As you see this bringes you to my post above that I did a few weeks ago.
So post a few pics on Digital Grin and put your Keywords on the same page.
Google will not find your image on smugmug but it will find your post on Digital grin.
So post a few pics on Digital Grin and put your Keywords on the same page and hope.
Just by chance a person that is looking for your image may just link in to see if you have a photo you want and then be smart and link to your smug mug page.
Maybe, maybe, maybe --not a good way to search. help:help
As you see this bringes you to my post above that I did a few weeks ago.
So post a few pics on Digital Grin and put your Keywords on the same page.
Google will not find your image on smugmug but it will find your post on Digital grin.
So post a few pics on Digital Grin and put your Keywords on the same page and hope.
Just by chance a person that is looking for your image may just link in to see if you have a photo you want and then be smart and link to your smug mug page.
Maybe, maybe, maybe --not a good way to search. help:help
Just an observation, but I find the dgrin posts DO show up in a google search, but their life is fairly limited. In other words, the dgrin threads don't stay "above the fold" for long, but websites and blogs and keyworded photos do stay listed fairly prominently for a much longer time. Seems google is fairly adept at figuring out what is a forum post and what is an actual website-- least in my experience.
I think all of us who understand this problem should come together and let Smugmug know that we care about this issue and would like it "fixed". I would accept either of your suggestions, but making it customizable would be best.
To be clear, the meta description on the home page is the issue. We cannot change that one. All gallery pages are okay as the "gallery description" is converted to a meta description on the gallery pages.
Attention Sumgmug: Just add a "site description" field to the control panel Customization Settings and then use whatever we put there as the meta description on any page (home page or whatever) that doesn't currently have a customizable description (such as the gallery pages) and the problem will be solved.
I completely agree. Has there been any answer from SmugMug on this?
How effective is blogging ?
In the first post of this thread Andy advises starting a blog, I haven't quite got that far yet and I'm wondering what people think about its effectiveness for increasing findability ?
What tips does anyone have for a really good blog ?
I think all of us who understand this problem should come together and let Smugmug know that we care about this issue and would like it "fixed". I would accept either of your suggestions, but making it customizable would be best.
To be clear, the meta description on the home page is the issue. We cannot change that one. All gallery pages are okay as the "gallery description" is converted to a meta description on the gallery pages.
Actually, that's only part of the issue. The major one is the document title. A better document title for each page could easily be generated (especially since a gallery description can already be converted to a meta description!), and/or it could be made customizable. Customizable meta descriptions and meta keywords are next (either or both may be used by search engines) but the title is the most important thing. See the post I just made here for a somewhat more detailed explanation.
Marjolein Katsma
Look through my eyes on Cultural Surfaces! - customizing... currently in a state between limbo and chaos
Ouch!! Do not do that or search engines will consider you're keyword-spamming. Any way to hide keywords from the viewer while embedding them in the source is a way of keyword spamming for search engines - they can detect that (they won't tell you what they look for) and if so you may be banned or have your ranked lowered.
This is very bad, and potentially harmful advice you're giving there.
See Google's Hidden text and links. That's just Google - other search engines have a similar view on hiding keywords.
Marjolein Katsma
Look through my eyes on Cultural Surfaces! - customizing... currently in a state between limbo and chaos
I have been trying to get my site appear in google for searches with the following
mendip
mendips
mendip hills
the mendip hills
but it only shows about 10 pages down. Is there any specific way I can improve this and also generally my sites 'findability' ?
Hi Caroline!
I've been poking around a bit but before I go on to say "yes there are things you can do" you should realize that being within the first 10 pages of search results isn't at all bad! And your position can vary by day - I often find references to my site coming from a particular search result page and when I go there it's no longer on that page, so it's either moved up or down, sometimes by quite a few pages. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) isn't an exact science, it's more of a continuous guessing game as the search engines are constantly adjusting their algorithms, and websites are constantly appearing, disappearing, or changing their content.
And a disclaimer: I'm still only a week into my free trial account, so I don't know yet all the ins and outs of customization; I've spent quite a bit of time poking through the tutorials and the forums here on Digital Grin, so I do have a good impression, at least.
OK, here goes.
Incoming links
I've mentioned this before, but "quality" incoming links are (especially for Google) very important in determining your ranking (provided you score on keywords first). "Quality" means that "link farms" are excluded (they won't help, and are actually likely to harm), and that pages with a good "page rank" will give your site a (tiny) percentage of that page rank. So the more good incoming links, the more your own page rank will climb.
A few ideas:
When I go to your site (the URL in your sig), I find a link to your navigation bar to your blog (good!) and when I follow that link I find a number of links to your pages at your site at http://www.carolineshipsey.co.uk/ (good!) but I find no link back to your SmugMug URL. Don't overdo it, but a single, unobtrusive, link from your blog (in the side bar, maybe) to there would be one more incoming link. And the better your blog ranks, the more valuable that link. Don't go and hide that link though, since search engines consider that spamming.
Through your blog I found a link to your gallery for The Mendip Farmer's Hunt, in which you have a link to their website. When I go there, I find they have a links page, listing other hunts. You could contact them, explain you have a photo gallery, and suggest they create an extra section on their links page and include a back link to you since you already link to them. You may find there are other opportunities like this in the area you concentrate on.
Every image embedded in a page must have an alt attribute (even if it's an empty string); if the image is not purely decorative, the alt text should be written to replace the image when it's not (yet) visible
Search engine bots are effectively "blind" so they cannot read text on an image - but they do read alt attributes
To a blindless human visitor a page banner acts like the main headline; for a blind visitor (including search engine bots) it doesn't unless you tell it it's the main headline by wrapping it in a h1 tag.
For a search engine bot the two changes above (relevant alt text and h1 tag) combine to form an effective page headline; and keywords contained in headlines count more towards search results than other words on a page
Now, looking at your site, I find that you're using a transparent gif in your banner, combined with a background image defined by your stylesheet (CSS), which is an extension of the Banner tutorial - and a good one. But (following a link from your blog again) I end up at your "Mendip Hills Area" gallery. [Note: that's a phrase you didn't mention having searched for!] Looking at the source of that page, I see you have actually two banners defined there (with CSS to match for two different background images) - again an extension of the Banner Tutorial, which explains how to show two different banner images depending on the page, but using just one line of HTML. Actually, your method with two different banner blocks in your HTML is an opportunity for better SEO, provided you don't go overboard with it:
First, apply my method to each of you banners, adding an alt attribute to the img tag in each which reflect the actual text shown in the background image used as your banner. You should have a "Caroline Shipsey Photography" for the main page, and a "The Mendip Hills by Caroline Shipsey" for the gallery page where a different banner appears. Wrap both banners (including link) in a h1 tag as shown in my post.
Now, with your stylesheet that shows either one of the banners and hides the other, depending on where you are, a human visitor will see one of the two alternative banners, But consider what a search engine bot will see: Twoh1 headlines, because a bot doesn't interpret your stylesheet (though it may read it to detect possible keyword spamming).
Two main headlines, without any content in-between, is a bit much, right? Headlines are supposed to indicate the structure of your page. Maybe not too bad if it's only two, but if you extend the idea for all possible categories and galleries you may have, search engines may decide "headline spamming" (lots of headlines hidden by CSS) is as bad or worse as "keyword spamming" (lots of keywords hidden by CSS). So I'd suggest a variation:
Use only h1 for your main site headline, and
use a h2 headline (one level "lower") for your main categories, and leave it at that.
There's a possible variation, too:
Use only one main heading (with a h1 heading) throughout your site
On each category or gallery page, use a textualh2 headline, and a bit of blurb in a paragraph (p) below that to describe the category/gallery, using keywords that are relevant for that particular page. Take care to use natural language, not just a list of keywords! For galleries you can do this in your Gallery description - I don't think one can add a Category description (which would be useful!), but you can do the CSS hiding trick again as long as you don't overdo it.
But this is a photography site!
True, and a picture is worth a thousand words, and all that. But not for search engines - they cannot see, or index, the content of images yet. A website that consists of nothing but code and images, and no textual content, is effectively empty as far as search engines are concerned. That's why even photographers need headlines, captions, descriptions and keywords, and display them on their web pages, in order to provide food for the search engine bots. So, a photographer presenting her work on a website may need to learn to write a little - writing may not be what you're paid for, but it will help making your website "findable". Search engines need text.
Valid code
What's that? HTML, and CSS, are formal languages, with a precise grammar for how to write them. Now humans may talk to each other using ungrammatical language, and still be understood, but computer programs (like browsers and search engine bots) will be a lot more efficient if they didn't have to guess at the intention of ungrammatical language - and sometimes they can't even guess. They'll start by assuming the language (HTML, CSS, etc) they're give actually follows the grammatical rules. If not, they may stumble, and try another approach, effectively guessing. That's extra work, and they may guess wrong. (And different browsers may guess in different ways.)
So search engines prefer valid code these days - it makes them more efficient at reading pages! - and their webmaster guidelines usually mention this; if your site's code is not valid, it may not only cause things not working, it may also harm you results in the search engines.
Unfortunately, the code generated by SmugMug is consistently not valid (doesn't match the grammar the code says it's using). We can't change that for now (that would be a whole nother thread) but for people customizing their sites it's important to at least make sure that their own customizations are valid HTML or CSS. So how?
Get (and install) the Web Developer Toolbar for Firefox/Mozilla/Seamonkey/Netscape and use it - especially to validate your pages. Now you will see several errors caused by SmugMug itself, but there may also be some caused by your own customizations. If you don't understand it, or don't know what to do, post either in the SmugMug Customization forum here or sign up for the friendly and helpful Desktop Publishing Forum (where I also hang out: it's just as much about DTP as about web design!) and ask there. In either case, don't forget to mention the exact URL you're getting validation error messages for.
Enough for now... Start hacking (and writing)! And if you get into trouble, you know two forums where you can find me.
Note: I don't answer by PM - I prefer that my writing time benefits more than a single person: that's what forums are for.
Marjolein Katsma
Look through my eyes on Cultural Surfaces! - customizing... currently in a state between limbo and chaos
Are quotes messing me up?
Let me start by saying Google is ignoring me...unless I type in garymorgenphotography (which finds my smugmug meta tag), I don't find my site anywhere.
I've read this thread and the help files. I'm putting keywords on ALL my photos. No luck. I'm wondering if the quotes are throwing me off. I noticed that the batch input injects a starting and ending double quote upon preview. Since some of my keywords have double quotes around them, the resulting string seems wrong.
For example, let's say my my keywords are Gary Morgen Photography "Gary Morgen Photography" Portraits "New York" Photos
Upon preview in the batch facility, they read: "Gary Morgen Photography "Gary Morgen Photography" Portraits "New York" Photos"
The quotes seem to be around the wrong things.
Am I doing something wrong?
The fact that Google does not seem to use my keywords indicates I probably am.
Let me start by saying Google is ignoring me...unless I type in garymorgenphotography (which finds my smugmug meta tag), I don't find my site anywhere.
I've read this thread and the help files. I'm putting keywords on ALL my photos. No luck. I'm wondering if the quotes are throwing me off. I noticed that the batch input injects a starting and ending double quote upon preview. Since some of my keywords have double quotes around them, the resulting string seems wrong.
For example, let's say my my keywords are Gary Morgen Photography "Gary Morgen Photography" Portraits "New York" Photos
Upon preview in the batch facility, they read: "Gary Morgen Photography "Gary Morgen Photography" Portraits "New York" Photos"
The quotes seem to be around the wrong things.
Am I doing something wrong?
The fact that Google does not seem to use my keywords indicates I probably am.
Try with single one in first position with quotes.
"Photos" Gary Morgen Photography "Gary Morgen Photography" Portraits "New York"
True
Thanks much for the links. Lots to learn there.
In one link I read about using "True" which I think would be me. I spend a lot of time evaluating my work and tweaking where necessary. For me, it is an important part of what I do.
I have a tendancy to underexpose. I do this on purpose because I like the effect. You mentioned that photos tend to print on the dark side. Is there anyway that I test the effect so that I can adjust my "darkroom/lightroom" work if necessary? I'm using a Mac G5.
I noticed that when I upload a photograph with keywords embedded in the IPTC data, SmugMug picks up the keywords but in the result the multi-word keywords (key phrases) are not enclosed in quotes at all! Instead, all keywords (single or multi-word) are simply separated by semicolons. Which seems to work just as well. I even edited such a series adding a new one (with another ; separator before) and that shows up as well.
Maybe the tutorial/faq/whatever should be amended to mention this alternative?
Marjolein Katsma
Look through my eyes on Cultural Surfaces! - customizing... currently in a state between limbo and chaos
In the first post of this thread Andy advises starting a blog, I haven't quite got that far yet and I'm wondering what people think about its effectiveness for increasing findability ?
What tips does anyone have for a really good blog ?
Caroline
I am interested in learning more about this as well. I have started a blog, but I'm not sure how to make it an effective way of bringing viewers to my smugmug home.
Do I mention my site in each post? Do I just have a link to my site on it? Is there a "blog" site that is better for photography?
It doesn't seem to be an alternative
I tried separating my keywords with semicolons...the result was that none of my keywords were recognized anymore.
I went back to quotes and added some key words to three photos WITHOUT the bulk update and those were recognized on my homepage keywords...clicking on them listed the photos correctly. I then used the bulk update and cut and paste the same keywords into a gallery. None of those photos were accessible from my home page...only the three I did without bulk update.
I doubt there's a bug in bulk update or everyone would be complaining...but I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong!
I noticed that when I upload a photograph with keywords embedded in the IPTC data, SmugMug picks up the keywords but in the result the multi-word keywords (key phrases) are not enclosed in quotes at all! Instead, all keywords (single or multi-word) are simply separated by semicolons. Which seems to work just as well. I even edited such a series adding a new one (with another ; separator before) and that shows up as well.
Maybe the tutorial/faq/whatever should be amended to mention this alternative?
I went back to quotes and added some key words to three photos WITHOUT the bulk update and those were recognized on my homepage keywords...clicking on them listed the photos correctly. I then used the bulk update and cut and paste the same keywords into a gallery. None of those photos were accessible from my home page...only the three I did without bulk update.
I doubt there's a bug in bulk update or everyone would be complaining...but I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong!
Help!.
I doubt you're doing something wrong... Could it be that using bulk update causes the photos to end up in a queue somewhere while an update for a single photo is implemented immediately?
Anyone?
Marjolein Katsma
Look through my eyes on Cultural Surfaces! - customizing... currently in a state between limbo and chaos
The bug is in bulk update
I have confirmation from Smugmug support that the problem is in the bulk update function and that they are working on a fix. No expected date on when it will be resolved...hopefully soon!
I doubt you're doing something wrong... Could it be that using bulk update causes the photos to end up in a queue somewhere while an update for a single photo is implemented immediately?
I am interested in learning more about this as well. I have started a blog, but I'm not sure how to make it an effective way of bringing viewers to my smugmug home.
Do I mention my site in each post? Do I just have a link to my site on it? Is there a "blog" site that is better for photography?
there is a "photo galleries" link in the menu sidebar, and
I included photos from my galleries in my blog entries, including a link back to the gallery that contains that photo. But - if you want to do something like this you will need to allow links from outside of smugmug (ext. links = yes).
Here's a sample of the html I use to include photos in my blog (remove the *s):
Code sample, as fixed by iamback (with thanks! I thought I checked the code after inserting it, but obviously I didn't):
I am interested in learning more about this as well. I have started a blog, but I'm not sure how to make it an effective way of bringing viewers to my smugmug home.
Do I mention my site in each post? Do I just have a link to my site on it? Is there a "blog" site that is better for photography?
Thanks!
Hi Montesa,
I can only really echo most of what Denise has said in her post, I have links from my blog to galleries, and fom my site to my blog, but haven't got as far as including images in the actual blog yet. I can confirm from Google analytics that I am getting visitors to my site from the blog. My main problem is that I haven't made the time to keep going with fresh material and I forget how to do things
I think the nitty gritty is that as Andy suggests it is worth doing.
Pete Springer posted a couple of days ago :- http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=63144&highlight=dogwood
making good points as to why its worth the effort
I usually use the photo icon on Blogger to insert a photo, but thought I would try your way with the code you posted above. The idea of having more links pointing back to my site interests me.
I have a question for you.
Do you have a way of wrapping the text around the image instead of having it go at the bottom, after the text has been written.
This is how I have mine currently by using the upload image icon:
Now, that will work for people already on your site, clicking the link - no problem there. Search engine bots however, see an empty link: there's no link description - bots can't see images! - which also means there is text to index for that link. That counts for very little - and it also illustrates why an alt attribute is required for images: that's so when there is no image to be seen, there will still be meaningful text to replace it. And when there is alt text in a link image, a search engine bot will use that as the link description.
Incoming links are most valuable when they have meaningful link text. So, I'd suggest you add an alt attribute that matches the caption for the image you're linking to. You do have captions for your images, don't you?
Comments
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Google this
Keywords
"blue water lily" "flower" "flowers" "garden" "botanical gardens " "denver colorado " "daniel p woods" "stock photo" "stock photos" "stock photography" "flowergarden" "botanicalgardens" " botanical gardens " "denver colorado" "nature photography " "stock photo database" "fine art print" "macro photography" "photo database" "library photo" "protection" "conservation" "environmental" "horticulture"
As you see this bringes you to my post above that I did a few weeks ago.
So post a few pics on Digital Grin and put your Keywords on the same page.
Google will not find your image on smugmug but it will find your post on Digital grin.
So post a few pics on Digital Grin and put your Keywords on the same page and hope.
Just by chance a person that is looking for your image may just link in to see if you have a photo you want and then be smart and link to your smug mug page.
Maybe, maybe, maybe --not a good way to search.
http://danspage.smugmug.com/
Scratch Nikon I switched to
Canon 5d mark II
Have you followed ALL of my other tips?
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Just an observation, but I find the dgrin posts DO show up in a google search, but their life is fairly limited. In other words, the dgrin threads don't stay "above the fold" for long, but websites and blogs and keyworded photos do stay listed fairly prominently for a much longer time. Seems google is fairly adept at figuring out what is a forum post and what is an actual website-- least in my experience.
Portland, Oregon Photographer Pete Springer
website blog instagram facebook g+
I completely agree. Has there been any answer from SmugMug on this?
My site:Fine Image Photography
I would also like to see the option of changing home page meta tags, particularly the description and keywords. This makes so much sense.
Are you listening SmugMug?
Why no answers on this with all the questions?
Monte
In the first post of this thread Andy advises starting a blog, I haven't quite got that far yet and I'm wondering what people think about its effectiveness for increasing findability ?
What tips does anyone have for a really good blog ?
Caroline
www.carolineshipsey.co.uk - Follow me on G+
[/URL]
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=549188#post549188
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Actually, that's only part of the issue. The major one is the document title. A better document title for each page could easily be generated (especially since a gallery description can already be converted to a meta description!), and/or it could be made customizable. Customizable meta descriptions and meta keywords are next (either or both may be used by search engines) but the title is the most important thing. See the post I just made here for a somewhat more detailed explanation.
Look through my eyes on Cultural Surfaces! - customizing... currently in a state between limbo and chaos
This is very bad, and potentially harmful advice you're giving there.
See Google's Hidden text and links. That's just Google - other search engines have a similar view on hiding keywords.
Look through my eyes on Cultural Surfaces! - customizing... currently in a state between limbo and chaos
I have been trying to get my site appear in google for searches with the following
mendip
mendips
mendip hills
the mendip hills
but it only shows about 10 pages down. Is there any specific way I can improve this and also generally my sites 'findability' ?
Caroline
www.carolineshipsey.co.uk - Follow me on G+
[/URL]
Hi Caroline!
I've been poking around a bit
And a disclaimer: I'm still only a week into my free trial account, so I don't know yet all the ins and outs of customization; I've spent quite a bit of time poking through the tutorials and the forums here on Digital Grin, so I do have a good impression, at least.
OK, here goes.
Incoming links
I've mentioned this before, but "quality" incoming links are (especially for Google) very important in determining your ranking (provided you score on keywords first). "Quality" means that "link farms" are excluded (they won't help, and are actually likely to harm), and that pages with a good "page rank" will give your site a (tiny) percentage of that page rank. So the more good incoming links, the more your own page rank will climb.
A few ideas:
Banner as page headline
You've probably already seen my post where I explain how to optimize your graphical site banner. In summary:
- Every image embedded in a page must have an alt attribute (even if it's an empty string); if the image is not purely decorative, the alt text should be written to replace the image when it's not (yet) visible
- Search engine bots are effectively "blind" so they cannot read text on an image - but they do read alt attributes
- To a blindless human visitor a page banner acts like the main headline; for a blind visitor (including search engine bots) it doesn't unless you tell it it's the main headline by wrapping it in a h1 tag.
- For a search engine bot the two changes above (relevant alt text and h1 tag) combine to form an effective page headline; and keywords contained in headlines count more towards search results than other words on a page
Now, looking at your site, I find that you're using a transparent gif in your banner, combined with a background image defined by your stylesheet (CSS), which is an extension of the Banner tutorial - and a good one. But (following a link from your blog again) I end up at your "Mendip Hills Area" gallery. [Note: that's a phrase you didn't mention having searched for!] Looking at the source of that page, I see you have actually two banners defined there (with CSS to match for two different background images) - again an extension of the Banner Tutorial, which explains how to show two different banner images depending on the page, but using just one line of HTML. Actually, your method with two different banner blocks in your HTML is an opportunity for better SEO, provided you don't go overboard with it:- First, apply my method to each of you banners, adding an alt attribute to the img tag in each which reflect the actual text shown in the background image used as your banner. You should have a "Caroline Shipsey Photography" for the main page, and a "The Mendip Hills by Caroline Shipsey" for the gallery page where a different banner appears. Wrap both banners (including link) in a h1 tag as shown in my post.
- Now, with your stylesheet that shows either one of the banners and hides the other, depending on where you are, a human visitor will see one of the two alternative banners, But consider what a search engine bot will see: Two h1 headlines, because a bot doesn't interpret your stylesheet (though it may read it to detect possible keyword spamming).
- Two main headlines, without any content in-between, is a bit much, right? Headlines are supposed to indicate the structure of your page. Maybe not too bad if it's only two, but if you extend the idea for all possible categories and galleries you may have, search engines may decide "headline spamming" (lots of headlines hidden by CSS) is as bad or worse as "keyword spamming" (lots of keywords hidden by CSS). So I'd suggest a variation:
- Use only h1 for your main site headline, and
- use a h2 headline (one level "lower") for your main categories, and leave it at that.
There's a possible variation, too:But this is a photography site!
True, and a picture is worth a thousand words, and all that. But not for search engines - they cannot see, or index, the content of images yet. A website that consists of nothing but code and images, and no textual content, is effectively empty as far as search engines are concerned. That's why even photographers need headlines, captions, descriptions and keywords, and display them on their web pages, in order to provide food for the search engine bots. So, a photographer presenting her work on a website may need to learn to write a little - writing may not be what you're paid for, but it will help making your website "findable". Search engines need text.
Valid code
What's that? HTML, and CSS, are formal languages, with a precise grammar for how to write them. Now humans may talk to each other using ungrammatical language, and still be understood, but computer programs (like browsers and search engine bots) will be a lot more efficient if they didn't have to guess at the intention of ungrammatical language - and sometimes they can't even guess. They'll start by assuming the language (HTML, CSS, etc) they're give actually follows the grammatical rules. If not, they may stumble, and try another approach, effectively guessing. That's extra work, and they may guess wrong. (And different browsers may guess in different ways.)
So search engines prefer valid code these days - it makes them more efficient at reading pages! - and their webmaster guidelines usually mention this; if your site's code is not valid, it may not only cause things not working, it may also harm you results in the search engines.
Unfortunately, the code generated by SmugMug is consistently not valid (doesn't match the grammar the code says it's using). We can't change that for now (that would be a whole nother thread) but for people customizing their sites it's important to at least make sure that their own customizations are valid HTML or CSS. So how?
Get (and install) the Web Developer Toolbar for Firefox/Mozilla/Seamonkey/Netscape and use it - especially to validate your pages. Now you will see several errors caused by SmugMug itself, but there may also be some caused by your own customizations. If you don't understand it, or don't know what to do, post either in the SmugMug Customization forum here or sign up for the friendly and helpful Desktop Publishing Forum (where I also hang out: it's just as much about DTP as about web design!) and ask there. In either case, don't forget to mention the exact URL you're getting validation error messages for.
Enough for now... Start hacking (and writing)! And if you get into trouble, you know two forums where you can find me.
Note: I don't answer by PM - I prefer that my writing time benefits more than a single person: that's what forums are for.
Look through my eyes on Cultural Surfaces! - customizing... currently in a state between limbo and chaos
Hi Marjolein
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=45537
Thanks very much for all that info - plenty to work on there. Hope others will find it useful too.
Caroline
www.carolineshipsey.co.uk - Follow me on G+
[/URL]
Let me start by saying Google is ignoring me...unless I type in garymorgenphotography (which finds my smugmug meta tag), I don't find my site anywhere.
I've read this thread and the help files. I'm putting keywords on ALL my photos. No luck. I'm wondering if the quotes are throwing me off. I noticed that the batch input injects a starting and ending double quote upon preview. Since some of my keywords have double quotes around them, the resulting string seems wrong.
For example, let's say my my keywords are Gary Morgen Photography "Gary Morgen Photography" Portraits "New York" Photos
Upon preview in the batch facility, they read: "Gary Morgen Photography "Gary Morgen Photography" Portraits "New York" Photos"
The quotes seem to be around the wrong things.
Am I doing something wrong?
The fact that Google does not seem to use my keywords indicates I probably am.
"Photos" Gary Morgen Photography "Gary Morgen Photography" Portraits "New York"
My Website index | My Blog
So...I inserted:
"Gary" Morgen Photography "Gary Morgen Photography" blahblahblah
into the bulk keyword facility, and upon preview, each box contained:
""Gary" Morgen Photography "Gary Morgen Photography" blahblahblah"
????
I use Lightroom and keyword all my photographs. Will this information upload to SM or do I have to put it in again?
Thanks!
http://www.smugmug.com/help/keywords-tags
http://smugmug.jot.com/WikiHome/Pros
http://smugmug.jot.com/WikiHome/Pros/AddingKeywordsToMetadata
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Thanks much for the links. Lots to learn there.
In one link I read about using "True" which I think would be me. I spend a lot of time evaluating my work and tweaking where necessary. For me, it is an important part of what I do.
I have a tendancy to underexpose. I do this on purpose because I like the effect. You mentioned that photos tend to print on the dark side. Is there anyway that I test the effect so that I can adjust my "darkroom/lightroom" work if necessary? I'm using a Mac G5.
Maybe the tutorial/faq/whatever should be amended to mention this alternative?
Look through my eyes on Cultural Surfaces! - customizing... currently in a state between limbo and chaos
I am interested in learning more about this as well. I have started a blog, but I'm not sure how to make it an effective way of bringing viewers to my smugmug home.
Do I mention my site in each post? Do I just have a link to my site on it? Is there a "blog" site that is better for photography?
Thanks!
MontesaBryant.com
My Smug
My Facebook
I tried separating my keywords with semicolons...the result was that none of my keywords were recognized anymore.
I went back to quotes and added some key words to three photos WITHOUT the bulk update and those were recognized on my homepage keywords...clicking on them listed the photos correctly. I then used the bulk update and cut and paste the same keywords into a gallery. None of those photos were accessible from my home page...only the three I did without bulk update.
I doubt there's a bug in bulk update or everyone would be complaining...but I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong!
Help!.
Anyone?
Look through my eyes on Cultural Surfaces! - customizing... currently in a state between limbo and chaos
I have downloades a few photos but the keywords did not come up with them. Is there something in particular I need to do to make that happen
I have confirmation from Smugmug support that the problem is in the bulk update function and that they are working on a fix. No expected date on when it will be resolved...hopefully soon!
- there is a "photo galleries" link in the menu sidebar, and
- I included photos from my galleries in my blog entries, including a link back to the gallery that contains that photo. But - if you want to do something like this you will need to allow links from outside of smugmug (ext. links = yes).
Here's a sample of the html I use to include photos in my blog (remove the *s):Links that show the syntax for the 2 html elements that I referenced:
http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/html40/special/img.html
Hope this helps.
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
Hi Montesa,
I can only really echo most of what Denise has said in her post, I have links from my blog to galleries, and fom my site to my blog, but haven't got as far as including images in the actual blog yet. I can confirm from Google analytics that I am getting visitors to my site from the blog. My main problem is that I haven't made the time to keep going with fresh material and I forget how to do things
I think the nitty gritty is that as Andy suggests it is worth doing.
Pete Springer posted a couple of days ago :-
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=63144&highlight=dogwood
making good points as to why its worth the effort
Caroline
www.carolineshipsey.co.uk - Follow me on G+
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I usually use the photo icon on Blogger to insert a photo, but thought I would try your way with the code you posted above. The idea of having more links pointing back to my site interests me.
I have a question for you.
Do you have a way of wrapping the text around the image instead of having it go at the bottom, after the text has been written.
This is how I have mine currently by using the upload image icon:
http://photographybykml.blogspot.com/
When trying with the code you posted, I can only enter text above the image, I can't get the cursor to go anywhere else around or below the image.
Thanks!
Kathy
http://photographybykml.com
http://photographybykml.blogspot.com
Your code got a bit confused, maybe trying to get past the HTML code-showing limitations. Let me try to fix that up, and then make a suggestion.
Your code sample, fixed:
Now, that will work for people already on your site, clicking the link - no problem there. Search engine bots however, see an empty link: there's no link description - bots can't see images! - which also means there is text to index for that link. That counts for very little - and it also illustrates why an alt attribute is required for images: that's so when there is no image to be seen, there will still be meaningful text to replace it. And when there is alt text in a link image, a search engine bot will use that as the link description.
Incoming links are most valuable when they have meaningful link text. So, I'd suggest you add an alt attribute that matches the caption for the image you're linking to. You do have captions for your images, don't you?
So, your SEO'd image link would look like this: (all on one line, and remove the *) - just fill in your caption (I didn't look).
Look through my eyes on Cultural Surfaces! - customizing... currently in a state between limbo and chaos
www.carolineshipsey.co.uk - Follow me on G+
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