I want to get hit!

cycleman

I am looking to update my galleries and the pics in them. in the process of doing this, I also want to do whatever I need to do to get my site noticed and visited by other smugmuggers and the world.
I know absolutely nothing about marketing. I am a total novice.
keywording seems to be one of the most important things. I see that you can edit keywords in SM, but apparently you can insert keywords in programs like Lightroom (which I have), and SM will read them and add them when you upload them (if they're JPG or TIFF).
so...let's say that I have a bunch of related photos. I want to apply the same keywords to them. I would go to the IPTC panel and enter the info:. go to keywording, then enter the appropriate keywords. then what? do I save that as a preset? or can I just then select the desired photos and hit "synch settings"? and am I right to assume that I then need to export those images so that the keywords are embedded? and then upload to SM and SM will make note of these keywords.
assuming that I enter keywords for all of my images, are these the things that Google looks for when doing a search?
are there good strategies to follow as regards to keywording in general?
are there other things that I should be doing to "get noticed" on the web? outside of SM?
thanks much for all your help. :clap

paulbrock

cycleman wrote:

are there good strategies to follow as regards to keywording in general?
are there other things that I should be doing to "get noticed" on the web? outside of SM?
thanks much for all your help.

Not sure about the Lightroom thing, but...

The important thing for SEO (search engine optimising) is not imbedding keywords in your images, it's that Smugmug extracts them, and puts them on the page.

Add captions to ALL your photos, and keywords too. (even if they're duplicate pictures, simply duplicate the captions) Add keywords and captions to galleries. Simply, keyword anything that people might want to use to search for your pics, so a picture of Big Ben should be tagged "Big Ben" "London" "houses of parliament" clock clockface Westminster tourism, etc....

Smugmug seems to do a good job at getting search traffic anyway, so you just need to get relevant traffic, by telling google what your photos are of.

Make sure you've added something like Google analytics to your pages so you can see where visitors come from, and what keywords they type in to get to your page. I tend to get hits after putting gig photos up - I tag them with the band's name, then anyone searching for the band name should find it, especially if they search for "band name pictures" or "band name venue name". I also get quite a few visits a year after doing an event, people search for e.g. "Thames festival" and they find my photos from the previous year! It's worth looking at Google Adwords too (Pay-per-click), not free but can be very good at driving your traffic, it accounts for about half of mine.

denisegoldberg

There are some good tips in this wiki entry:
http://wiki.smugmug.com/display/SmugMug/Maximize+Search+Engine+Findability

--- Denise

cycleman

hi, Paul,

thanks much for responsing! this is very helpful!!!

just to make sure that I understand you......

paulbrock wrote:

The important thing for SEO (search engine optimising) is not imbedding keywords in your images, it's that Smugmug extracts them, and puts them on the page.

are you saying that google does not search for IPTC keywords when doing a search? or that the keywords would be mostly of use to SM users? I see the point of SM being able to extract them andput them on the page.

Add captions to ALL your photos, and keywords too. (even if they're duplicate pictures, simply duplicate the captions) Add keywords and captions to galleries. Simply, keyword anything that people might want to use to search for your pics, so a picture of Big Ben should be tagged "Big Ben" "London" "houses of parliament" clock clockface Westminster tourism, etc....

got it.

Smugmug seems to do a good job at getting search traffic anyway, so you just need to get relevant traffic, by telling google what your photos are of.

Make sure you've added something like Google analytics to your pages so you can see where visitors come from, and what keywords they type in to get to your page. I tend to get hits after putting gig photos up - I tag them with the band's name, then anyone searching for the band name should find it, especially if they search for "band name pictures" or "band name venue name". I also get quite a few visits a year after doing an event, people search for e.g. "Thames festival" and they find my photos from the previous year! It's worth looking at Google Adwords too (Pay-per-click), not free but can be very good at driving your traffic, it accounts for about half of mine.

I didn't know about that. I'll look for it. is that something you can do from within SM or is it a separate program?

aside from lightroom, there are apparently programs that can streamline the process of entering keywords and captions, like "breeze browser." do you use anything like that, or do you just enter them manually from within SM?

thanks again, this is very helpful to a novice like me.

BTW, I like your site and the way it's presented, especially the film strip thumbs. is that a view option in SM?

take care. :ivar

cycleman

denisegoldberg wrote:

There are some good tips in this wiki entry:
http://wiki.smugmug.com/display/SmugMug/Maximize+Search+Engine+Findability

--- Denise

Denise,

thanks for responding. I am looking at that article and there are some very good tips. can you do blogs from within SM?

BTW I looked at your site and some of your images, I like them a lot, especially the nature and landscape ones. I also like the fact that you're a biker, I'm a bike fanatic myself. I am currently riding a recumbent (can't ride a regular bike anymore) and I love it. my bike is an important part of my photography.

I've been to Maine a few times, it's beautiful, but it's been several years since I've been there. would love to see it again.

take care.

dick louderman

denisegoldberg

cycleman wrote:

Denise,

thanks for responding. I am looking at that article and there are some very good tips. can you do blogs from within SM?

BTW I looked at your site and some of your images, I like them a lot, especially the nature and landscape ones. I also like the fact that you're a biker, I'm a bike fanatic myself. I am currently riding a recumbent (can't ride a regular bike anymore) and I love it. my bike is an important part of my photography.

I've been to Maine a few times, it's beautiful, but it's been several years since I've been there. would love to see it again.

take care.

dick louderman

It sounds like we definitely have some common interests. My bike and my camera are pretty tightly coupled...

As far as blogs go, I've kept mine independent but linked to my smugmug site. If you want to embed a blog within smugmug, you might be interested in this post from richW where he shows how to place an external blog inside a smugmug gallery: http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=628906&postcount=4.

Also - you asked Paul (above) about filmstrip thumbs. That is a standard gallery style, just select style: filmstrip.

--- Denise

endsoftheearth

First Time- New Site

denisegoldberg wrote:

There are some good tips in this wiki entry:
http://wiki.smugmug.com/display/SmugMug/Maximize+Search+Engine+Findability

--- Denise

Thanks for the good advice. I have been too busy in field photography to be fluent in this side of things. This site is brand spanking new, and I think I have alot to offer. I would appreciate any feedback after looking at my new site. Endsoftheearthphoto.com

Bill

paulbrock

Hi Dick, I'm also a cyclist/photographer, it's a good combo for covering a lot of ground inbetween shots, though I'm finding it harder and harder to take my kit with me!!

To respond to your questions:

are you saying that google does not search for IPTC keywords when doing a search? or that the keywords would be mostly of use to SM users? I see the point of SM being able to extract them andput them on the page.

AFAIK, Google doesn't index IPTC keywords, so it's definitely a huge advantage having Smugmug putting them as text on the page.

Make sure you've added something like Google analytics to your pages so you can see where visitors come from, and what keywords they type in to get to your page.....

I didn't know about that. I'll look for it. is that something you can do from within SM or is it a separate program?

Google Analytics is great, and free! see www.google.com/analytics, and search on here to see the best ways to use it on Smugmug.

aside from lightroom, there are apparently programs that can streamline the process of entering keywords and captions, like "breeze browser." do you use anything like that, or do you just enter them manually from within SM?

I just use the SM interface, particularly bulk captioning, if I have lots of photos of the same thing.

BTW, I like your site and the way it's presented, especially the film strip thumbs. is that a view option in SM?

yes, it's a standard Smugmug view, called 'filmstrip'. :-) I think it's a nice simple view which allows you to have big pictures still.

HTH!

dogwood

Another tip-- post photos for critique both here on dgrin and on other photo websites and include your url in your signature. You can easily get a hundred unique visitors by posting on some of the big forums like dpreview. People tend to be curious and want to see more.

cycleman

Denise,

thanks again for the info. so I can do a blog either way. seems like it might be simpler just to link externally, altho it doesn't seem too difficult to put it on a SM page, either.

denisegoldberg wrote:

It sounds like we definitely have some common interests. My bike and my camera are pretty tightly coupled...

for many, many years now my bike has been my main, almost only form of transportation. and it definitely has affected my photography. when you're biking, you see the world and everything around you in a whole different way, more slowly, more intensely. certainly better than getting around in a car.

I have a book - "petit traité de vélosophie" (the philosophy of cycling) that some friends gave me years ago. I wish it were available in english as well. but one of the author's points is that a cyclist is a creator, uniquely creating his/her world as he/she rides.

(more "vélosophie" here:)
http://presencedutouch.free.fr/Velo/velosophie.html

again, thanks. I'm going to try and find some of my pics from Maine.

take care!

dick




As far as blogs go, I've kept mine independent but linked to my smugmug site. If you want to embed a blog within smugmug, you might be interested in this post from richW where he shows how to place an external blog inside a smugmug gallery: http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=628906&postcount=4.

Also - you asked Paul (above) about filmstrip thumbs. That is a standard gallery style, just select style: filmstrip.

--- Denise

cycleman

paulbrock wrote:

Hi Dick, I'm also a cyclist/photographer, it's a good combo for covering a lot of ground inbetween shots, though I'm finding it harder and harder to take my kit with me!!

Good to meet another biker. I agree with you, it's sometimes difficult to carry all the stuff. I have a set of extra large Ortlieb panniers, tho, and that helps a lot at times, especially when I need to carry a tripod. and these panniers are waterproof.



To respond to your questions:

are you saying that google does not search for IPTC keywords when doing a search? or that the keywords would be mostly of use to SM users? I see the point of SM being able to extract them andput them on the page.

AFAIK, Google doesn't index IPTC keywords, so it's definitely a huge advantage having Smugmug putting them as text on the page.

So Google does look at the keywords because SM puts them on the page for access.


Google Analytics is great, and free! see www.google.com/analytics, and search on here to see the best ways to use it on Smugmug.

thanks for the tip on this!


I just use the SM interface, particularly bulk captioning, if I have lots of photos of the same thing.

perhaps a good advantage of doing this outside SM and then uploading them is that LR or another program will write the keywords to the original file and they will remain there (you may want toupload them to a another web site someday) whereas it would appear that if you do it just in SM those keywords won't get saved back to the original file.


thanks again, very much.

dick louderman

cycleman

dogwood wrote:

Another tip-- post photos for critique both here on dgrin and on other photo websites and include your url in your signature. You can easily get a hundred unique visitors by posting on some of the big forums like dpreview. People tend to be curious and want to see more.

thanks! another really good idea! much appreciated!

you have a really nice site!

dick louderman