The Challenge: A New Commercial Photographer in a Sea of Established Professionals
Brian Austwick came to me nearly a year ago, after we had worked together on a passion project of his called Photographic Creations. Unfortunately for Brian, the market for landscape photography prints is quite competitive, particularly in an area like the Lake District. The world heritage landscapes of the area attract enormous numbers of local and visiting photographers.
After some time Brian decided that he would turn his passion for photography into a more face to face business. Brian had discussions with Craig from Plain Creative, (whom we both know from the Network B2B group in Carlisle). The name Brian Austwick Photography was chosen for simplicity and clarity and a website design was created, complete with a first draft of website copy.
The challenge then became one of making sure that this brand new website became visible for the key services that Brian proposed to offer.

This visibility challenge becomes more of an issue when keyword research, into the services offered, shows that local search volumes for commercial photography and drone videography are rather low. Nationally, the search terms aerial photography, event photography and commercial photography are the biggest searches with estimated monthly search volumes from 1,900 to 1,300 searches a month.
Locally that translates to little more than a maximum of around 10 searches per month in Cumbria as a whole, with a couple of searches for Carlisle having slightly higher monthly volumes.

Even a very prominent website is not going to attract floods of visitors from the area that Brian is targeting. Instead it is about making sure that when people do search for a commercial photographer around Carlisle or Cumbria, then Brian’s website is going to be prominent to those well targeted searchers.
The Strategy: Offline Networking with Online SEO and Copywriting
I had introduced Brian to some local networking groups about a year previously and I advised him to continue with that face to face approach to get himself known by real business people in the places where he wanted to work. Alongside that we worked together to recraft the content of the website so that it more closely mirrored the intent of the searches that people were doing.
A more detailed round of keyword research was undertaken to identify how his target customers we’re actually searching for his services in the area. As part of this approach, I also dug into how frequently his brand was searched for by name. Not surprisingly, at that time brand searches were virtually zero.
Cumbria searches for commercial photography related services

Carlisle searches for commercial photography related services

Copywriting Edits
Brian’s web designers made a good initial attempt to write copy for the various pages we had mapped out. Unfortunately, those words did not align brilliantly with the way people search for these services.
Copy on the original version of the website was edited to align more closely with several of those searches and as the range of services offered grew, new copy was created for those. Calls to Action were placed more prominently.
It’s Not All About the Website! Offsite Basics
In addition, Brian chose to build some basic citations and business listings through another provider: after they promised to list him on websites that I cannot access with my tools. Sadly although the basic listings we’re fine – the promised websites (including mention of a business directory in the Times newspaper) did not materialise. An initial batch of 30 listings did appear and gradually increased.
Google Business Profile Woes and Wins
The Google Business Profile was also updated with new photos, a thorough list of all the services provided and concise descriptions of each.
Verifying Brian Austwick Photography’s new Google business profile proved to be problematic as I have been hearing from many other sources. Brian attempted video verification several times after my instructions but on each occasion of the half dozen times he tried, the process stalled during upload. Eventually he was getting so frustrated with the process I popped round and had a go myself.
I made sure that the required paperwork and tools of the trade were ready in the workroom, went outside and make sure that the nearest street sign was in view. Then I very quickly rushed back into the house, upstairs into the office videoing all the equipment and the paperwork as required. I think I managed to do that in less than a minute. And as is the way with these things… Failure on upload!
A second attempt however was successful, and shortly afterwards, that same day, Brian’s map-pin appeared on Google Maps. However a week or so later the map pin had disappeared and Brian had been relegated to the status of a service area business, without a clear location. However he did have his anonymous red blob hovering, more or less over Carlisle.
A Simple Digital PR Boost
While this was going on I also published material about Brian’s business on a range of third party websites that are accessed through ClimbHigh Seo’s Local Brand Authority service. This service was continued for approximately 6 months. The distribution network ensures that this new brand was mentioned many hunfdreds of times across a diverse range of sites and media channels.
Expanding the Website’s Content: Blogging
Alongside the external work that was going on, Brian was encouraged to create blog articles that highlighted the work he was doing, and which focused on his growing expertise in both commercial photography settings and in capturing exciting drone video footage, building up an online record of his Experience, Expertise his improving Authority and the Trust that customers put in him. These are parameters that we know search engines, particularly Google, do take into consideration when deciding which websites to show.
Asking for Relevant Backlinks
Brian was also encouraged to tread the delicate task of requesting back links from contented customers and clients who had used his photography and video on their websites. Currently a couple of his clients have agreed to provide links, but as the actual customers are not particularly web savvy there is a lag between a positive response and their web developers actually getting round to putting the links in place.
Outcomes
Between February 2024 and The end of June, visitor traffic bumped up to moderate levels of around 150 visits to the website per month, with a noticeable drop off at the end of May and the beginning of June. During June July and August Brian also invested in some support with his social media marketing. The result of this was a noticeable additional bump in traffic to over 600 in July. Traffic returned to its previous levels after the social media input ceased.
Search console results are interesting. Google’s keyword planner and my keyword research tools suggest that searches for Brian Austwick are virtually 0, but in September 2024 brand searches generated 18 clicks to the website for the term “Brian Austwick Photography”.
Despite difficulties getting the GBP verified as a location, it sends a small but steady stream of people to the website every month.
Visibility has increased dramatically for the whole range of searches that we are monitoring and even though traffic is low – it appears to be the right kind of visitors. Brian’s feedback is that in the past month, 3 substantial jobs have come from the website independently of his networking activities.
And this is the value of local SEO for small businesses operating in a fairly localised context.

Thoughts for the Future
It is important to understand that in local search visibility graphs and visitor numbers are worth nothing if they are the wrong kinds of poorly targeted visitors, or the website is not encouraging the visitor to make contact with a service business like Brian’s. If you get the visitors… you need to be able to give them an effective call to action (CTA in the lingo) so they are encouraged to take action.
Another factor at play is the increasingly monopolistic structure of the search results themselves. Under the pressures of, presumably, its new investors Google has squeezed the available space for “traditional” organic results. More ads, more snippets more AI overviews that try to harvest your information and give a potential visitor your answers or solutions direct from Google’s own screenful of information.
This is anticipated to start decreasing the volume of traffic that will land on your actual website over the coming months and years… though the stats are mixed on whether this is actually happening yet.
For Brian Austwick and many other businesses with a predominantly local clientele, another factor that is clearly becoming more important is building the online presence of your brand. Many of the results in the new search layout seem to show Google leaning much more heavily into trusted brands. You need to become that trusted brand in your field, be that photography or whatever else you offer.
And needless to say. If you need any commercial photography or video footage, Brian can be found on Brian Austwick Photography. Alternatively give him a call on 01228 491459 or email him at he***@br**********************.uk
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