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	<title>SEO for Photographers &#187; Blog Categories</title>
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	<link>http://www.photographers-seo.com</link>
	<description>The Photographers SEO Community</description>
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		<title>How to Use Your Photography Blog for Better SEO</title>
		<link>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/optimize-your-website/how-to-use-your-blog-for-better-seo/</link>
		<comments>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/optimize-your-website/how-to-use-your-blog-for-better-seo/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:21:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Photo SEO</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Optimize Your Website]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.photographers-seo.com/?p=3814</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Your blog can be an exceptionally powerful SEO tool. But most blogs never reach maximum SEO impact. Here are few tips for making your blog into a powerful engine for search traffic. Target a Different Long-Tail Keyword in Each Post We see a lot of photographers who don&#8217;t seem to target any specific phrase with [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Your blog can be an exceptionally powerful SEO tool. But most blogs never reach maximum SEO impact. Here are few tips for making your blog into a powerful engine for search traffic.</p>
<h2>Target a Different Long-Tail Keyword in Each Post</h2>
<p>We see a lot of photographers who don&#8217;t seem to target any specific phrase with their blog posts. On the other side of the spectrum, we see many photographers who seem to reuse their main keyword phrase (ie, &#8220;Atlanta wedding photographer&#8221;) over and over in every blog post title.</p>
<p>Targeting the same phrase doesn&#8217;t help. You should have your homepage optimized for your main keyword phrase, and you should have priority landing pages for each priority phrase. If done right, these will always outrank an individual blog post for competitive terms.</p>
<p>Try, instead, to pick one keyword phrase for each blog post. Often, you&#8217;ll want to target &#8220;long-tail keywords.&#8221; These are phrases that are less competitive and don&#8217;t get much search volume, but are still directly related to the kind of photographic work you do.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s say you are a wedding photographer in Denver. Your main phrases are things like Denver wedding photography, Denver engagement photography, and Denver portrait photography. But you periodically do engagements and other work in Rocky Mountain National Park and other nearby outdoor venues. When you post images from one of these shoots, consider targeting phrases like:</p>
<p><em>Engagement photography in Rocky Mountain National Park</em><br />
<em> Rocky Mountain engagement photography (or photos)</em><br />
<em> Bridal photos Rocky Mountain National Park</em><br />
<em> Rocky Mountain National Park wedding photography</em></p>
<p>You can do this for particular venues or locations, styles of photography, particular types of subject matter. There are lots of different keywords people search for, and in different order.</p>
<p>And if you&#8217;re not a wedding photographer, this principle still applies! Whatever photographic work you do, think about less common keyword phrases prospective clients are likely to type into search engines, and use a new blog post as a chance to compete for each phrase.</p>
<h2>How to Quickly Optimize Each Post</h2>
<p>Once you&#8217;ve picked a keyword phrase, you can optimize the post by:</p>
<ul>
<li>Using the keyword phrase in the blog post title</li>
<li>Making sure the phrase appears in the URL for the post</li>
<li>Using the phrase at least once in a subtitle</li>
<li>Including at least 300 words of text</li>
<li>Using the phrase, plus near variations, several times in the text</li>
<li>For photo-heavy posts, consider adjusting image names or captions to contain variations of the phrase or related terms.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Link Between Related Blog Posts</h2>
<p>Each time you post, take time to add links to any past posts on the same topic. Doing this is great for users, who can then go from post to post that they are interested in.</p>
<p>But it&#8217;s also great for search engines. As they begin to see a density of interlinked articles around specific topics, your site will have more credibility on that topic, and all those posts will rank better. Be sure to use relevant keywords to link to each past post as well, since link anchor text is an important ranking factor.</p>
<h2>You&#8217;re Not Done Until You Promote the Post</h2>
<p>Finally, you can really help long-tail blog posts dominate with a just a few external links. A great way to encourage these without having to do a lot of work is to promote the post. You don&#8217;t have to do a lot &#8211; just be sure the post goes out on Twitter, Facebook, and any other social media venues you use. And for weddings, engagements, portraits, and other shoots, be sure to email the clients and let them know!</p>
<p>-<br />
If you follow this pattern regularly, you&#8217;ll quickly accumulate a big archive of blog posts that are all optimized for different but relevant keywords. Long-tail keywords, because they get less traffic, are usually easy to rank for. So these blog posts will each bring a small stream of targeted traffic to your site. And lots of posts, each sending small streams of traffic, ultimately add up to lots of targeted traffic.<br />
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<p>You Should Also Read This Post<ul>
<li><a href='http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/buy-products/build-a-better-photography-blog/' rel='bookmark' title='31 Days to Build a Better &#8216;Photography&#8217; Blog'>31 Days to Build a Better &#8216;Photography&#8217; Blog</a></li>
</ul></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Should You Submit Your Website to Directories?</title>
		<link>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/links/should-you-submit-your-website-to-directories/</link>
		<comments>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/links/should-you-submit-your-website-to-directories/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:18:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Photo SEO</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Link Building]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.photographers-seo.com/?p=3781</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If you&#8217;ve thought at all about optimizing your website for search engines, then you&#8217;ve probably considered submitting it to directories. We all know you need links to rank on search engines and links are hard to get. Compared to other options, directory submissions are straightforward and the likelihood of success is high. But you&#8217;ve also [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>If you&#8217;ve thought at all about optimizing your website for search engines, then you&#8217;ve probably considered submitting it to directories.</p>
<p>We all know you need links to rank on search engines and links are hard to get. Compared to other options, directory submissions are straightforward and the likelihood of success is high.</p>
<p>But you&#8217;ve also probably read that directory submissions have little effect, or that in some cases they can actually be harmful.</p>
<p>So, should you do it? Is it worth it?</p>
<h2>It Depends on How Many Links You Already Have</h2>
<p>If your website is well established, has a ton of high quality links, and ranks fairly well already, you can probably skip the directories.</p>
<p>Remember that the value of a link is roughly proportional to how hard it is to get. Because directory links are relatively easy, they&#8217;re less valued by Google and other search engines than, say, a link from within a blog post on a high-profile blog.</p>
<p>So if you have a great buckling profile already, adding a few directory links is not likely to help you much. The possible exceptions are Yahoo.com and Business.com (see below).</p>
<p>By contrast, if your site is has limited backlinks, then you should probably submit to at least a handful of directories. These will help give you an initial web footprint.</p>
<h2>It Depends on Which Directories You&#8217;re Considering</h2>
<p>There are a lot of directories out there, ranging from great and extremely valuable, to positively harmful. When evaluating directories, you should have two things in mind: high quality and relevant.</p>
<p>A high quality directory is one that has high standards. Submissions are reviewed by real editors, and websites are rejected if they are low quality or non-relevant.</p>
<p>A relevant directory is one that has lots of high quality sites that are relevant to yours. Photography directories are good. Directories where you are lumped in with bingo, casinos, and iphones are generally not.</p>
<p>Two of the highest quality general directories are dir.yahoo.com and business.com. Both of these are paid directories. But if you are willing to invest in your SEO, most professional SEO will advise that you submit to these.</p>
<p>Apart from the big two above, the best directories to consider are photography-specific directories. Here are some good possibilities:</p>
<ul>
<li>Photolinks: <a title="Photo Links" href="http://www.photolinks.com" target="_blank">www.photolinks.com</a></li>
<li>Photographers Index: <a title="Photographers Index" href="http://photographersindex.com" target="_blank">photographersindex.com</a></li>
<li>The Photographer Directory: <a title="The Photographer Directory" href="http://the-photographer-directory.com" target="_blank">the-photographer-directory.com</a></li>
<li>Photography &amp; Photographers: <a title="Photography Photographers" href="http://www.photographyphotographers.com" target="_blank">www.photographyphotographers.com</a></li>
<li>Photography Pros: <a title="Photography Pros" href="http://www.photographypros.com" target="_blank">www.photographypros.com</a></li>
<li>Photographers.com: <a href="http://www.photographers.com" target="_blank">www.photographers.com</a></li>
<li>Photoclicks: <a title="PhotoClicks" href="http://www.photoclicks.net" target="_blank">www.photoclicks.net</a></li>
<li>Cool Photoblogs: <a title="Cool Photo Blogs" href="http://www.coolphotoblogs.com" target="_blank">www.coolphotoblogs.com</a></li>
<li>DPhotoJournal: <a title="DPhotoJournal" href="http://www.dphotojournal.com/photography-directory/ " target="_blank">www.dphotojournal.com/photography-directory/ </a></li>
<li>Photography Sites: <a title="Photography Sites" href="http://www.photographysites.com" target="_blank">www.photographysites.com</a></li>
<li>Photography Corner: <a title="Photography Corner" href="http://www.photographycorner.com" target="_blank">www.photographycorner.com/directory</a></li>
<li>Best Wedding Sites: <a title="Best Wedding Sites" href="http://www.bestweddingsites.com" target="_blank">www.bestweddingsites.com</a></li>
<li>Wedding Photography Directory: <a title="Wedding Photography Directory" href="http://www.weddingphotographydirectory.com" target="_blank">www.weddingphotographydirectory.com</a></li>
<li>Wedding Photo USA: <a title="Wedding Photo USA" href="http://www.weddingphotousa.com" target="_blank">www.weddingphotousa.com</a></li>
</ul>
<h2>It Depends on Whether You Can Get Relevant Anchor Text</h2>
<p>This is a consideration that doesn&#8217;t occur to most people. &#8220;Anchor text&#8221; is the actual text used in the link back to your site. Usually, most sites use your business name as your anchor text. If you are John Smith Photography, then most directories will link to you using John Smith Photography. </p>
<p>The important point here is that link anchor text matters, not just the link itself. If other websites link to you as &#8220;John Smith Photography&#8221; then Google assumes you should rank well for that phrase. If other sites link to you as a &#8220;Chicago wedding photographer,&#8221; then Google will assume you can rank for that phrase. In short, Google weighs anchor text almost as much as the quantity or quality of links to your site. </p>
<p>So even if you have a strong link profile, if there are ways you can get high quality directory links that use your all or part of your desired keywords in the link anchor text, then you should submit to those directories. </p>
<p>There&#8217;s a catch, of course. Generally, high quality directories don&#8217;t allow you to do play with keywords like this. They&#8217;ll automatically link to you with your business name. You can sometimes find ways around this, but they require creativity and diligence: finding the right directories, planning your business name around your keywords, using partial keywords, etc. </p>
<p>For more, also see our <a href="www.photographers-seo.com/seo/links/photo-link-directory/">Photographer Guide to Link Directory Submissions</a>. </p>
<p>Have you submitted to directories? Do you think it helped your rankings? Let us know!</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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<li><a href='http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/google/seo-photography-website-review-7-point-checklist/' rel='bookmark' title='SEO Photography Website Review &#8211; 7 Point Checklist'>SEO Photography Website Review &#8211; 7 Point Checklist</a></li>
</ul></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>2011 Search Engine Features to Watch</title>
		<link>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/google/2011-search-engine-features-to-watch/</link>
		<comments>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/google/2011-search-engine-features-to-watch/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:00:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Photo SEO</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Google]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://photographers-seo.com/?p=1973</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[These search engine features from Google will change the search landscape in 2011. Make sure your photography website looks good in Google Instant Preview and you show up in Google Social Search and Google Places. Google Instant Preview Google announced it&#8217;s instant preview function on its blog: With Google Instant you get results as fast [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>These search engine features from Google will change the search landscape in 2011. Make sure your photography website looks good in Google Instant Preview and you show up in Google Social Search and Google Places.</p>
<h2>Google Instant Preview</h2>
<p>Google announced it&#8217;s <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/beyond-instant-results-instant-previews.html" target="_blank">instant preview function</a> on its blog:</p>
<blockquote><p>With Google Instant you get results as fast as you type, but your search doesn’t stop there. Once you get results back, you choose a site to visit based on the information in each result—like the title, a snippet of text and the URL. Over time we’ve made steady improvements to our search results and snippets to help you pick a great page. Now we’re making a leap to image-based snapshots—a new kind of visual search result we call “Instant Previews” which makes it even faster to choose the right result.</p>
<p>Instant Previews provides a graphic overview of a search result and highlights the most relevant sections, making finding the right page as quick and easy as flipping through a magazine. To use it, click once on the magnifying glass next to the title of any search result and a visual overview of the page will appear on the right. From there, hover your cursor over any other result to see a preview. For those of you who’ve recently stopped using your mouse to search, now you can navigate to a result, hit the right arrow key to see the preview, and hit the down arrow key to keep browsing. Here’s a video showing Instant Previews in action:</p></blockquote>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="640" height="385" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nGaU7JKU7TU?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="385" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nGaU7JKU7TU?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<p>Instant preview allows users to look at a site before clicking on it. One more barrier to click through on search results if you&#8217;re site shows poorly. Type site:yoursite.com into Google to see what your results look like. It may not be pretty if you have a Flash site.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.photographers-seo.com/wp-content/uploads/Google-Preview-with-Flash.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1977" title="Google Preview with Flash" src="http://www.photographers-seo.com/wp-content/uploads/Google-Preview-with-Flash.jpg" alt="Google Preview with Flash" width="339" height="213" /></a></p>
<h2>Google Social Search</h2>
<p>In addition to natural Google search results, you might see custom  results from your social circle. For example a Google images search  result may also return images from the people you are connected to in  Flickr, Picassa, Twitter, or Gmail.</p>
<p><img title="Google Images Social Search Result" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZYqYi4xigk/S2CWTWJ-CVI/AAAAAAAAFl8/WLUpvJLsqHM/s400/social-onebox-v1-launch.PNG" alt="" width="400" height="94" /></p>
<p>The big news here is that other users may see your images or your  content in their search results if they are connected to you. And they  don’t have to be directly connected to you. They can be Kevin Bacon and  still probably see your stuff. Cool thing is that as a user I am  more likely to click on results from my social circle because these are  people I know and trust.</p>
<p>Get into the social circle of your friends&#8217; searches with a <a href="http://www.google.com/profiles" target="_blank">Google Profile</a>. One reason to set this up now is so that someone else doesn’t snatch google.com/profiles/yourname!</p>
<h2>Google Place Search</h2>
<p>Place Search is a new kind of local search result that organizes the  world’s information around places.Google has clustered search results around  specific locations so you can more easily make comparisons and decide  where to go. If a person searches San Francisco photographer, with Place Search here’s what you’ll get:</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1976" title="Google places search for San Francisco photographer" src="http://www.photographers-seo.com/wp-content/uploads/san-francisco-photographer.jpg" alt="Google places search for San Francisco photographer" width="583" height="182" /></p>
<p>The  new results are marked with red pins, and each one is a unique  restaurant with relevant information and links from across the web, like user reviews and photos. Now information is grouped conveniently to make it easier to digest and compare.</p>
<p>More from the <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/place-search-faster-easier-way-to-find.html" target="_blank">Google Blog</a>.<br />
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<li><a href='http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/buy-products/photomerchant/' rel='bookmark' title='PhotoMerchant Search Engine Optimization Just Got Easy'>PhotoMerchant Search Engine Optimization Just Got Easy</a></li>
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		<title>How Photographers Should Write Page &amp; Post Titles</title>
		<link>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/keywords-meta-tags/page-titles/</link>
		<comments>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/keywords-meta-tags/page-titles/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 20 Dec 2010 09:00:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Photo SEO</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Keywords and Meta Tags]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://photographers-seo.com/?p=1966</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A page title is the most important piece of a webpage for ranking. Google uses keywords of a title to understand the topic of a page, and will return the page in results if that topic matches a user&#8217;s search.  What you see in search results is actually a list of page titles that link [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A page title is the most important piece of a webpage for ranking. Google uses keywords of a title to understand the topic of a page, and will return the page in results if that topic matches a user&#8217;s search.  What you see in search results is actually a list of page titles that link to various websites. Do a search for &#8220;Los Angeles photographer&#8221; and you will quickly see how those keywords are used in all of the page titles (bolded).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.photographers-seo.com/wp-content/uploads/google-page-title-results.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1967" title="Page title results for Los Angeles photographer" src="http://www.photographers-seo.com/wp-content/uploads/google-page-title-results.jpg" alt="Page title results for Los Angeles photographer" width="359" height="482" /></a></p>
<p>Someone searching &#8220;Los Angeles photographer&#8221; is more likely to click on a result when it says those words, the exact words they are searching. Here&#8217;s how you can align your page titles with user searches.</p>
<h2>Unique Title for Each Page</h2>
<p>If you have the same title for every page of your website (like in Flash sites),  you&#8217;re telling Google and searchers that every page is about the same  thing. That gives you one topic or phrase that can potentially rank,  whereas a site with 100 different page titles can rank for 100 different  phrases.</p>
<p>Every webpage on your site should try to rank for a different phrase, otherwise you&#8217;re competing with yourself in search results. There&#8217;s no point in making a blog post about Los Angeles photographer if the homepage is already trying to rank for the same thing.</p>
<h2>Title Should be Written with Search in Mind</h2>
<p>If you want a page to be found, it needs to use keywords that search engines and users can use to find it. Google doesn&#8217;t know a page titled &#8220;Zach&#8217;s Wedding 2010&#8243; is really about a photo session at the Hyatt Hotel in Los Angeles. Google won&#8217;t rank it, and users won&#8217;t click it when they see a page with a generic title.</p>
<p>Before writing each page, think about a specific phrase a user might type to find it. In the above example, a title like &#8220;Hyatt Hotel Wedding Photos from Zach&#8217;s Los Angeles Reception&#8221; can easily be found by brides getting married at the Hyatt. It will also have an easier time ranking for that phrase than fighting for position among competitive phrase like Los Angeles photographer.</p>
<h2>Tips for Title Keywords</h2>
<p>Follow these recommendations when writing page titles</p>
<ul>
<li>Write your homepage title first &#8211; it is the most likely page to rank well</li>
<li>Describe the page &#8211; Google rewards honesty and users want to know what they are about to see</li>
<li>Be specific &#8211; use adjectives and locations to help rank for niche phrases</li>
<li>Keep it concise &#8211; anything more than about 60 characters gets cut off</li>
<li>Don&#8217;t list a bunch of keywords in a row &#8211; nobody will click a link like that in search results</li>
<li>Consider removing your company name &#8211; make more room for other keywords since you can rank on your own name without it being in the title</li>
<li>Use more important keywords at the beginning</li>
</ul>
<p>Check out a great tutorial on page titles from <a href="http://www.seobook.com/video-google-seo-friendly-page-titles" target="_blank">SEO Book</a>.<br />
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		<title>10 Avoidable SEO Mistakes for Photographers</title>
		<link>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/keywords-meta-tags/10-avoidable-mistakes/</link>
		<comments>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/keywords-meta-tags/10-avoidable-mistakes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 06 Dec 2010 09:00:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Photo SEO</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Keywords and Meta Tags]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://photographers-seo.com/?p=1940</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Don&#8217;t fall victim to these classic SEO blunders that can waste time and decrease your chances of ranking well. Almost every photography website violates 3 or 4 of these, so some quick correction can elevate results higher than the majority of competition. 1. Flash site without a splash page or blog An all Flash website, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Don&#8217;t fall victim to these classic SEO blunders that can waste time and decrease your chances of ranking well. Almost every photography website violates 3 or 4 of these, so some quick correction can elevate results higher than the majority of competition.</p>
<h2>1. Flash site without a splash page or blog</h2>
<p>An all Flash website, even one with an HTML shadow version, has an extremely uphill battle when trying to rank. An estimated 15% of your Google score is calculated by text on your page, which is invisible to Google (for the most part) when it resides within a Flash animation. If a search engine has trouble understanding the topic of your site (because of hidden Flash text), it has less confidence to rank you well.</p>
<p>Flash does come with advantages, like stellar photo presentation, music, and the ability to awe a potential client. The SEO workaround for these sites is to present an HTML homepage or splash page in front of the Flash, telling search engines everything you need to tell them. Similarly, a blog attached to a Flash site provides readable text.</p>
<p>Pickup the Splash Page SEO Guide for the skinny on exactly how to optimize a splash page.</p>
<h2>2. URLs without keywords</h2>
<p>URLs are among the most important on-site ranking factors. Search engines see keywords in URLs as a strong signal for what your page is about. If a page on your site has a URL looks like this: www.yoursite.com/?page-id=5, search engines can tell what the subject matter is. Change the URL to www.yoursite.com/san-francisco-childrens-portraits, and suddenly it&#8217;s very clear, even without looking at the page. Make sure you have search engine friendly URLS. </p>
<h2>3. Same title for all pages</h2>
<p>A searcher types a phrase into Google, then Google goes and looks for pages about that phrase. It looks first at webpage titles, because a title most accurately describes what a page is about. If your Flash site or blog uses the same title for every page, a search engine thinks your site is about one thing. In reality, you want to rank for many different things (like wedding, bride, engagement, receptions) and therefore need a different page title for each of those topics.</p>
<p>Check your page titles by typing site:yourdomainname.com into Google. This shows all the pages on your site found by Google, and each underlined link is a page title. Make sure each title is unique and captures a different segment that would be valuable to people searching for your business.</p>
<h2>4. The same major phrase in all your titles or image alt text</h2>
<p>Many photographers get the fact that they need keywords in the title to rank well. Often overlooked is that search engines can only rank 1 page from your site for any given keyword phrase. If you&#8217;re trying to rank for California Photographer, only one of your pages can be successful. For major competitive phrases that page is almost always your homepage. It makes no sense to put &#8220;- California Photographer&#8221; at the end of every page title. Your intention should be to rank your homepage for that phrase, and save every other page for a different unique phrase. You&#8217;ll get a lot more traffic when your subpages stop competing with your homepage, and start ranking for related phrases that are less competitive.</p>
<p>The same is true of alternate text for images. When your image text describes the image, you&#8217;ll use tons of related keywords that help you rank for very niche searches. Don&#8217;t bother adding &#8220;-California Photographer&#8221; at the end of every image when the page is about &#8220;Ritz Carlton Wedding&#8221;. Try to rank for Ritz Carlton searches instead.</p>
<h2>5. Inadequate text</h2>
<p>SEO mistake #1 talked about how search engines need text on a page to understand the topic. Even without Flash, many photographer do a poor job of giving Google text that the page needs to rank well. The minimum standard is about 300 words to give search engines confidence that the page has substance and meaning to potential searchers. 300 words for every page and blog post becomes easy when you add testimonials, contact information, related links to top pages/galleries, and add captions for each photo&#8230;</p>
<h2>6. Missing captions</h2>
<p>Right after users read the headline, they look at the first image on the page, then read its caption. It&#8217;s human nature. Captions are read more than the page text! Search engines use captions to understand the context of an image because a compute can&#8217;t visually see an image like humans. Captions are a great way to integrate keywords into the page, while adding to the overall word count. Use very specific words to help the page and image rank for non-competitive keywords. An example caption: 4-year old girl in a red GAP dress and beanie dances for an urban photo. You can picture the image and imagine the story on the page simply from the caption &#8211; so can Google.</p>
<h2>7. Wasting time on meta keywords</h2>
<p>Meta keywords are that list of keywords you type into a field of your website system, telling the world what you want to rank for. If ranking were that easy, everyone would be ranked #1. Google stopped using this field years and years ago, so laying out your keywords in meta data just wastes time and reveals your desires to anyone who looks at your source code. If you&#8217;re not comfortable leaving the field completely blank, put one phrase there. More than a couple phrases gets spammy.</p>
<h2>8. Blog tags and categories</h2>
<p>Blog tags do the same thing as meta keywords&#8230; nothing for SEO. If you think you&#8217;re proving value for users that want to click on your blog post tag, check your analytics to see how many people are clicking them. This is done easily in Google Analytics by clicking Content &gt; Top Content and searching for /tag. Trust me &#8211; nobody clicks your tags and they provide duplicate content Google doesn&#8217;t care for much.</p>
<p>Categories only have value if they appear in the URLs of the blog post. This post for example has a parent category of /seo and a child category of /keywords-meta-tags that add keyword power to the URL. You need an advanced permalink structure to take advantage of this and most photographers don&#8217;t need it. If you&#8217;ve named your categories something like California Photographer, California Portrait Photographer, and California Wedding Photographer then you&#8217;re not helping your SEO. If you use categories, they should be named something appropriate for your website users to help them filter posts, like Weddings, and Portraits.</p>
<h2>9. Load time</h2>
<p>Google spends even less time on your site than your users. Don&#8217;t let everyone pass up your site because it takes forever to load. Google officially announced that page speed is a factor in ranking well. Flash sites and blog homepages (with 10 posts and 10 huge images in each post) are notorious for slow-loads. You can lose a lot of traffic from impatient searchers and search engines.</p>
<h2>10. Image filenames</h2>
<p>We talked earlier about how search engines can&#8217;t see an image like humans. Search &#8220;reads&#8221; an image through it&#8217;s alternate text, caption, and image filename (the name of the image on your computer). Tell Google more about your image by naming it 3-year-old-red-dress.jpg instead of DS001.jpg. Hyphens help distinguish the individual keywords and are the preferred naming convention for SEO. Imagine how much keyword information you can give Google when you&#8217;re posting hundreds or thousands of images to your website!<br />
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		<title>SEO Photography Website Review &#8211; 7 Point Checklist</title>
		<link>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/google/seo-photography-website-review-7-point-checklist/</link>
		<comments>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/google/seo-photography-website-review-7-point-checklist/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Nov 2010 15:59:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Photo SEO</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Google]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://photographers-seo.com/?p=1881</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[SEO Photography website reviews are an activity I do often during coaching and training calls. I&#8217;ll be reviewing some sites publicly next week at the San Francisco SmugMug user group as well as a part of an SEO panel that includes Google. It only takes a couple minutes to assess some of the top factors [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>SEO Photography website reviews are an activity I do often during coaching and training calls. I&#8217;ll be reviewing some sites publicly next week at the <a href="http://www.meetup.com/SanFranSMUG/calendar/14594071/" target="_blank">San Francisco SmugMug user group</a> as well as a part of an SEO panel that includes Google.</p>
<p>It only takes a couple minutes to assess some of the top factors that search engines look at in order to rank a website well. Here&#8217;s 10 basic items easy to assess for any website.</p>
<h2>1. Page Titles</h2>
<p>Do the page titles focus on one key phrase per page, starting with a broad phrase for the homepage and niche phrases for the subpages and blog posts? Since only one page from your site will rank for any given phrase, I make sure you&#8217;re not using the same phrase in multiple titles (like &#8211; New York wedding photographer in every blog post).</p>
<h2>2. Page Meta Descriptions</h2>
<p>Page descriptions appear in search results and make the user want to click your link among the tons of search results. Does the meta description use the business name, have a call to action (like &#8220;View great photos now&#8221;) and give info about the niche and locations served?</p>
<h2>3. Backlinks</h2>
<p>How difficult will it be to rank given the competition for the major key phrase? I use a <a href="http://www.online-utility.org/webmaster/backlink_domain_analyzer.jsp" target="_blank">backlink checker</a> or<a href="http://www.traffictravis.com" target="_blank"> Traffic Travis</a> to see how many links the website has and compare that to the number of links by the top couple of ranked sites. If you&#8217;re site has 10 links and the #3 site has 100 links, either you have a lot of link building to do or you need to focus on a smaller and less competitive key phrase.</p>
<h2>4. Alternate text</h2>
<p>Are the images using alternate text to help Google understand what they are about? I check to see if the alternate texts are a single sentence that describes the image, but also use quality keywords and adjectives where possible. On subpages and blog posts, focus on niche keywords rather than broad ones that would only help your rank.</p>
<h2>5. Conversion Tactics</h2>
<p>If a user finds a page in a search engine, you have one chance form that page to get him to contact/hire you. You can&#8217;t rely on the user to click through to your homepage, gallery, or other page. That means every page that could potentially rank in search needs to sell the user on your services and get them to convert (contact you). I suggest including contact information, a short bio, testimonial, and related information (&#8220;You may also like&#8230;&#8221;) in your most popular search pages.</p>
<h2>6. Homepage Text</h2>
<p>The homepage or splash page needs 300+ words so that Google knows it is legitimate. Think about it, if you are a searcher would you prfer to visit a page with only images, or a page with images and text that explain what you&#8217;re looking for? In addition to keyword-rich text it is important to link to your most important search pages (i.e. your top 5 blog posts) to pass as much SEO credit as possible to them from your homepage.</p>
<h2>7. URLs</h2>
<p>Does the site take advantage of the #2 most important place for keywords? URLs of the pages, blog posts, and even image filenames need quality keywords while excluding &#8220;stop&#8221; words that Google ignores like &#8220;and&#8221; or &#8220;the&#8221;.</p>
<p>This list is by no means comprehensive, but takes a look at some factors you can assess on your website, blog, and images to identify room for SEO growth.</p>
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<p>You Should Also Read This Post<ul>
<li><a href='http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/reviews/clikpic-website-seo/' rel='bookmark' title='ClikPic SEO Review &amp; Photography Website Search Engine Review'>ClikPic SEO Review &#038; Photography Website Search Engine Review</a></li>
</ul></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>The Only Paid SEO Tool I Use</title>
		<link>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/reviews/paid-tool/</link>
		<comments>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/reviews/paid-tool/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Nov 2010 08:00:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Photo SEO</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://photographers-seo.com/?p=1823</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[An email from Scribe last week reminded me why I use it and am affiliated with Brian Clark&#8216;s awesome product. If you&#8217;ve never heard of Scribe, think of it as a paid SEO plugin for WordPress that checks the keyword-richness of your posts and also suggests keyword and link opportunities. It’s time to step-up your [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>An email from <a href="http://www.photographers-seo.com/go/scribe" target="_blank">Scribe</a> last week reminded me why I use it and am affiliated with <a href="http://twitter.com/copyblogger">Brian Clark</a>&#8216;s awesome product. If you&#8217;ve never heard of Scribe, think of it as a paid SEO plugin for WordPress that checks the keyword-richness of your posts and also suggests keyword and link opportunities.</p>
<h2>It’s time to step-up your SEO</h2>
<p>SEO is not rocket science for people who create online content. It’s  just a matter of knowing what to do, and more importantly, consistently  doing it.</p>
<p>You know you have to create valuable, reader-focused content, and also:</p>
<p>1.      You’ve got to do keyword research.<br />
2.      You’ve got to optimize your reader-focused content.<br />
3.      You’ve got to build links to your site.</p>
<p>That’s basically it. Effectively and consistently do those three tasks,  and you’ll achieve higher rankings and more targeted traffic.</p>
<p>Thousands of content creators do all three of these fundamental tasks  right from WordPress. And scores of professional  web writers use a web-based application to perform SEO for clients for  use on any content platform.</p>
<p>How? With the Scribe SEO software. <a href="http://www.photographers-seo.com/go/scribe">Check it out</a>.</p>
<p>Users of Scribe SEO are raving about increased search traffic, higher  rankings, increased efficiency, and easy content optimization. Now you  can join them in stepping up your traffic and search rankings, and get a  great deal at the same time. I&#8217;m one of those users.</p>
<p>Through November 5, 2010, get an amazing deal on Scribe.</p>
<p>For a limited time, you can “step up” your number of monthly Scribe  content evaluations and keyword searches without paying the higher price  for the next-level plan. That means you get a higher value Scribe plan  for the price of the plan below it. This represents amazing savings off  the regular Scribe pricing.</p>
<p>Before I send you over to the site to learn more about Scribe, you need to remember STEPUP.</p>
<p>That’s the code you’ll enter on the Plans and Pricing page to get the  next higher plan for the lower price. Simply look for the yellow box  below the plan option boxes, enter STEPUP in the promo code field, and  push the “Get” button to see your new “step up” choices.</p>
<p>Remember, the code STEPUP is the key to the deal, so don’t forget to  enter it. This offer ends at 5:00 PM Central time, November 5, 2010  (that’s this Friday!), so . . .</p>
<p>Even if you only try it for a month, it will reinforce SEO keyword basics every time you click the Analyze button on a blog post. It tells you stuff like:</p>
<ul>
<li>Title tag is too long</li>
<li>Meta description is missing primary keywords</li>
<li>Missing a link in the first paragraph of text</li>
<li>Post too short</li>
<li>Density of keywords (which are the most used)</li>
<li>etc</li>
</ul>
<p>Let me know what you think of it.<br />
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		<title>How to Measure Wedding Photographer SEO Competition</title>
		<link>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/links/wedding-photographer-seo-competition/</link>
		<comments>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/links/wedding-photographer-seo-competition/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Oct 2010 14:00:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Photo SEO</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Link Building]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://photographers-seo.com/?p=1814</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Wedding photographers have the most difficult time ranking websites and blogs because competition for wedding keywords is fierce. Unless, of course, you have a copy of the Photographers SEO Book. For example search for wedding photographer to find 2.69 million results (compared to 2.39 million for portrait photographer). More people search for a wedding photographer, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Wedding photographers have the most difficult time ranking websites and blogs because competition for wedding keywords is fierce. Unless, of course, you have a copy of the <a href="http://www.photographers-seo.com/">Photographers SEO Book</a>. For example search for wedding photographer to find 2.69 million results (compared to 2.39 million for portrait photographer). More people search for a wedding photographer, with over 1.2 million searches per month containing that phrase (compared to only 49,500 searches for a portrait photographer).</p>
<p><a href="http://photographers-seo.com/wp-content/uploads/wedding-portrait-photographer-searches.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1818" title="Wedding portrait photographer searches" src="http://photographers-seo.com/wp-content/uploads/wedding-portrait-photographer-searches.jpg" alt="Wedding portrait photographer searches" width="448" height="102" /></a></p>
<p>With that kind of demand, lots of money can be made for ranking well on wedding photography phrases. Add to that the revenue for each new booking may be $3,000 or even $10,000 while portrait photographers might earn $500 or $1,000 per shoot. Thus wedding photographers have every reason to invest in SEO because demand is high and revenue will be high. 5 or 10 new bookings per year can change a wedding photography business entirely. The only difficulty to ranking well goes back to overwhelming competition for high demand phrases.</p>
<p>Expect to put forth a lot of time and effort writing quality content and gaining dozens of links back to your site. Before embarking on this journey, it can be helpful to know your chances of success. The following outlines how to measure your ability to rank for a particular phrase.</p>
<h2>Google&#8217;s Link Game</h2>
<p>Google’s game is links. Quick analogy. It’s easy to tell who is popular on Twitter or Facebook by the number of followers, or the quality of followers. With 5 million Twitter followers, or having the President as one of your followers, obviously makes you popular. Similarly, Google knows your website popularity by how many other sites link to you. Other factors help as well, like the age of the website and percentage click through within search results, but the easiest to understand and control is total number of unique links.</p>
<p>Here’s a test. If you’re searching for a wedding photographer, which site would you rather see, the one referenced 100 times from the top wedding websites or the one that launched last week with no link references? It’s clearly seen that users prefer to visit the popular website so search engines will rank those sites higher.</p>
<h2>Check Your Website Popularity</h2>
<p>You can quickly check your website popularity against the competition in two steps. First is to search a phrase of interest (like Ney York City wedding photographer). Next is to see how many links point to the top ranked sites. Example:</p>
<p><a href="http://photographers-seo.com/wp-content/uploads/new-york-city-wedding-photographer-results.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-1815 alignnone" title="New York City wedding photographer results" src="http://photographers-seo.com/wp-content/uploads/new-york-city-wedding-photographer-results.jpg" alt="New York City wedding photographer results" width="252" height="245" /></a></p>
<p>I select the number 5 ranked site for my test since it looks like an individual photographer site similar to mine (not a new site or directory). Paste that URL into a backlink checker like <a href="http://www.online-utility.org/webmaster/backlink_domain_analyzer.jsp">Online Utility</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://photographers-seo.com/wp-content/uploads/backlinks-example-for-nyc.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1816" title="Backlinks SEO example for NYC" src="http://photographers-seo.com/wp-content/uploads/backlinks-example-for-nyc.jpg" alt="Backlinks SEO example for NYC" width="536" height="393" /></a></p>
<p>One cool feature here is the ability to see every individual link pointing to your competitor. Hint: try and get links from the same sites!</p>
<h2>Lots of Backlink Checker Tools Available</h2>
<p>Get a more holistic view with a tool like <a href="http://www.traffictravis.com/" target="_blank">Traffic Travis</a> (PC Only) or one of my affiliates, <a href="http://semrush.com/?ref=631784289" target="_blank">SEM Rush</a>. In Traffic Travis I choose SEO Analysis for a Keyword and type my phrase.</p>
<p><a href="http://photographers-seo.com/wp-content/uploads/traffic-travis-nyc-wedding-results.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1817" title="Traffic Travis New York wedding results" src="http://photographers-seo.com/wp-content/uploads/traffic-travis-nyc-wedding-results.jpg" alt="Traffic Travis New York wedding results" width="561" height="365" /></a></p>
<p>It shows me the #5 site has a PageRank (PR) of 3, age of 10 years, and has 73 backlinks (BL) to the URL shown and 73 backlinks (BLS) to the site as a whole. My quick litmus test tells me that the sites ranking well on this phrase have been around a long time (trusted by Google) and have a minimum of 70 links pointing to them.</p>
<h2>Narrow Your Phrase to Something Reasonable</h2>
<p>I’d definitely recommend that newer photographers put that phrase on the long term ranking plan, and perhaps target a more specific phrase with less competition. Check out my <a href="../seo/keywords-meta-tags/10-keyword-tools/">10 SEO tools for photography keywords</a> to narrow down a new key phrase.<br />
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<p>You Should Also Read This Post<ul>
<li><a href='http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/photoblogs/wedding-photography-seo/' rel='bookmark' title='Wedding Photography SEO: Rank in Google for Wedding Venues'>Wedding Photography SEO: Rank in Google for Wedding Venues</a></li>
</ul></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Photography Homepage and Splash Page SEO</title>
		<link>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/keywords-meta-tags/photography-homepage-seo/</link>
		<comments>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/keywords-meta-tags/photography-homepage-seo/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:00:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Photo SEO</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Keywords and Meta Tags]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://photographers-seo.com/?p=1808</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Homepages and splash pages have the best chance of ranking among all the pages in your site. They&#8217;re so important that we discuss homepage SEO in the Photographers SEO Book, our Splash Page SEO Guide, and lesson 3 of our free email class on SEO. Most photographers have a splash page &#8211; a single page [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Homepages and splash pages have the best chance of ranking among all the pages in your site. They&#8217;re so important that we discuss homepage SEO in the Photographers SEO Book, our Splash Page SEO Guide, and lesson 3 of our free email <a href="/eclass/">class on SEO</a>.</p>
<p>Most photographers have a splash page &#8211; a single page in front of their website with 2-4 big navigation choices to different versions of the site. It may link to full screen, html only, or mobile versions of the site or it may group a network of sites together like a wedding site, a gallery site and a blog. Below the navigation is typically a summary about the photographer, accolades, and services offered. The result is a clean landing page giving users an overview and jumping point for where to go next.</p>
<p>Splash pages are more than just a trend for photographer websites, they are practically a necessity when it comes to ranking a Flash site in SEO. Even if you don&#8217;t have a Flash site, you can take the elements that make a splash page great for Google and apply them to your homepage.</p>
<h2>Google Can&#8217;t See Flash</h2>
<p>All your images and text get wrapped into a single animated Flash file. You may have 500 words of text, a full gallery of images, or 10 pages of your site all combined into one Flash file. Google reads it all as a small chunk of of HTML code, translated loosely as &#8220;Flash file with unknown contents.&#8221; It makes assumptions about what&#8217;s in the Flash based on other aspects of the website. Titles, URLs, links pointing to the page, and text held outside of the Flash (if there is any &#8211; maybe your legal line) are the only content available for a machine like Google to understand what the page is about.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s take a step back for a moment. Google&#8217;s job is to find pages that relate to what the user is searching for. If a user searches &#8220;xyz photography&#8221;, then it returns sites that talk about exactly that. Now you may have a site about xyz photography but are hiding the text and images in Flash, so Google misses a lot of it. Your site is less likely to rank, especially when there are hundreds of competing sites that talk about it very clearly. That&#8217;s where a splash page or html homepage can help.</p>
<h2>Splash Page Benefits to Google</h2>
<p>A splash page allows for the best of both worlds. Keep the Flash design site to WOW your prospective clients. But put the xyz photography text on the front (splash) page in an HTML format that Google can read. What Google likes to see in any main page:</p>
<ul>
<li> 300+ words of text so Google can get a good idea of your site with the potential to return you for multiple keyword searches</li>
<li>Links to your main content tell Google what&#8217;s important (for example you can pass search power to your blog or an individual gallery)</li>
<li>A couple well placed images with alternate text give extra keyword credit to the page</li>
<li>Fast load time</li>
</ul>
<p>Speaking of load time&#8230;</p>
<p>Google is obsessed with speed. As of April, 2010 Google officially announced that load time is a factor in your rank. Did you know that you pay more for paid search keywords (Google AdWords) when your page loads more slowly? These are yet more reasons to use a fast loading splash page as your home &#8211; the main page you need to rank!</p>
<p>Benefits of a clean and clear homepage obviously extend beyond SEO. A splash page makes your range of services, locations, and contact information instantly accessible. If a user can&#8217;t find those quickly, or has connectivity issues in Flash, then you just lost a potential customer. Plus it gives an opportunity to showcase your most powerful images and credentials. With a not-so captive audience spending less than a minute or less on a page this can be a great advantage for you to sell yourself quickly.<br />
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<p>You Should Also Read This Post<ul>
<li><a href='http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/buy-products/splash-page-guide/' rel='bookmark' title='Splash Page Builder and SEO Guide'>Splash Page Builder and SEO Guide</a></li>
</ul></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Photography Business Top 7 Google Accounts for SEO</title>
		<link>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/google/photography-business-accounts/</link>
		<comments>http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/google/photography-business-accounts/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 11 Oct 2010 14:00:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Photo SEO</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Google]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://photographers-seo.com/?p=1799</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Photography businesses need a multi-pronged approach to winning traffic and new business from search. Enter Google. Not only does it offer search results far beyond the traditional page results, but a Google account lets photographers take control of their listings. First, understand a search engine result page (SERP) displays business listings, images, videos, social media [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Photography businesses need a multi-pronged approach to winning traffic and new business from search. Enter Google. Not only does it offer search results far beyond the traditional page results, but a Google account lets photographers take control of their listings.</p>
<p><a href="../wp-content/uploads/google-content-types.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1801" title="Types of Google content where photography businesses can rank" src="../wp-content/uploads/google-content-types.jpg" alt="Types of Google content where photography businesses can rank" width="140" height="258" /></a>First, understand a search engine result page (SERP) displays business listings, images, videos, social media mentions, sponsored results, and more. Just look down the left side of Google to view the content types users can search. These also display mixed in with regular results depending on the search phrase. That&#8217;s a ton of additional opportunities to be seen on the first page of search. This post talks about 7 Google Account settings every photographer needs to increase search visibility.</p>
<p>Sign up at <a href="http://www.google.com/accounts/" target="_blank">www.google.com/accounts/</a> then activate the following settings. My favorite part &#8211; control all 7 through a single dashboard.</p>
<h2>Google Places</h2>
<p>Searchers often see a map of local businesses above the regular search results, at the top of the page. My favorite place to be (at the top). Photographers get tons of business from this traffic and all they did to appear here was activate <a href="http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter/" target="_blank">Google Places</a>. I don&#8217;t know the factors to determine who gets first on the map, but I can offer general tips.</p>
<ul>
<li>Physical address close to the search phrase (San Francisco address for a San Francisco search)</li>
<li>Complete profile with quality keywords in the business description, photos, coupons, reviews</li>
<li>Mentions of the business elsewhere on the web (perhaps superpages, citysearch, yelp)</li>
</ul>
<h2>Google Profiles</h2>
<p>Every site has an about page, right? Activate a <a href="http://www.google.com/profiles" target="_blank">Google Profile</a> to make an About page right on Google.com. It can help you rank high for searches on your name, even if it is a common one.</p>
<p>Add your social sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and  Blog to the profile.Those with a profile and are connected to any of those previous sources can see that content in their relevant searches. When I search <em>San Francisco wedding photographer</em>, I see my connections under &#8220;Results from your  social circle.&#8221;</p>
<p><a href="http://photographers-seo.com/wp-content/uploads/social-circle-results.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-1803 alignnone" title="wedding photographer social circle results" src="http://photographers-seo.com/wp-content/uploads/social-circle-results.jpg" alt="wedding photographer social circle results" width="537" height="132" /></a></p>
<p>My personal results don&#8217;t interest me. My interest is the exposure I get when other people search and see me. The additional exposure catches my audience while they are searching for answers, products, or solutions.</p>
<p>Profiles includes Google Buzz. Like Twitter or Facebook, Buzz is a running list of chatter exposed to those who connect with you. Better than other networks, it aggregates from connected sites, automatically pulling in Tweets, Wall posts, and blog posts without needing to microblog in yet another system. Simply connect all your photography social sites to the profile and let it do the rest.</p>
<p>More resources:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.google.com/profiles/darrenrowse" target="_blank">Darren Rowse</a> profile (Digital Photography School and ProBlogger.net)</li>
<li><a href="http://currentphotographer.com/do-you-have-a-google-profile/" target="_blank">Current Photographer</a> article on Profiles by Trevor Current</li>
</ul>
<h2>Google AdWords</h2>
<p>Creating a Google Adwords account gives you an opportunity to buy keywords that can appear at the top or right side of search results pages. I won&#8217;t go into the details of how to run adwords, but want to show the opportunity to get on page 1 without showing in organic results.</p>
<p>More resources:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://blog.photoshelter.com/2010/09/marketing-with-google-adwords-8-success-tips.html" target="_blank">8 Success Tips for Photographers</a> by Grover Sanschagrin</li>
<li><a href="http://www.newmediaphotographer.com/2010/02/adwords-for-photographers/" target="_blank">AdWords for Photographers</a> by Rosh Sillars</li>
</ul>
<h2>Google&#8217;s YouTube</h2>
<p>Lots of searches will show embedded videos on page 1 results. Create videos in YouTube (owned by Google) to increase chances of getting a video to appear in the middle of search. Plus those movies get in front of the millions of searches directly on YouTube.</p>
<h2>Google Webmaster Tools</h2>
<p>Activate <a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters" target="_blank">Google webmaster Tools</a> for a direct link to how Google sees your photography site and/or blog. This direct link to Google&#8217;s indexing process shows tremendous insight. My 3 favorite aspects are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Ability to upload a sitemap (easier with a blog using a sitemap generator)</li>
<li>Error alerts like malware and broken links</li>
<li>See what keywords rank well and what words other sites use to link to you</li>
</ul>
<p>The fact that you have a Webmaster Tools account does not by nature rank a site better, but gives visibility to optimization efforts that help a photographer grow.</p>
<h2>Google Analytics</h2>
<p>Web metrics is critical to any SEO strategy. <a href="http://www.google.com/analytics" target="_blank">Google Analytics</a> offers website metrics like most popular pages, keywords used that people used to get to your site, what sites sent you traffic. Everything a photographer needs to know about it can be found in the report by <a href="http://www.photoshelter.com/mkt/google-analytics-for-photographers" target="_blank">PhotoShelter</a>.</p>
<h2>Google&#8217;s Feedburner</h2>
<p>Hopefully you already have a blog with an RSS feed. RSS just helps users subscribe to content through feed readers and other services that often have advantages over email.<a href="http://feedburner.google.com" target="_blank"> Feedburner</a> rounds out the last setting photographers need to activate. It comes in handy for tracking RSS subscribers as well as retaining existing RSS users if you plan to move blog sites or change a domain name. Not too much relevance to SEO in this, other than the people on the internet that create links (helpful to SEO) typically are the techie types like me that monitor content from multiple sources via feeds.<br />
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