Guide: City Landing Pages for Photographers
Last Updated: 02/04/2023
What Are City Landing Pages?
A city landing page is a single page on your website dedicated to a particular city and your photography styles. Photography websites typically mention city names and have a few blog posts about sessions in a town, but rarely do they have a dedicated page about their city.
These city pages aim to discuss both topics together in enough detail so that people can see you have a commanding influence in this market.
Why Are They Important?
Of course, the goal is to attract people searching for photography services in your city. We want to show Google that yours is the best page on the entire internet for photography and your particular city. We also show Google that this city is more than just a mention in your footer...it’s key to your business!
Most photography websites are very focused on the photography side of the equation. We describe our services, our pricing, and FAQs and share many galleries of our work. And that’s good! Those are all things we want to share with people. But we also want to show clients that we are part of the community, not a nameless corporation trying to sell services in your city. So, when someone searches for a city name and a photography term, Google will look for relevance in both things. They won’t show a photography-only page, and they won’t show a city-only page. It’s the page that best answers the search that will be number one.
How Do We Approach This?
What is the best way to approach this type of project? How many of these do you need to make?
Ultimately you’re going to want a page for each city you want to get leads. I wouldn’t suggest creating pages for cities with less than 25 to 35k people, as there likely aren’t enough searches to warrant the work to create a page. I also wouldn’t suggest creating more than five of these city landing pages so you don’t lose their importance on your website.
So, let’s create one page per city. We want this page to be the absolute best page on the internet for this city and the subject of photography. You will always have blog posts that mention this city and show off sessions from this city, but this page will be the pillar page for your city on your website.
If I make multiple city pages, can I copy the text from one city page to another? I get it — but I’m afraid not. For these city pages to work, they need to be authentic. They need to be about real places and your real experiences doing photography in this city. They can share the same general outline and structure, but the actual content needs to be completely different from one page to another so that each one stands on its own. Why? Years ago, people would copy and paste pages and just change the city’s name to attract services. These “doorway” style pages were declared obsolete by Google in 2015. What we are creating here are unique, useful, and relevant pages.
How Do We Structure One?
First, we want to ensure that we satisfy the users' query right away by showing them that you are a photographer and offer services in your city. I can work with you to find the highest searched term in your town, and we can build a clear and simple headline that matches what people are searching for.
Your opening paragraph should explain who you are, what you do, and why you are an authority. Remember, this will likely be the first page someone sees when visiting your site from a search. Include a picture of yourself too!
You should add a short lead capture form above the fold too. We want to make it easy for someone to reach out to you. The last thing we want is for someone to be interested and then spend more than a few seconds, trying to figure out how to reach out to you.
As we get further down the page, we can start to add more city-related topics that will show Google the depth of work that you do in this city. Here are a few ideas of things that you can add to this page:
What are your favorite spots to shoot? You might not want to give away your absolute best places, but naming some areas and explaining why you like to shoot will help with localization.
Where are your favorite spots to eat or grab coffee for a meeting or after a shoot? At least mention the places you used to go before COVID-19 and link to them.
Many website CMS systems will let you embed a dynamic list of blog posts you’ve published that are city-specific as long as you’ve tagged them with the city name.
Use some city-specific photos you’ve taken, especially if they have recognizable landmarks in them. Anything that lets the client know they’ve found a hometown person is a key!
Depending on the styles of photography that you specialize in, you likely have unique opportunities to mention locations and local terms and include some example pictures. Here are a few examples:
Birth photography - hospitals you’ve shot in
Wedding - some of the prominent venues you’ve shot at
Maternity or Family - some of the parks or other outside locations
Senior - some of the best urban spots that you’ve been to
If you have a studio in this city, then go crazy with information about your location. Add the address, embed a map, photos, and more! By this time, if they have scrolled this far, they likely want to learn more about you as a photographer. Our page has done its job, and they are ready to move to the consideration phase. Build links to other critical areas of your site that include more information about your services, galleries, and pricing.
Finally, add another form to the bottom of your page. If someone has scrolled this far, make it easy for them to reach out to you. We put a short form at the top, so feel free to place a longer form here at the bottom.
Writing Tips, URLs, and Linking Suggestions
Want some writing tips, suggestions on the URLs, and how to link to this new page? Shoot me a request below and I’ll get the PDF version over to you which has almost 4 additional pages of information to help you write your city landing page!
Conclusion
Be sure to give these city landing pages some regular attention. At least quarterly, plan on reviewing this page and update it with any other new information that you can provide.
Once your new city page is optimized, give it 4 to 6 months to start attracting traffic.