown away with Gabriel's offer for you. A totally free and no obligation 20 minute SEO coaching session! In this session, you'll be free to ask Gabriel anything on your mind regarding SEO and getting your site ranked.
Don't know what to ask? No problem, let him know your website or blog URL and he will tell you what you need to know!
What is your big takeaway?
Following the interview, I'd love to know what your biggest takeaway is – what is the one thing that you'd like to implement or remember from what Gabriel had to share? Let me and other listeners know by leaving your thoughts in the comments below. It shouldn't be difficult following this episode!
What have you implemented so far?
If you have implemented something that you've learnt or heard from the podcast interviews, I want to know about it! I really am interested and love to hear about your success stories, especially if I've helped play a small part. If you feel up to it, leave a voicemail message by clicking the tab on this page or record and send me an .mp3 file – I'd love to play your recording on a future episode. Don't feel confident or want to send a voicemail? No problem, shoot me an email, I'd love to hear from you – andrew@photobizx.com.
iTunes ratings, reviews and Shout-Outs
A big and solo shout out to Arek Rainczuk from www.fivecastles.com.au – thanks Arek and great to read that you're enjoying the podcast. Thanks for letting me know and thanks for the review, it means a lot.
It's these reviews that really make a big difference to the podcast being ranked well and found in the iTunes store. If you have the time and are happy to leave an honest rating and review, head over to iTunes. Don't feel your comments have to be long, involved or gushy, an honest opinion is all I ask.
Also, a few shout-outs to photographers/listeners that have made contact via email or social media this week:
Tony McKay – www.handcraftedstories.com
Walter James – https://www.facebook.com/walter.james1
Shane – www.perfectpicturing.com
Trish Grice – www.rtphotos.biz
John Colson – www.johncolson.com
Thanks guys, it's been great chatting and hearing from every single one of you this week. If you'd like to get in touch, ask a question or make a suggestion for the show, you can email me andrew@photobizx.com, find me on twitter https://twitter.com/andrewhellmich or on Facebook at https://photobizx.com/facebook – I'd love to hear from you!
Links to people, places and things mentioned in this episode:
Gabriel Machuret's Website – http://www.internetninja.com.au
Gabriel on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/gabrielmachuret
About.com
whatif.com
What is App store optimization – the site Gabriel ranks for – http://www.asoprofessional.com
Mixergy interview with Gabriel
Ben Marden episode on Photo Biz Xposed
Odesk, for outsourcing – https://www.odesk.com
Elance, for outsourcing – https://www.elance.com
Tyrone Shum on Photo Biz Xposed – YouTube Video expert
Dave Jackson on Photo Biz Xposed – starting your own podcast
That's it for me this week, hope everything is going well for you. I'd love for you to leave a comment below to let me know what you took away from this episode of the podcast.
Speak soon
Andrew
Thanks for sharing Mixergy’s interview 🙂
No worries Arie – love Mixergy and happy to share.
What a great person to interview. Very relevant to us Photographers.
Super knowledgeable and sounds to be down-to-earth and honest.
Sounds like having a niche is important for SEO. But what if I don’t want to have a niche?
I personally don’t like having all my eggs in one basket. Sort of like how my retirement savings is diversified.
But that’s just my personal choice. You don’t have to agree.
All I want is for people to Google “Fort Worth Photographers” and me to somewhere be on the first page of Google.
I will be listening to this interview again and making an action plan.
Thank you Andrew and Gabriel!
Joey Joiner
Fort Worth, Texas
USA
Good to hear you enjoyed the Chat with Gabriel Joey, I agree, he definitely knows his stuff!
I think if you want to rank for “Fort Worth Photographers” you can definitely target that keyword phrase using all the techniques that Gab mentioned – video, interviews, podcasting, blog posts etc.
What you do need to ask yourself though (and we had this exact conversation in our studio today) is what you think people will be typing into Google or their preferred search engine to find a photographer in your area. If you believe its “Fort Worth Photographers” then you are on the right track, go for it!
The problem though, is if potential clients are typing in phrases like; Fort Worth Wedding Photographers, Fort Worth Wedding Photography, Fort Worth Portrait Photographers, Fort Worth Portrait Photography, Fort Worth Baby Photographers, Fort Worth Newborn Photography etc, etc. You may not be ranking for these terms and missing out on a lot of potential traffic and clients.
It’s not hard to target all these keyword over time, just don’t expect to do it all with a single blog post.
If you’re still unsure, premium members can organise a free SEO planning session with Gabriel – pretty amazing access to an SEO expert.
*Unpacks video camera (well same camera used for stills…) and heads out to location*
Such a good episode. Been itching for it really. Amazing ideas from Gabriel. Really good questions asked by Andrew. Its scary how he knows exactly what we’re probably all thinking.
The biggest takeaway for me is that more content isnt necessarily bad. I struggle with how much I write on my blog posts. I more often then not what to write more than whats there, but I usually restrain myself from doing so thinking that I should let the photos speak for themselves. I really think that the mentality that your photos can speak for themselves is incredibly flawed. Having a photo of a wedding dress says nothing about who made it, which is the one thing a bride will think when she sees it and wants it for herself. Im really happy to think that I can let go a little and write more.
I also have a few questions for Gabriel if he swings by the comments section (but open to anyone else too). They are:
1. I think Andrew touched on a good point, that is, sameness. Its probably not hard to have 10 wedding posts that follow the same structure. So should you balance real stories and tips or tutorials? My concern is whether having too much content, rather than actual blog posts about real photo shoots would cheapen my brand. Is it a 50-50 balance or should you have more of one than the other?
2. How would you structure a page based on the info you get from your surveys? Do you simply list every question and response for every interviewee on one page? Or do you split it up over several pages (say one page for each testimonial)?
Thanks in advance!
Andy
Haha, I’m the same Andy – I’ve already planned a series of videos to add what I’ve already started and have some great new ideas following the interview with Gab.
Great to read that I’m asking the questions you want answered – I do my best to get in the headspace of what I think you’d like to know. Thanks for the compliment.
In regard to the amount of text in your posts, in Google’s eyes; go for it, the more the better if it’s good relevant information.
I’ll have a go at answering your questions –
1. I think you can combine tips and stories in the same article sometimes, I’ve done that in a number of my posts, here’s an example: http://impact-blog.com.au/better-wedding-photographylauren-darren/
I’ve also used the idea of emailing questions to couples to create blog posts. This works a treat, adds a ton of good, keyword rich text to your posts and the couples love sharing (great for social proof that Gabriel mentioned) and takes minimal work. The trick is to ask open ended questions. Remember you can modify what you ask anytime till you get the responses you’re looking for.
Here’s a recent example of where I’ve done this: http://impact-blog.com.au/peterson-house-hunter-valley-wedding-with-a-twist-tiana-ben/
If you’re looking for the definitive answer on how much of each, I think you can test it. See which posts get shared the most, see which attract any comments – it can be trial and error till you nail the right combination.
Lastly, if you ask yourself what visitors to your site want when they get there, try and provide that and you can’t lose. In my mind, they want to see great photos and read something that can help them have a better wedding day or portrait photography experience.
2. For the “survey questions” I create a separate blog post for each shoot; wedding, portrait or commercial that I want to promote. I’ve been using the questions for wedding couples only but am about to start doing the same for my portrait and commercial clients too.
The reason I go for different posts is each post is usually key word rich for a specific location, reception venue, makeup artist etc – in my mind, if I can keep a visitor to the site moving around, looking at different weddings and shoots, I have more chance of generating an enquiry.
The other reason is I can post each “survey” after each shoot without having to slowly build a large resource over time on each question – if it’s the same wedding in the one post, it’s more likely to be shared (with their friends) and if a visitor likes a particular style of dress say, she’ll stay longer and read all about that wedding.
Also, if you build a page of questions over time, what happens if you change your questions? Start anther page, add to the existing ones?
These are my thoughts, hope they help a little.
Hi Andy! The way I am planning on implementing the surveys into my blog posts is to choose what photos that I am going to post on the blog, and then make up questions based on those. For example, we recently shot a wedding where the bride and groom drove off in the bride’s grandpa’s 1947 pontiac. I will have some questions specifically about that car. Similarly, asking about the dress, cake, flowers ect. I will post the answers after the pictures. So my blog will end up having text throughout the photos. I actually just sent out a survey the night before listening to this, and Gabriel made me realize that I could have asked SO many more questions. I guess that I will just have to bother the couple again with more questions. They’re pretty easy going, so hopefully they won’t mind.
Nice website Chris & Shae. It looks like its coming together pretty nicely. Have you thought about asking some general questions at the same time you book your clients? You could adapt your contact form to include some questions which might reduce the number of questions you would have to ask in your survey after the wedding.
I had a go at throwing in some questions with my latest post (link below). I think that having questions which relate to specific photos would work well. But (at least for this post) given that my questions had more to do with the couple, rather than the photos, I decided to keep the questions together between a few slabs of photos, rather than separate the questions between the photos. I guess theres no formula and you can be different each time.
Thanks Andy! It’d definitely a work in progress, but I’m glad to hear that you are liking it so far.
I think that (at least for now) I will stick to asking the questions after the wedding (or possibly after we have booked, but before the wedding). There are a few reasons for that. Firstly, I think a longer contact form could potentially discourage potential inquiries. This could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective. For us, since we are just starting out, I would like to have the chance to talk to as many people as possible to see if we would be a good match. I may change that after we are more established to try to weed out those who are not as serious about booking us.
Another reason is that when my wife and I got married, the photographer was one of the first things that we hired, so we didn’t even know where we were getting married. And I want to ask them the questions when they can say what they felt about the venue, or the decorations, or even how their family and friends contributed.
Your blog post does bring up a different perspective on that though. You could easily ask questions specific to certain pictures at a wedding because there are decorations, the dress, rings, family, etc. But at a maternity shoot, or other portrait shoots, it is usually just the couple or the family. I think that you did a really good job of using the questions in your post. The questions were tied in really nicely to the photos, and I think that it would be something that another mother-to-be would be interested in reading when thinking about getting her photos done. (I also like how clean the page is, so there isn’t anything distracting from the pictures and the words).
I guess that it really just depends on the type of photos you are taking, and the clients. That probably will end up making it more interesting in the end, because you can ask different questions to different clients and all of your blog posts will be different and interesting to read.
You know what, you may be on to something! I was just listening to the Social Triggers podcast and they talked about something very similar to this. (I linked to the podcast in case you would like to listen to it).
http://socialtriggers.com/fooling-houdini-alex-stone/
If you fast forward to about the last 10 minutes, they talk about the psychology behind the astrology and fortune telling industry. The research that they talk about shows that the more the fortune teller asks about the client, the more the client thinks that the fortune teller did a good job even though the answers that the fortune teller gave were just general answers that were the same for each client.
So what I got out of that is that maybe your way is better. Ask the clients more questions about themselves early on, and they may be happier with your service.
I don’t know how well that would carry over to photography, but it is something interesting to think about.
Hi Chris – getting the clients to talk about themselves is something I try and do at all of my wedding consults and I feel it makes a big difference in regard to bookings, establishing a relationship and generally being likeable.
I couldn’t stand going to book a service to only hear the person talk about them or their service without showing any interest in my needs or wants.
Oops, it looks like my idea was exactly what Andrew did in his example he did. Didn’t mean to steal your idea Andrew.
No problem at all Chris – I’m guessing anyone that implements these interview ideas will have similar questions for couples with a few variations. The beauty of the idea though, is that all the answers will be different and specific to each couple/shoot/event.
Well this is definitely one that I will be listening to again. I have been thinking about doing similar things to what Gabriel suggested. For example, we often get asked to help tie the groomsmen’s ties or bow ties, so we want to make a video with a step by step tutorial, but I wouldn’t have thought to transcribe it, or make it as a blog post as well. I could potentially rank well on Youtube and my website. Also, this goes along nicely with Bryan Caporicci’s interview. Bryan was saying that it is hard to stand out to vendors, so you should focus on your clients more. But Gabriel gives a great idea for standing out from the crowd to both vendors and clients by interviewing vendors and clients and adding that content to your blog. I think that this is a genius idea because it gets vendors to remember you, good info for the clients, makes clients happy to have not only their photos, but their interview featured on a blog, and the cherry on top is that it makes your website rank higher! Gabriel was stressing that you need to put a lot of work into this, but It seems to me that (although you do have to put in an effort) you are just killing so many birds with one stone! It’s a bird massacre!
Thanks again for another incredible podcast Andrew!
“You are killing so many birds with one stone – it’s a bird massacre!” – love it Chris!
Nothing more to add your comments – I think you have it nailed. Glad you enjoyed it.
This interview is amazing – listening to it second time round now. Can’t wait to start implementing some of Gabriel’s ideas – especially the location videos and interviewing local businesses. Thanks Andrew and Gabriel!
Hey Caitlin – great to have you tuning in! Thanks for adding your comments and love hearing that you’re going to be implementing some of what you heard.
Following your interview, I’m guessing you’ll have schedules and scripts sorted with videos up and live on your site in no time 🙂
https://photobizx.com/caitlin-mccoll-the-business-of-pet-photography-success/
Hi Andrew, really enjoyed this interview with Gabriel. Lots of great ideas. I have been overseas for a holiday, it was my sisters wedding in Ireland. Glad to be back tuning in to your pod casts 🙂
Hi Rita, thanks for adding your comments and hope you had a wonderful time overseas. Did you photograph your sisters wedding or simply enjoy the day?
[…] Shane Jackson of Perfect Pictures Professional Photography – who is about to start recording interviews and videos following the recent podcast interview with Gabriel Machuret in episode 34. […]
Wow! My head is definitely spinning. Thank you to Gabriel for his wise knowledge!
I sometimes feel like posting too much on a blog could be overwhelming for people, especially if linking to posts via Facebook. But with Gabriel stressing how important regular content is and how it can improve your rating, all those thoughts fly out the window.
Getting people talking about the content is harder, especially via Facebook as less than 10% of your likers are even seeing your posts. But on the other side you can’t be fixated on getting comments/likes because they don’t reflect people’s engagement (I’ve had people tell me how cool a post was in person and they haven’t voiced their positive opinion via social media but they’ve still engaged with the post).
It can also be disheartening not to receive much feedback which starts you thinking maybe I should stop creating content in the first place which is not the right course of action!
I get calls all the time from SEO strategists telling me I’m not on page 1 on Google so would love to stop them from calling. It’s time to create more engaging content!
Hi Elanor, thanks for adding your comments and yes! How good was Gabriel!
Linda, my wife was making the exact same point you do – while at the gym, girls were commenting about this and that on our FB page but hadn’t actually “liked” or commented on the post. People definitely see more than they engage with but there is no denying that more and stronger engagement is always better.
The more likes and comments you receive on a post, the more people Facebook will show your post to.
I don’t think you can have too much content BUT and it’s a big BUT – the content has to be valuable and worthwhile.
Following Gabriel’s advice will definitely us on the right track. Look forward to seeing your videos and more blog posts 😉
Andrew simply amazing stuff. I’m so inspired right now. I listened to this podcast last night at 12:30am and today wrote 2 new blogs posts. With the intention of doing one a week once my website is been updated. Thanks again and I’m so jealous that your smashing the pow in Japan.
Cheers Andrew
Thanks Andrew – loved reading your comments. I really enjoyed interviewing Gabriel myself and although I haven’t shot the videos I intended to, I still plan to do so after this holiday. Make sure you link to your new blog posts in future comments so we can have a read, I’d love to see what you put together.
You sound like you’re a skier yourself? I’m three days in and Japan has already delivered, the pow is incredible!
Hi Andrew, Just a quick update. Since I have started blogging (as per this excellent interview) 1 piece of material a week I have jumped up 2 positions in my local Google business ranking. This stuff really works and all it took was a little effort, well not much effort just a lot of time and organisation following up suppliers for interviews etc but $0 cost AMAZING.
Also before this my sites page ranking was non existent like on page 40 now it’s on page 2-3 but I will get on the first page.
Do you know the answer to this question. One of my competitors who has been around for 20 years and always ranks no1 does no blogging at all but obviously has a huge history online do you think it’s possible to out rank someone like this over time through blogging if I build up the content to be the leading authority ?
Thanks again mate
Wow, moving up the charts Andrew! Really good to hear about your results. I know what you mean about the content creation, takes a little planning and time but soon you get on a roll.
I think you’ll find other positive spin offs too – the suppliers will know you more now and will more than likely link to your posts and tell their clients about you – it’s a snow ball gathering momentum!
Yes, I think you can out rank someone else. Have you tried seeing where his back links are coming from with tools like SEO Moz? If he’s not blogging, it probably means he has a lot of back links or valuable content on his site that is helpful to his clients.
If it’s great back links (which you can find) you can try and get links by submitting posts to other high ranking blogs and related websites or even targeting the same sites he is getting his links from.
You’re on the right track though. Producing valuable, helpful and unique content will see you keep rising up the ranks. Don’t forget to have the suppliers link back to your posts if possible – even from their FB pages if they don’t have websites or blogs.
This was pure gold! i have immediately began to start working on interview questions. So I have a question for you, if you are still around this post. What are some sample questions that you would send to vendors? I have come up with a an idea I want to call “Wedding Vendor Wednesday” & Spotlight a vendor each week. I want to come up with a bunch of different questions for different vendors and I wanted to see if you had any suggestions?
Hey Devin – love that you found this episode helpful. I’m a big fan of what Gabriel teaches and he’s been a big influence on the way I blog for my business.
In regard to your questions, you want open ended questions and ones that will be helpful for bride and grooms to be (mainly brides though as they do most of the researching). Put yourself in her shoes and ask what you’d want to know if booking a service for your wedding.
Off the top of my head:
1. What should a bride ask about booking (insert service)?
2. If you were to give one piece of advice when booking (insert service) what would you suggest?
3. What pitfalls should I be aware of when booking (insert service)?
When I’m interviewing, I tend to put myself in the position of the listener/viewer and ask on their behalf. I don’t usually have set questions but more a conversation to keep it flowing and natural but you’ll have to find what works for you.
You can check some of my vendor interviews here for some ideas: http://impact-blog.com.au/category/advice/
Would it be better to do a new blog post using a old topic and photo or would it be good to go back and add 1000 words to a already posted photo in the eyes of google? Good stuff half way into this one.
Hi Joe – in my opinion, you’d be better to create a whole new post for a few reasons.
1. Google rewards new and current content.
2. You can link between the new and the old article which makes you more of an authority or expert on the subject.
3. It’s probably more work to rejig and old post than start from scratch.
Glad you enjoyed this episode – this to me is the best information on SEO that I’ve heard and I listen and read a lot about SEO. I purposely chased Gabriel up after hearing him a couple years back.
I also recently heard that the biggest online dating agency has sought him out to launch a new online product. If that’s not a sign that he knows his stuff, I don’t know what is.
Quick question for Gabriel or anyone. What about the new .photography domain names, should we buy them now to get the most form them? With SEO, do we want to forward from our old site name to the new .photography or the other way round? Also, I bought my name and I bought newhampshirewedding.photography, should I forward to that or blog with that name? LOL so many questions about it. How do i get the most out of that new domain?
Thanks again
Hey Joe, I’ll see if I can get Gabriel to answer but a couple of thoughts from me:
Google isn’t weighting exact match domain names as much as they used to but I’m sure it won’t hurt your search chances with a domain like newhampshirewedding.photography.
One of the biggest early hurdles will be when a client asks your website URL and they don’t know about “dot photography” and they try to add .co.uk or .com etc and can’t find you. I’m sure this will be sorted in time but may be an issue early on.
As for redirection – I think you need to decide on your “favourite” URL and re-direct everything there. I can’t see any advantage in having your content spread across a bunch of different domains.
that was fantastic I really enjoyed listening to it…looking forward to listening in on others…
Thanks John-Paul, good to hear you enjoyed this episode and great to read your comments.
You’ll hear in more recent episodes that some listeners and myself have put into practice some of what Gabriel talked about and are having great success. What he shared really does work and much faster than targeting the most popular and competitive keywords, in my location anyway.
Wow, there was so much in this podcast, I have a page full of notes that I am looking forward to implementing into my business. It amazed me how simple some of this SEO stuff can be and I loved the idea of evergreen content on your website.
Glad you enjoyed the interview Hannalise – now the hard part, or the part that makes a difference… implementing. Looking forward to seeing links to your videos and blog posts.
Another great podcast. It was very interesting listening to this one straight after the AdWords podcast. Daryl says how good Google is and then Gabriel calls them evil.
It was great to hear that creating good content will drive traffic.
Hard work it is then …
Nick
This is one of my favourite interviews and I love Gabriel’s take on SEO – it really does make total sense to me.
Don’t limit yourself to just handwork though. I think a combination of blogging, video, social media and paid advertising like Adwords and Facebook ads can all work together.
In regard to simplifying your video making, I just downloaded a new app that really looks the goods: Videolicious.
Andrew,
Thank you for suggesting this post. It was exactly what I was looking for! I’m feeling energized about Gabriel’s suggestions and I hope that I won’t be one of the “posts two videos and stops” types of people! 🙂
Thanks again,
Gillian
Awesome, glad you had a chance to listen and picked up a few things Gillian. I look forward to seeing some of your videos in the future.
I will definitely need to listen to this episode again. So much great information that my head is just spinning. The biggest takeaway for me has to be what Gabriel said about people being lazy. It is so true that many times great ideas aren’t implemented simply because the work is difficult and discouragement takes over. Great advice from Andrew and Gabriel to put this information into practice.
This is still one of my favourite episodes – I agree with Gabriel 100% – implementation is key for success.
Nike says it best don’t they… Just Do It! 🙂
Jerry Ghionis has a similar mindset when it comes to “making it” as a photographer.
Hi Andrew
I could listen to this podcast again and again and every time still manage to pick some new ideas to implement in our wedding photography business.
Being new to blogging and managing our new WordPress blog, i look forward to implementing some of Gabriel’s suggestions.
I will keep you posted on the SEO results when they do start to kick in.
Kind Regards
Oz
Hey Oz – this is one of my all time favourite episodes too!
I’ve followed a lot of what Gabriel shared in this episode and it has been so well received by my prospective clients – they love the the content I’m sharing on my blog and regularly tell me.
I’d love to hear how you go!