Home / Results
Results
How we measure, and what is realistic.
Every SEO agency shows you a graph going up. Here is something more useful: exactly what we track, what a normal timeline actually looks like for a photography site, and how to tell early whether the work is going to succeed.
Measurement
Three numbers, in strict order of importance.
Most reporting fails because it optimises for looking impressive rather than being decisive. Impressions are up 400 percent sounds excellent and can mean nothing at all. We track three things, and we always report them in this order.
1. Rankings, the leading indicator
Positions for the terms that carry genuine booking intent, tracked weekly, broken down by city and by venue. This moves first, usually months before your diary visibly changes, which makes it the earliest honest signal that the work is landing.
We do not track vanity terms. If a keyword would never produce an enquiry, its position is not reported, however good it looks.
2. Enquiries, the number that pays you
Forms, calls and emails attributed back to organic search and your Google Business Profile. This requires proper tracking set up at the start, which is why it is part of the foundation phase rather than an afterthought.
Attribution in this industry is imperfect and anyone claiming otherwise is overselling. Someone finds you on Google, checks your Instagram, asks a friend, then emails you directly three weeks later. We track what is trackable and we are honest about the rest.
3. Bookings, the only real scoreboard
Traffic that never signs a contract is a hobby. Once a quarter we look at enquiries through to booked work, so you can see return rather than reach. This needs input from you, and it is the single most valuable fifteen minutes in the engagement.
Timelines
What a normal timeline looks like.
Typical window before rankings visibly shift on a site with an existing domain. New domains take longer, often four to six months, because there is no authority to build on.
When most photography sites start producing a consistent, countable stream of organic enquiries rather than occasional ones.
The point at which published pages start reinforcing each other and growth stops being linear. This is where SEO becomes genuinely cheap per enquiry.
Why weddings distort these numbers
In wedding photography, add the booking cycle on top. A couple who finds you in month five may book for a date fourteen months later. Rankings and enquiries will look healthy long before revenue does, and photographers who quit at month seven almost always quit two months early.
How to tell early if it is working
- Indexation moves first. New pages getting indexed within days rather than weeks means the technical foundation is sound.
- Impressions before positions. Search Console impressions rising for target terms means Google is testing you, which precedes actual ranking.
- Long tail before head terms. You will rank for the venue before you rank for the city. If venue terms are not moving by month four, something is wrong.
- Map pack before organic, for local genres. Profile signals update faster than domain authority.
On case studies
We publish named client results only with written permission and with real figures, which means this page has fewer graphs than most agency sites. Photographers are competitive and many are understandably reluctant to have their city, their rankings and their enquiry volume published for competitors to read.
If you want to see specifics before committing, ask during the audit call. We will walk you through real accounts and, where the client has agreed to it, put you in touch directly. That conversation is worth more than a screenshot on a website, which could say anything.
Any agency can show you a graph going up. Ask them what it cost and what it booked.
Questions
Questions photographers ask us.
Why will you not just publish case studies?
We publish them when clients agree. Many do not, because publishing that a photographer in a specific city gets a specific number of enquiries from specific terms is competitive intelligence handed to their rivals. We take the client’s side of that trade.
What if I see no movement at all after six months?
Then something is wrong and we should both know why. In practice you will see leading indicators long before six months. If indexation, impressions and long tail positions are all flat at month four, we change approach rather than waiting and hoping.
Do you guarantee rankings?
No, and you should be wary of anyone who does. Nobody controls Google’s results. What we can commit to is the work, the reporting and telling you honestly when something is not working.
How do you track phone enquiries?
Call tracking numbers where it makes sense, and asking every enquirer how they found you, which remains surprisingly effective. For most photographers a simple, consistently asked question produces better attribution data than any software.
Free, and genuinely useful
Find out what your website is costing you.
Send us your site. You will get back a short, specific audit: the keywords you should own, the photographers currently outranking you and the first fixes worth making. No obligation, no pitch deck.