Keywords / SEO

JJs Photography

I'm still pretty green here at SM...So i've been reading that putting keywords in galleries is a great way to assist in SEO. So my two part question is:

1. IF you hide keywords from your guests view will it still assist with SEO?

2. IF so, what would i need to add to my CSS?

Thanks guys

Andy

Do not hide them. Googlebot doesn't like that.

JJs Photography

What's the best way to get the most out of SEO? I've looked through pages and pages googling my keywords etc and still cannot find my site listed anywhere...I even purchased a thing from GoDaddy, but find that you cannot change quite a few things..so i think i wasted my money on top 10 SEO from go daddy. Any suggestions would be appreciated

denisegoldberg

JJs Photography wrote: »

What's the best way to get the most out of SEO? I've looked through pages and pages googling my keywords etc and still cannot find my site listed anywhere...I even purchased a thing from GoDaddy, but find that you cannot change quite a few things..so i think i wasted my money on top 10 SEO from go daddy. Any suggestions would be appreciated

Have you seen this - http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93327?

Inbound links to your site are important. Do you have a blog? You can use that as an entry point to your site. Look at my blog for an example; clicking on photos in the blog take the viewer to my smug site. Do you post in forums? A link to your site there can help as well.

--- Denise

JJs Photography

denisegoldberg wrote: »

Have you seen this - http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93327?

Inbound links to your site are important. Do you have a blog? You can use that as an entry point to your site. Look at my blog for an example; clicking on photos in the blog take the viewer to my smug site. Do you post in forums? A link to your site there can help as well.

--- Denise

Well I started a blog, put keywords on my photographs, keywords in metadata. I don't know what else to do at this point. I don't post in too many forums.

denisegoldberg

JJs Photography wrote: »

Well I started a blog, put keywords on my photographs, keywords in metadata. I don't know what else to do at this point. I don't post in too many forums.

If I click on the photos in your blog I get Not Found Error 404.

Putting the photos in your blog won't do much for your SEO unless you link them to your smug site. The best method to add your photos to your blog is to use the HTML that you pick up from your smug site using Share... Get a link. Use the embedded version of the html - that will show the photo plus activate the link. Do not upload your photos to blogger.

Also - for the blog to do you any good you should plan on posting to it on a regular basis.

You should also add a link from your blog to your smug site, and a link from your smug site to your blog.

Take a look at my blog as an example.

Take a good look at your keywords. What you have now simply repeats the same words in multiple combinations. What is special about your offerings? Think about what makes you stand out from other photographers and think about the words that a potential client might use for searching.

You have hidden the breadcrumb on your site and for the most part haven't replaced it with something else. My thoughts on this are in the first post of the thread Are you really sure you want to hide the breadcrumb? Think of your viewers!

In addition, most of your galleries have no description. Keep in mind that search engines like words.

--- Denise

pabloconrad

Andy wrote: »

Do not hide them. Googlebot doesn't like that.

That's a drag. The keywords seem to make the page a touch more messy. I like the clean look without the keywords.

denisegoldberg wrote: »

Have you seen this - http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93327?

Inbound links to your site are important. Do you have a blog? You can use that as an entry point to your site. Look at my blog for an example; clicking on photos in the blog take the viewer to my smug site. Do you post in forums? A link to your site there can help as well.

--- Denise

I did not know this. I guess I'll have to go through my blog and add photos from my smug.

Thanks Denise and Andy.

Andy

PHOTOK wrote: »

Just change their color to the same color as the background of your website. This way they will blend in and won't be visible to humans. But web crawlers will still notice them because they won't have either the "visibility" or "display" CSS attributes set.

If you do this, they will still take up space on your website, though. You could also change the font-size to something very small so that they take up as little room as possible.

That should work.

Not advisable. Please folks, do not do this.

denisegoldberg

PHOTOK wrote: »

Just change their color to the same color as the background of your website. This way they will blend in and won't be visible to humans. But web crawlers will still notice them because they won't have either the "visibility" or "display" CSS attributes set.

I'll second Andy's advice. Hiding keywords is a bad idea; don't do that.

From the Google Webmaster Tools page at http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66353:

Hiding text or links in your content can cause your site to be perceived as untrustworthy since it presents information to search engines differently than to visitors.

--- Denise