(Entry was posted by Chris Brooke on this post in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 08/26/2021).

Local SEO - especially with regards to images

Hi everyone, I have spent the last year attempting to teach myself SEO for my photography website but have hit a wall when it comes to local SEO - especially with regards to images. The main problem is every other photog website I look at has something different or nothing at all for image SEO (or SEO in general) and I have no idea if what I am doing is helping or hurting. I say this because even after allowing Google to crawl my website for months without touching it I seem to remain squarely where I am at with near stagnant web traffic. I have tried the "describe what is in the image" and "copy what the title is to the image URL" methods but neither seem to improve my situation. Even when I had paragraphs full of organic keywords on my front page nothing seemed to help.Any advice would be appreciated!(Note: I am near a city but have been trying to focus my SEO to my local area so I do not get buried under tons of city photogs.)

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YOUR ANSWERS

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

Josh Levenson: So you`re trying to optimize images in hopes of doing better in the local packs?
Chris Brooke: Josh Levenson Yes. I`ve had some photos show up in local searches when I look myself but I don`t know why they don`t show up more often. My approach has been to focus on my general area because I might still show up for people who search near me.

Apparently I`m on the 40th page or so on Google for my area so that might have an impact as well.
Josh Levenson: I think you might be confusing a few things.

If you aren`t already, start tracking your images in google search console.
Chris Brooke: Josh Levenson I had no idea that was an option.
Chris Edwards: The relationship between website and Google My Business listing is more important than ever, you need to treat them as siblings.

Ensure any information that is on your GMB listing is also confirmed on your website.
Chris Brooke: Chris Edwards I believe my GMB listing is up to speed. The same SERP I use on my website is there for info, same location, business name, etc.
Chris Edwards: are you using local schema on your website and is the information on both site and GMB absolutely 100% identical for name, address, and telephone number.

Are you making posts on the GMB?
Chris Brooke: Chris Edwards I recently revamped my website and up until about a week ago I had all of that info on both but web traffic was still almost nonexistent. According to GMB people do look at my listing and photos but it rarely generates leads.
Chris Edwards: It`s hard to give advice without having seen either, but in my experience the GMB is the holy grail of local marketing for photographers especially if it`s done properly.

This together with great facebook marketing should have you booked to the rafters.
Christine Hansen: Chris Brooke On your GMB I only see one product "Digital Portrait" that cost 300 dollars - with hardly any explanation. I see no active posts. I see no services.
Kristen Hansen Lowrey: Do you have enough actual copy? You need words for google yo see you as an authority. Iâ€™d do that then work on getting a few high quality backlinks.
Chris Edwards: It`s like playing `who is` with my daughter again.is he wearing a hat?Does she have long hair
Stephen Hockman: I literally just helped someone with a similar situation last night. He wanted to go from page 2 to 1 for Seattle wedding photography. I can share with you what I discovered from the competition.
Chris Edwards: Stephen Hockman go on then, share it
Baileigh Dabdoub: You need to use keywords for the bigger city near you. If youâ€™re a smaller outlying town, 99% of people will be searching â€œphotographer near (big city).â€ SEO isnâ€™t finding the user, itâ€™s finding what the user searches.
Baileigh Dabdoub: Also, if you want to send me your site, I donâ€™t mind taking a peek at it
Baileigh Dabdoub: Also, you need some forms and CTAs on your site! My top 3 recs: 1. Use the biggest city near you for your geo 2. Add a contact form on the site 3. Improve the homepage / add content, the home page is your â€œhubâ€ of sorts so it needs to he hella optimized!
Christine Hansen: On your GMB I only see one product "Digital Portrait" that cost 300 dollars - with hardly any explanation or any pictures, but one of a baby. I see no active posts. I see no services. I see no secure website. On your site I can`t click on any of the images to see a larger picture. I can`t see any local photos. I see a FAQ on your frontpage??? As for SEO I see the same title on all pages. I see the same metadescription on all pages. None of the images has a file name other than a number. Remember Google Image search! Some of the images seems a bit too large, one is 440 kb. Scale the photos down to the same size you use on the website, this way, when you compress your images you win a lot of kb, 2 times. Some of the images are in PNG and not JPG. PNG is only for drawings/line art.Lotsa things you oughta look at here to win a customer.
Buth Main: I don`t see any contact on your GMB page. There is a few photos, that can`t decribes visitors your services. Seems you started your business yesterday. You need to improve your GMB profile, add different photos. Also, you shpuld try to describe photos in other way. Anyway, word of mouth is the best strategy for the photographer.