Title and Description Control

All in One SEO Pack

Let Google Find All Your Pages

Google XML sitemaps plugin
Yoast Breadcrumbs
WordPress SEO Pager plugin

Keep users on your site

WP Greet Box
LinkWithin
Related Posts Plugin

Engage Users Via Comments

DoFollow
Akismet
Disqus
Subscribe to Comments Plugin
Comment Redirect Plugin

Keyword and Link Scores

Scribe SEO
Robots Meta

Image Optimization

SEO Friendly Images
Faster Image Insert

URLs

Permalink Redirect Plugin

Tracking SEO

Google Analytics for WordPress

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WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plugin
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Sociable
FaceBook Like Button Plugin for WordPress
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For more about optimizing your blog if you’re a photographer, make sure to pickup a copy of my Blog SEO Zen ebook.

The first thing you want to do when you’re in WordPress is find and install the plugin. So click add new plugin.

Search for All in One SEO Pack.

Click Install.

And it should successfully install the plugin for you.

Then you want to activate the plugin. After you’ve activated the plugin, there will be a link in your left navigation under settings for All in One SEO. Click that to get to the configuration page.

Make sure you enable the plugin, then enter a a title and description for your homepage. Keywords in the title help your rank position, and the meta description helps get users to click your search result (better conversion).

You don’t want to the blog title to appear inthe title of your posts or the title of your pages or the title of your categories. The reason is that the keywords in your titles are the most important part in getting you ranked, and you want that to be very focused on the page that’s being displayed. You don’t want to add additional words that are general to your blog at the end of those titles.

If you just display your category title on category pages, the title of your page might be just weddings and nothing else, if you’re on your weddings category. So you might put something like the above the end of your category pages in order to get in some extra keywords. Note: this applies to all category pages so you need it to be fairly general.

Now that your homepage is updated, the only other place you’ll use the All in One SEO pack is in your individual posts. When you add a new post, you’ll see at the bottom some new fields for All in One SEO pack. For every new post you create you want to enter a title and description. The title is what will display in search results and the keywords in this title help to get you ranked. And the description is what shows in search results and what that says will compel people to click the link, so those are very important features. Enter the All in One SEO Pack title and description for every post you create.

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WordPress.org with All in One SEO Pack

WordPress.org is your best chance at optimizing your photography blog, so if you have a self hosted blog with WordPress, install the All in One SEO Pack plugin. Since most generic WordPress themes don’t have SEO in mind (with the exception of the theme that I use and am an affiliate partner for – Thesis theme for WordPress), this plugin can overwrite some of the generic theme settings with search engine optimization settings for any blog. Let’s go through each element of this plugin and talk about which ones are the most important.

Homepage Title and Description

Let’s start with your homepage title and your homepage description. Your title becomes the clickable link in a search result so you want it to be very specific to what you’re trying to rank for. And your description is what will show underneath your link. The keywords in this description do not help your rank, but what you say here might compel somebody to click on that search result. So you want it to be kind of a marketing position and give a user a reason to click. So from that standpoint, a description, which gets copied to your meta description, is very important for search even though it doesn’t affect your rank. Each page, post, especially your homepage, should have its own unique description. And you never want your titles and descriptions to span all the pages of your site.

Photography Blog Meta Keywords

I don’t enter any keywords. These would be meta keywords, search engines no longer look at those so I choose not to show my competitors what my keywords would be if search engines no longer use those.

Blog Page and Post Titles

The next most important piece is the titles of your posts and your pages. A lot of themes will add to the end of the post title, the blog title, for example. So an individual post might give the headline of that post, a dash, then the title of the blog.

This is limiting for search purposes because it crowds your title with extra words and characters that you’re not trying to rank for for on that individual post. It does not help your overall search efforts to have your site title across all your pages. So the first thing I’d recommend is to take your titles out of everything – take your blog title out of your individual posts and take it out of your indiviual pages. So if you’re within the All in One SEO pack, you’re post titles, page titles, and category titles should all look like this.

Blog Post Descriptions

Your descriptions are usually controlled through the excerpts field in WordPress. So make sure you have an excerpt filled in for each of your posts and that will get pulled into the meta description code so users will know why they’re clicking your link in search results.

Outside of your posts, pages and categories, everything else doesn’t matter too much. Your archive pages and your tag and your search pages – these are not very likely to rank in search pages so it doesn’t really matter what’s there. So if you see blog title appear anywhere, you want to take that out. And again, this is going to overwrite whatever the standard theme setting were. And in a lot of cases your standard theme wouldn’t even have used post titles, it may have used the same site title that you had up at the top here, it may have used that for all the pages of your site, which definitely isn’t helping you in search engines.

The titles of your pages, are 50% or more of what you can control as far as SEO is concerned so they are extremely extremely important. So in under 5 minutes you can install this plugin and control the titles and descriptions of all your pages.

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• Highly qualified
• Little competition (easier to rank)
• Can add up to the same volume as your main keyword phrase
• Cheap to purchase in Google adwords

Long Tail Examples for Photographers

Let’s say you’re a wedding photographer in Sacramento, CA. Trying to rank for that term in your city may prove to be difficult at first, especially for a new blog or an SEO beginner. This is the perfect time to optimize for long tail search phrases still within your niche such as:

• suburbs of your city (Roseville wedding photographer)
• wedding venues (Arden Hills wedding)
• more specific phrases for your industry (Sacramento wedding photojournalist)

Each of these are easier to rank for than the original main term, and will still provide qualified leads to your business from search results. All you have to do is write a blog post about the long tail phrase you want to rank for.

The truth is that you will rank for most long tail phrases without even trying. Every time you write a new blog post, that is a dedicated page on your niche topic that Google will index and potentially rank. For the few people per month that search on the phrase, those searches end up at your site, and if you have tens or hundreds of posts the small volume of searches add up quickly.

Check it Out in Analytics

See what I mean by looking at your keywords report in an Analytics package. In the last could months there has been traffic from over 1,000 different keywords sending my site traffic. Obviously I didn’t intentionally optimize for all of those – that is the long tail at work.

The Trick to the Long Tail

The trick is to be conscious of the long tail so that you can optimize for a select few that can be the most beneficial to your business. Go for terms that are easy to capture, that your competition is not actively optimizing for, and that will likely convert searches to new clients for your busienss.

More on This Topic

Read the full post I contributed over at MCP Actions.

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This post offers some tips about optimizing your wedding photography blog to get ranked in Google for specific wedding or reception locations. Once you rank high and book a couple events, you will by default become the official photographer for that location and through the venue’s own promotion and word of mouth you will barely need search anymore. Did I really just say that?

1. Use Venue Name in Blog Post Titles

Use the venue name plus wedding keywords in the title of the post. It is worth it to go back and re-title old posts for the ones you really want to rank for!

Original post title:

• Jennifer + Bob: Stunning reception at Cliffs Resort

Optimized post titles:

• Cliffs Resort Lodge Wedding Reception Photos for Jennifer + Bob
• Cliffs Resort Wedding Photography Examples from Jennifer’s Reception
• Stunning Reception Photos from Cliffs Resort Wedding in San Diego
• Photography From My 5th Cliffs Resort Wedding Reception

Take a glance at the original post title. That is a great title if I want to rank high for “Jennifer and Bob” searches, or if I want to compete with all of the Cliffs Resort searches in the world (vacation, hotel, etc). Now look at the optimized titles, which still communicate my same message. Plus there are probably not too many webpages out there optimized for “Cliffs Resort Lodge Wedding Photography” making this post a perfect candidate for Google to rank high in the results.

2. Update Your Permalinks

Use longer URLs with more keywords. Do NOT change URLs for old posts as this will break any links that point to them. In WordPress for example the URL is editable by the Permalink, shown in the image below:

Permalink example from WordPress

But your post may have been names something like this:
Original URL: /blog/2009/10/12/reception/
Optimized URL: /blog/2009/10/21/cliffs-resort-wedding-photographer/

Again, there are probably zero websites with those keywords in the URL, giving my page even more strength if users search those words.

3. Take 10 Seconds to SEO to the Images

Use keywords as filenames for the images (cliffs-resort-wedding01.jpg) and use the WordPress caption feature (captions get used as alternate text and as text on the page). There’s a whole chapter on this in the Photographer’s SEO Book, so if you like this post then you’ll love an entire guide with more tips just for photographers.

4. Sprinkle the Post with Venue Keywords

Use more text in the posts that use the key phrase you want to rank for. If you want to rank for “Cliffs Resort Lodge Wedding Reception Photographer” then these words need to sprinkle through the post. What I mean is don’t do the typical: 10 images in my post and I’m done blogging. Write about the venue, and maybe if you do a nice enough post the venue website will link to your blog as a promotional tool (hint: send them a note about your post).

5. Add External Links to Your Blog Post

Create a couple links that point directly to the post (only do these for your important ones that you really want to rank for, since it takes a lot of time to complete this step). Easiest way is to add links in forums, crosslink from the homepage and from other posts, and digg every post yourself. More about linkbuilding 101, and link SEO 201.

6. Convert Users from the Search Results Page (SERP) with Meta Descriptions

WordPress has an excerpt field that acts as the meta description, which shows to users in search engines. This text will entice users to click the link. This is your opportunity to say something clever to get users to click your search result. If you don’t put something in your WordPress excerpt field, then you are letting Google choose what the search result should say (they might choose anything, even your copyright statement). So write something cool, like

An official Cliffs Resort Lodge wedding photographer for 5 years, John takes stunning reception photos. View award winning gallery photos.

7. Create Summary Posts for Each Wedding Venue

You probably write a new post about each wedding you shoot. Am I right? Recap all your old posts for each venue you want to rank for. For example, take your 3 previous posts about the Cliffs Resort Lodge and create a Best Of post. Take one photo from each of the past weddings and create a post called “Cliffs Resort Lodge Wedding Reception Photographer: My Best Pics” and in the text give an overview of each wedding that was shot.

8. Add Internal Links

Links are critical. I hope you didn’t skip step 5. Take the top 3 venues you want to rank for (1 post for each venue) and create links from your own site(s) to each of these posts. Add a link to each post from your homepage, from a couple of other blog post pages, and from your blogroll. Did you remember to use good keywords in your link texts? If not you need to read the Photographer’s SEO Book which gives you the basics and then EXPANDS them kind of like this post does. In fact, read it anyway.

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A blog is like an online journal where each individual entry (or post) is automatically converted to a webpage. More webpages means a better chance of showing up in search engines. Blogging is as free and simple as emailing.

Benefits of a Blog for Photographers

The first major benefit of a blog is that it’s an additional website that can potentially rank in search engines. Just like your photography business website has the chance to rank in Google and send you valuable project leads, a blog can do the same thing. Imagine having two websites that both rank, either for the same term or different terms. In either case, that is double the new customers for your business. Did I mention that blogs are low maintenance? You can have a blog site created in under an hour and can edit pages yourself and without a web developer. Where else can you create a fast and easy site, without any financial investment? Even if your blog doesn’t rank in Google, you can use it as a way to keep customers informed on your latest projects, testimonials, images, and events. Many of my photographer friends use their blog writing as a monthly newsletter to friends and clients.

Search engines look at blog sites more often, meaning they can appear more quickly in search results! Search engines give a high ranking to sites with lots of links pointing to it, great keywords, and are updated often. Blogs by nature have all 3 of these things, so Google knows to check blog sites like WordPress often for new content.

Blogs are pre-optimized for search engines with search-friendly URLs, tags, categories, and keywords (which I will talk more about in a minute). Also sites like WordPress automatically create links to promote your blog. The only links on the homepage of wordpress.com are to WordPress blogs – they create links for you. Not only links from its homepage, but also submissions to blog indexes and directories because WordPress wants your blog to succeed/

Read more about blogging at http://en.wordpress.com/features/.

Develop a Blog Strategy

Now that you are sold on creating a blog, definitely develop a blog strategy before you begin blogging:

* How often will you create entries about your photographer business? I’d suggest 1-2 times per week with short posts (100-250 words) and lots of images.

* What keywords do you want your blog to rank for in search engines? This is your chance to rank for more terms, so try combinations of different cities or specialties.

* What will you blog about? Treat it as an online newsletter and discuss projects you’ve completed, events where your audience can see you, special offers, photography tips and tricks, or testimonials.

* How will your blog promote your main photography website?

I recommend WordPress as your blog platform because of the large availability of custom themes and designs available to photographers. You can easily use the free templates that are available or search the web for “wordpress photographer template” to find affordable custom designs for your blog. But there are many other blog sites available to develop free or cheap blogs.

SEO Tips and Tricks

Tip 1 – add a link to your main photographer website from every page of your blog. Remember how Google likes links? When you link to your main website from multiple places, it helps that site rank higher in search and it helps users learn more about your business. Use the links widget in WordPress to create a blogroll where you can add links to your website and partner websites. Another good spot to link is at the end of each blog post. You can say something like “More photos available at my San Diego Wedding Photography website.”

Tip 2 – use categories and keywords. Both categories and keywords are topic names that allow search engines and users to filter your blog posts. The categories and keywords you use on each post should be words or terms that you want to rank for in search engines. So if you want to rank for San Diego wedding photography, then that should be a category and a keyword in each one of your posts. Of course you can add additional ones that are more relevant to the individual topic of each post.

Tip 3 – strategize your tagline and excerpts. There is one tagline for your whole blog. It often shows up on your blog homepage, but may also act as the description of your blog that appears in search engines and blog directories. The excerpt is a brief overview of each blog post, like an abstract, that may show in search engines. Use major keywords in your excerpt, and try not to use something generic or simply repeat the title or text of your post.

Tip 4 – Edit the permalink to use major keywords. A permalink essentially becomes the URL for the post. If your blog post was named “My latest wedding in San Diego” then the permalink will typically be something like /my-latest-wedding.html. You can change this to use better keywords for example /san-diego-wedding-event.html because that will add a little bit more credibility when Google is looking for pages about San Diego weddings.

Check out the Photographer’s SEO Book for tips on how search engines work, photography-related keywords, blogging for photographers, and google analytics.

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