The Importance of Links to Your Photographer Website… This article will focus on the importance of links to your photographer website. So, why focus a whole article on links? An estimated 75% majority of Google’s process looks at the links coming into your page from other websites. Google ranks sites higher that have good references – other websites linking to it. Don’t get me wrong, there are many other important factors to ranking high in Google search results, including keywords on the page, but the single most important factor in photography SEO is the quantity and quality of links to your website.

Thousands of web directories exist that actually seek links to valuable websites like yours. These are like online yellow pages that index photographer and broader topic websites. The submission process to web directories is usually simple – just look for the link called Suggest URL, Submit Site, or Add Link. I suggest that you only spend your time submitting to free directories, and a link back to their site is okay if they require it. Tips:

* setup a unique email account for your directory submissions (expect to get a lot of email as a result of signing up)

* have a well keyword-rich site title and description ready since you will get asked for them

Free Links for Photographers

The first step in link building for your photographer web site is to create free online business profiles. Not only do some of these appear in map sites but often appear above the regular search results, putting your link at the top of the search page! You can also ask clients for positive user reviews on some of the business profile sites. Example business profile websites:

* Google Local

* Yahoo Local

Very seldom will I ever consider paying for a directory link. You can achieve quality rankings without ever paying for link submission, but if you have the budget for valuable back links, these are the only ones to consider:

* Yahoo (about $300 annual)

* Business.com (about $300 annual)

*JoeAnt ($40)

You can find many more websites that will link to you in the Photographer’s SEO Book, or by searching for “add link photographer”. Make sure to view the source of these websites to make sure they are not putting a nofollow tag in the links, rendering them worthless…

Beware the “No Follow” Link

The whole purpose of getting links to your site is to build your popularity in the eyes of search engines. It is important to know that websites can tell search engines to ignore a specific link by adding an extra tag in the link code, called “nofollow”. Why would a site do this? Example: the text on Wikipedia.org is completely controlled by the general public. Wikipedia wants users to post valuable content to its site, and not a bunch of self-promoting links. By adding nofollow tags it takes away the public’s desire to post links that have little value to readers.

Before you spend time trying to get a link from another website, do a quick check to make sure it is not using nofollow tags. When you are on a webpage (preferably the page where you want your link to appear), click with the right side of your mouse (Mac users hold Ctrl when you click) and then select View Source or View Page Source.

If you see more than a couple instances of nofollow, then a link from that webpage is worthless in helping your search rank and you don’t need to pursue a link from that site.

Bottom line: links to your photographer website are critical for a high search engine rank. Start with the low hanging fruit by getting links from online directories, then do link trades with partners. For tips on how search engines work, photography-related keywords, blogging for photographers, and google analytics – check out the Photographer’s SEO Book.

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