I met LaJune King over 6 years ago at a BLINK Conference. She was spunky, cute, and had pink hair. Fast forward to 2021— She had not only evolved her photography business into a successful branding & family portrait business, but she also launched an epic natural light studio in Frisco, Texas. She calls it BLK STRY, as her goal is to leave a legacy for her children, she states: “We just wanted to show our children what creating generational wealth looks like. Everything we do is a lesson for them. We’re changing the narrative and implementing our own story for them.”
The photo studio is incredible, as it feels like you just walked into a West Elm store! The pieces were chosen by Tai from Hummingbird Design, LaJune’s interior designer, who took LaJune’s vision and understood the assignment. There are several studio sets, ranging from a boho natural feel to a more modern sleek look to timeliness elegance. It is a great space for family shoots, branding shoots, and even boudoir, as she has a bed!
I pitched my VIP day to LaJune and she immediately jumped in and flew me to Dallas, Texas.
The Kings embraced me like a VIP guest, even though they were my VIP’s, making me feel oh-so welcomed! We also hosted a free SEO event for some local entrepreneurs, and we had some visitors from other states, too.
SEO for Photo Rental Studio
For LaJune’s VIP day, we tackled two websites, the first one being the actual photography studios. This is a space that other photographers and content creators can rent out on an hourly or daily basis, so the keywords for this website are different from LaJune’s photo website. Yet, they also overlap, and as I predicted, they would compete with each other, and most likely the studio rental page would outrank the main photo website. More on that to come.
These websites are built on Squarespace and Showit, which are platforms I love, as it allows you to optimize each of your pages. The section is found in the advanced area.
Challenges:
Whenever working with a client that lives near a huge city, the first conversation is always in regards to location and which cities to actually target when it comes to SEO. This case was no different, as Frisco is a big enough town in its own right, but yet close enough to Dallas. So, which do we tackle? Well, it depends, and many times we mix. The key is to understand that Google knows the geography, and if you have indicated your website is a local business, then Google will know to show your website to someone searching locally who doesn’t necessarily use the town or city name in their search. They may just type the keyword and “near me.” For a photography rental studio, we do know that the town may come into play, as the target audience is different from photography clients. For the rental space, we are targeting fellow photographers and content creators.
Solution:
The solution is to also research the root keywords, and location becomes less of a concern than you may think. During the VIP day, my team and I work on what is called a content matrix. This is our main blueprint on how we tackle the root keywords and decide which pages need to be created. And, by the way, all of my VIPs so far have needed new pages. 100% of them.
Currently, she’s ranking for 49 keywords, 10 on the first page of Google.
SEO For Photography Business
LaJune offers branding and family photography, so I knew we needed to make sure she had enough content that covered these services. The key here is to fully understand how your clients search and what keywords they are using. We are so used to industry jargon that sometimes we forget how the public thinks. When we do the content matrix, we define these keywords and analyze the ones that will yield rankings and clicks. Not all keywords are created equal, and sometimes (even many times) a keyword that you think will be THE keyword falls flat. Why? Because it is not what photography clients are searching for.
Challenge:
“Branding photography” is a new term used mostly by photographers. I do believe this will be more common in the future, but for now, “headshots” still reigns when it comes to business photography. If you are in need of help, grab my Branding Keyword Kit. The other issue with “branding photography” is that Google can confuse your website for a branding agency. It can think that you mean photos of your brand work, which can be misleading.
Solution:
The solution, again, is to think like your client and make sure the back end has SEO elements targeting your ideal audience. Secondly, your on-page must have enough context for search engines to understand your content in order to rank your website. We use contextual terms like “business portraits,” “photos for your business,” and so forth.
Her website is ranking for 199 keywords, and I am super proud of how far LaJune has come as a person and as a business owner. She is confident, funny, fierce, generous, hard-working, and she loves pink Starbursts. Plus, she is also a TikTok queen and starting to teach how she creates a 5-star experience for her clients. She is a great leader in our industry, and I am honored she chose to work with me.
I only am taking 2 VIP clients a month so if you are interested in getting your website’s SEO done in a day, then contact me.