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Picture perfect! 📸 Increasing relevant traffic for an independent photographer
In this case study, we delve into Clément Renaut's SEO journey as an independent photographer based in Alsace, France. We addressed critical technical errors, transitioning HTTP images to HTTPS and restructuring the website for enhanced user experience. By aligning content with Clément's services and preferred locations, organic traffic related to weddings and family photography nearly doubled and tripled, respectively, over six months. Local visibility in key areas, such as Strasbourg, significantly improved, resulting in higher average positions and click-through rates. This case study showcases the transformative impact of tailored SEO strategies on driving relevant traffic and enhancing online visibility for independent professionals.
Clément Renaut is an independent photographer based in Alsace, France. His unique personality brings the best out of people in a joyful and fun way. He mainly does wedding photography, individual and family portraits. His area of work is in Alsace-Lorraine regions. Photography is a very competitive industry and Clément made many adjustments to his website through the years.
Where we started
Lack of visibility on keywords important for the business
The top keywords for which the website ranked where focused around topics of secondary importance for the business, such as wedding venues, or general informational content about wedding organisation that was not likely to bring in conversions.
Confusion to where the business operates
The website also ranked for cities far away from where Clément operates. Despite his ability to move around in France for photo shoots, most of his revenue is made in a 150 km area around his home.
A mix of HTTP and HTTPS content
Years of updates to this custom-built website have created errors, especially regarding the location of the images. A hole bunch of them were stored on a HTTP repository, triggering mixed content errors.
Goals of the project
Our first goal was to improve the general health of the website, removing critical technical errors that were seen as a red flag by search engine crawlers. Then we would work on improving relevant organic traffic for the website. That means making sure the keywords we would target were:
In line with what his clients are searching for
Relevant to the photography services Clément offers
Local to his area
What we did
Moving HTTP images to HTTPS
Thankfully, Clément has a background in IT and was able to make all the right changes and redirections super fast.
On another note, there is something deeply satisfying to seeing error numbers go down!
There’s something deeply satisfying when you get that kind of graph @semrush 😁
— Alizée Baudez 💫 (@AlizeeBaudez) October 12, 2021
For context, this client is alone in his business, has no team nor developer. He’s a father of 3 doing his best.
I’m so proud and can’t wait to see the impact this will have for him 🥳 pic.twitter.com/8U6YgIrPl5
Reviewing the website structure
We created content clusters around his services and the locations he often visits for photo shoots. The idea was to make sure users (and bots) could easily understand what he does and where he works with an efficient internal linking strategy.
Improve content with relevant keywords
With the help of an extensive keyword research, we worked on improving the on-page content with keywords that were more relevant to Clément’s audience and aligned with their intents.
The results
Website health
With a few technical adjustments, we were able to drastically improve the website’s overall health and decrease the likelihood of Google bot crawling issues.
The number of critical technical SEO errors on the website went from 1454 to just 2 in a few days! 🥳
The overall website health improved by 15 points with a few technical adjustments.
Increased organic traffic on relevant keywords
For keywords relevant to Clément’s services, the organic traffic grew substantially over the past 6 months. In the examples below, the focus is on keywords that include “wedding” and “family” which are the biggest sources of revenue for this business.
Organic traffic related to weddings nearly doubled. This could be partly due to the current circumstances, but also to the increased CTR and average position of the website on these queries.
Organic traffic related to families tripled over the past 6 months and the CTR grew by 1 point. The website on those queries also ranked more than 13 places higher than before!
Increased Local organic visibility
When it comes to local organic visibility, the website performed much better. The example below if for keywords including “Strasbourg”, the biggest town in Clément’s area.
For keywords including the location “Strasbourg”, the average position of the website increased by 4 ranks, the CTR increased by 2 points, and the number of clics was doubled.
Client feedback on this project
“Working with Alizee is awesome. Besides being a lovely person, she handles her subjects perfectly.”
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