FH: Website Optimization for Photographers

Tampa-Photography

Hi!

I'm so glad to see this forum start up. I think there is a real need for it and as long as it doesn't get abused (I think that will take care of itself), it should prove beneficial for all of us!

My name is Jeff Copeland, and first and foremost, I own Simple Treasures Photography in Tampa, Florida. My wife is the photographer, I am the marketing director.

I have handled all of our internet marketing since we started the business in about 2005, and eventually this grew into me doing internet marketing and search engine optimization for other local small business owners and photographers in other markets. I recently started a small marketing company called Tampa Bay Search that does just that.

I offer web design, search engine optimization, and pay-per-click marketing management for photographers using the Photobiz or SmugMug platforms (or any platform for that matter, these are just the two I work with most often).

I'll be the first to tell you that there are a lot of scams and pitfalls associated with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC)! That's the reason I got into this in the first place - I was tired of getting those high pressure sales calls and e-mails from people promising to "put me on the first page of Google" for $999 or whatever, and not knowing whether it was a scam (it almost always is) or a smart investment.

Here is my special introductory offer for fellow D-Grinners (good through 12/31/09 - only because I don't want someone reading this post 10 years from now and holding me to these prices!):

Professional Keyword Analysis and "Do it Yourself" Package - $129 - Many of you are very tech-savvy (many of you more so than I) and know how to hack, tweak, modify, and customize your website - SmugMug or otherwise. You don't need my help with that.

What you do need is a comprehensive keyword analysis that tells you exactly what your potential clients are searching for every month.

Here's an example (these numbers are made up, but very realistic):

If 2,500 people per month search for "Central City Photographers", and 725 people per month search for "Central City Photography", which one should you be targeting as your top keyword?
(Note: Google sees these as completely separate phrases!).

For $129 - here is what you get:

• A comprehensive keyword analysis as noted above - believe it or not, in most cases almost all of your potential web traffic will come from less than ten keyword phrases when you really analyze it. This makes it much, much easier to keyword your images and customize your site effectively!
• Customized Title and Description meta tags for your site
• Customized headers and footers for your site to make it easier for Google to index your site appropriately
• Real-time tracking of your site's traffic using a Google Analytics account (that I will set up for you).
• All of the above comes with step-by-step instructions for where to place these items in your user interface (SmugMug or whatever you happen to use)

Professional Keyword Analysis and "Subscription" Package - $199 - Most of you are photographers, not software engineers. Your time is better spent shooting and editing pictures than it is working on your website - I get that!

This package includes all of the above, along with a two month "subscription" for one-on-one consulting. I will make the changes to your site for you, or show you and teach you how to do it yourself if you're so inclined.

There is no obligation beyond two months, though you can choose to continue your subscription for $29/mo. This gets you three things:

• Continued one-on-one consulting and help with your site
• A new keyword analysis quarterly or anytime you request it (as you can imagine, many keyword phrases are seasonal, and sometimes they just change over time for no apparent reason)
• A no-compete agreement. I only offer one "subscription" at a time in any market area in order to avoid conflicts of interest. As long as you continue your subscription, I will not market my subscription-based services to your competitors - it's only fair!

Pay Per Click Marketing - I won't get into the details here, other than to tell you pay-per-click marketing (Google Adwords, etc) can be highly effective if you know what you're doing, and it can be very easy to waste lots of money if you don't (and Google will happily keep on taking it!). I offer pay-per-click management services starting at only $50/mo, and the details are on my website.


Examples -

Here are two examples of my work:

Google These Phrases
St Pete Beach Wedding Photographer
St Pete Beach Portrait Photographer
St Pete Beach Photographer
(Look for www.simple-treasures.net)


Portage Photography
Kalamazoo Photography
(Look for www.alwaysonephotography.com)


Finally, a few of our fellow D-Grinners have used my services. I'm hoping they will chime in here and share thier experiences! :barb

Thanks, and please feel free to e-mail me at hjcopeland@gmail.com if you have any questions!



Jeff Copeland

Tampa-Photography

But How/Where Am I Supposed to Get Links?
In the spirit of freely sharing valuable information with other D-Grinners, I'm posting this article to help clarify the mystery behind building links to your website. Please don't share it outside of D-Grin without permission.


We've all heard that link-building is important for search engine optimization.

Link building is something I can't do for my clients, because it never ends! But I do give them tools to help get the job done. I tell my clients it is very easy for a competitor to come along and copy your website's meta tags and content, but it's almost impossible for a competitor to come along and build hundreds of links to their website in a short period of time. If you commit yourself to building one or two new links per day, it is the best insurance you can buy against upstart competitors. They all say the same thing (what you're thinking right now):

But How Do I Get Links?

I hope the following article will shed at least a little light on this subject. Please don't share it outside of D-Grin without permission:


Understanding the Power of Proper Linking Techniques
Printer-Friendly PDF Version

The world wide web was designed to be hyperlinked. Links are the power behind the web. So you should incorporate a systematic and regular linking strategy into your website. Why?

If you've had your website up for a while, you know how difficult it is to get visitors or "traffic" to your site. You either have to advertise, or you have to have really good placement in the major search engines. In other words, when people go to Google or Yahoo or MSN and type in "Florida beach vacation rental" or something similar, you want them to find your page listed in the search results, right? Of course you do because this is the BEST way to get FREE visitors to your site.

So how does Google know that your site is about "Florida beach vacation rentals (or whatever)?" It knows by what you do "on page" and "off page".

'On-Page' Search Engine Optimization
There are things you can do to the pages of your site to let Google know what it is about. First, decide what your "keyword" is going to be. The keyword is what you think people are typing into the search engines to find sites like yours. In this example, "Florida beach vacation rentals" is the keyword phrase.

So it should be the page title and should also be the page heading. It should be the first words mentioned on the page, and the last words. It should be worked naturally into the text on the page several times and some occurrences of the keyword phrase should be bolded or italicized or underlined. The text on the page should have other words related to Florida beaches, and to vacation rentals.

As you can see, it is important that the right stuff goes in the right fields so that Google can find what it is looking for in your Title, Description, and Content. These fields are in different places (and called different things!) in different user interfaces (SmugMug, Photobiz, etc). Luckily for you, I have spent the past few years figuring all this stuff out!

'Off-Page' Search Engine Optimization
Next, there are things that can be done "off page". This is where links come in. Other websites are powerful indicators as to the content of YOUR website. For instance, if I have a link on my site pointing to yours, and my linked text says Siesta Key Beachfront Vacation Condo, then I'm providing third-party verification that your site is indeed about Siesta Key Beachfront Vacation Condos. Imagine the power of 50 sites pointing to yours with the same or similar linked text! No, don't imagine it. I'll show you the power. Right now!

You are familiar with Adobe Acrobat Reader, right? It's the free software that allows you to read pdf files. What would you search on to find the Adobe Acrobat site to download their software? Well, you'd probably go to Google and type in "Adobe Acrobat" right? And the site would be either number one in the search results or very close to it.

Proof of the Power of Links to Your Site
Now try this: Go to Google and in the search box, type in "click here", and search for that keyword phrase. What website was number one for the search term "click here?" I hope you try this because this is very powerful.

The Adobe Acrobat Reader download page is the number one search result for the term "click here”! Notice that NOWHERE on the Adobe page will you find the words "click here”. In fact, the page has absolutely nothing to do with "click here”!

So why is it number one in the search results? On nearly every page on the internet that has a pdf file to be downloaded, you will find the following instructions: "To download your copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader, click here." The text "click here" is hyperlinked directly to Adobe Acrobat download page.

There are literally MILLIONS of websites with the hyperlinked "click here" text pointing directly to Adobe. Because the external links say the page is about "click here," that's what Google thinks it is about! Imagine the power of 50 or 100 (or 1,000) links from other websites with your website's keywords all pointing to your site!

That's why you should consider your linked text carefully. What words do you want other websites to use when they link to you? Be sure they are keywords that people are actually typing into search engines. The key to making all of this work is knowing what the right keyword phrases are. Did you know that 80 to 90 percent of your targeted web traffic will normally be generated by less than ten keyword phrases? Needless to say, it pays to know exactly what these phrases are!

Consider having a professional keyword analysis done. It will tell you how many searches are performed for particular keywords or keyword phrases related to your target market on average each month. If “Central City Photographers” generates 2,500 searches per month, and “Central City Photography” generates 250 searches per month, which one would you use first?

Trust me – you can’t afford to guess when it comes to keywords!

There are many, many websites on keyword research, so I won't go into anymore detail here (but I will mention that you can get a comprehensive professional keyword analysis done for very little money by visiting my website at www.TampaBaySearch.net!).

I just wanted to show you how powerful linking is so you will be eager to LINK and be LINKED TO. As you can see "off-page" links can be just as important as "on-page" strategies. So when another webmaster sends you a link request, consider it carefully. It may be a GREAT opportunity to improve your rankings in the search engines! But don’t go out and start building links just yet – keep reading!

Choose Link Partners Carefully
Who is linking to you is important also. A link to your Florida beach vacation rental site from your brother's website on "stock-car racing in Louisiana" is not as powerful as getting a link from a site about Florida beaches or from a rental real estate site. Get links from sites that are related to yours in some meaningful way.

Also, avoid linking to or from "link farms" - sites that exist solely for the purpose of generating links. You can usually tell with a quick glance whether a page is part of a link farm (hundreds of outgoing links to unrelated sites is an easy clue). So can Google!

Note that this does not necessarily apply to sites that are commonly referred to as Directories. Directories usually specialize in a particular area of interest (i.e. a Directory of Wedding Planners) or a particular geographic area (i.e., a Directory of Small Businesses in Kalamazoo, Michigan). These can be excellent places to get links, as can local Chambers of Commerce and professional associations that maintain online membership databases. If you belong to one of these, be sure they have your website URL and link to you with the right keywords!

Finding Quality Link Partners
Here are two "tricks of the trade" for finding places to get links:

1) Google "Keyword + Add URL" or "Keyword + Directory" (obviously, replace the word Keyword with the actual Keyword you want to use).

2) Go to http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/, enter a website address in the box at the page, and click on "Explore URL". Click on "Inlinks", then choose Show Inlinks "except from this domain" to "entire site".

This is a great way to find out who is already linking to your site, and who is linking to your competition! (Hint - if they are linking to your competition, chances are they might be willing to link to you too!)

Properly Link Your Pages to Each Other
Finally, don’t underestimate the importance of internal links. Be sure to use keyword phrases when linking the pages in your site to each other. If your site is about "Florida Beaches", make sure every page on your site that links to the home page says "Florida Beaches Home" Rather than just "Home Page". This is an easy, yet often overlooked way to improve the way Google indexes and serves your site.

Now get a keyword analysis done, then go out and start building some LINKS!



©2009 Jeff Copeland, www.TampaBaySearch.net.
Portions ©David McRee, www.BeachHunter.net, with permission.
All Rights Reserved

crockett

As a happy customer of Jeffs I just wanted to confirm what Jeff is posting. I've recently hired him to take a look at my site and manage a PPC campaign. From the get go he has been extremely helpful, very responsive to any questions I might have and so far met every promise he made in his original offer.

Since it's early, I can't yet form an opinion on the worthiness of the PPC campaign but based on the sucess of his SEO help (explained below), I expect it will accomplish what Jeff says it can accomplish.

In one week Jeff has been able to place my website on the first page of google in 4 of the top ten keyword searches in my area. And we just missed hitting the first page for the key word:

Allegan Photographers

Naturally, I'm closely monitoring what effect this will have on my business and I will try to give an update in the future of how things go. If anyone has questions please feel free to contact me through my website.

Oh, and I should also add that I receive no "perks" for the compliments, just thought I'd give the community an honest update of my experiences thus far.

caroline

Following Jeff's advice I have made changes to my site which have much improved my search engine results. I had also implemented all the recommendation in 'How to maximise your findability" thread.
Thanks Jeff, I'm pleased with the results. :-)

Caroline