SM & Poor google rank?

Bryans12v · June 1, 2012

Just wondering if anyone here with a Sm site has gotten thier page on at least the top ten pages of google?

I have been trying everything for quite a while and am having absolutely no luck whatsoever. I even search the exact words in my homepage meta description, nothing.

Anyone? Lately, I have been posting to my blog, uploading videos to YT, everything I can do to get links out there back to my site and just wondering how everyone else in the SM community was working with this.

J Allen · June 1, 2012

Bryans12v wrote: »

Just wondering if anyone here with a Sm site has gotten thier page on at least the top ten pages of google?

I have been trying everything for quite a while and am having absolutely no luck whatsoever. I even search the exact words in my homepage meta description, nothing.

Anyone? Lately, I have been posting to my blog, uploading videos to YT, everything I can do to get links out there back to my site and just wondering how everyone else in the SM community was working with this.

I got your page as #1 by searching for your name:

Not sure how long you've had those keywords in there...but it does take google some time to crawl your site. Also, be sure your filling in your gallery and photo keywords and adding some text to your gallery descriptions....google loves text...here's a good article on google I'm defiantly no expert on google though....I do believe there's a d-grinner out there who wrote a book on SEO for a smugmug site...can't think of him off hand right now though...

denisegoldberg · June 2, 2012

J Allen wrote: »

....google loves text...here's a good article on google

Thanks for that link Joe - very nice reference article.

Bryans12v wrote: »

I have been trying everything for quite a while and am having absolutely no luck whatsoever. I even search the exact words in my homepage meta description, nothing.

Anyone? Lately, I have been posting to my blog, uploading videos to YT, everything I can do to get links out there back to my site.

Is this your blog - http://bryanbargerphotography.blogspot.com/?

Have you considered customizing your blog to match your smug site and to allow seamless linking between the two sites? If you're interested, see the first post of the thread HOW TO match your blog to your smug site (blogger-specific). That way if someone discovers your blog they can easily jump to your galleries.

You can use your blog to link back to your site as opposed to using blogger's photo store. Right now clicking on a photo does not take the viewer back to your site. Take a look at my blog as a comparison. When a viewer clicks a photo in my blog they are taken to the lightbox view of that photo on my smug site. Instead of using blogger's photo button I embed the HTML to display the photo, as grabbed from my smug site Share... Get a link... Embeddable link.

Note: the photos in my most recent blog entries are not clickable because they are from a trip that I just finished, still haven't published the galleries. If you want to see an example of an embeddable link, look at my blog entries prior to May 23rd. Or if you are looking sometime (probably) next week the current blog entries will also have clickable photos.

You might also consider using text links from your blog back to your smug site. Driving traffic to your site is important. As an example, look at this blog entry on my site - http://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com/2012/05/garden-saturday.html. The photos link to the lightbox view of the galleries, and there is a text link to the galleries as well.

Adding gallery descriptions may help as well.

When I look at the keyword page on your site (http://www.bryanbargerphotography.com/keyword/) I see that you don't use a lot of keywords.

Are you trying to sell your services for weddings and for other types of photography? Have you considered adding information pages to your site to promote those services? Words are better than photos from Google's standpoint.

--- Denise

Andy · June 2, 2012

If you are getting poor results take the great advice from Joe and Denise. We work hard and spend $$$$$$ a fortune to maximize SmugMug SEO. Example, I have a pretty famous name, and if you google it I'm still showing up on page 1. That's due to consistent work over the years, like has been suggested here. Follow all of our tips here, too: http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93327

Bryans12v · June 2, 2012

Thank you so much everyone. With seo, I know every little bit helps and you guys got me on the right track to Google fame!

MomaZunk · June 2, 2012

Hello Bryan,
I added the SEO into my page and keyworded my photos about 2 years ago, but I could never get first page rankings.
When I started a blog last summer, I saw step change in my rankings in google.
Also, adding a paragraph in the gallery description REALLY makes a difference as well for specific galleries, i.e words improve rankings.

And last, images on google plus with matching keywords get high rankings, and almost always show up on the first page. So post some images with the keywords you are targeting in google plus, and have a link with the photo back to your website.

ChatKat · June 3, 2012

Work
It's taken me years of work to get all my terms and links to work together. Posting on boards like this with a link to your website is also helpful; Blog daily, facebook regularly; Keyword, and even online advertising with links to your site all make it work.

Pure Energy · June 16, 2012

Gallery Keywords Box

MomaZunk wrote: »

Also, adding a paragraph in the gallery description REALLY makes a difference as well for specific galleries, i.e words improve rankings.

What about adding keywords that automatically get hidden when entered into in the "gallery keywords" box in the "gallery settings?"

What's the best thing to do or the reasons for how one inputs words into the gallery keywords box:

A paragraph
A sentence or two
A phrase or multiple phrases separated by a comma or
words separated by commas (so some words don't get repeated)?

How many words should there be in the gallery keywords box?

Any differences for what to input into this box for SmugMug versus google, yahoo, etc.?

MomaZunk · June 16, 2012

I added a couple of sentences describing the gallery. I have not really done anything with just phrases, or a few keywords.

Pure Energy · June 16, 2012

MomaZunk wrote: »

I added a couple of sentences describing the gallery. I have not really done anything with just phrases, or a few keywords.

Ah yes, I see your paragraph for the first gallery of four when I hover over the thumbnail here:

http://www.deezunkerphotography.com/featured-events

... but only the title and "texas division" (in red) appears. And only three lines appear in the title of the others, such as,

"Game
2010511
TEXAS Owls vs"

I would go with a cleaner look of having as few words as possible for the titles of the galleries so people can quickly get to viewing the photos.

Anyways, that's slightly different than what I'm asking about. I'm asking about the "gallery keywords" that may be entered in the "gallery settings" or are you saying you put two sentences there as well (and possibly the same two sentences as your gallery description)?

MomaZunk · June 17, 2012

No just in the gallery description. I have never used the gallery key words.

caroline · June 18, 2012

I do believe there's a d-grinner out there who wrote a book on SEO for a smugmug site...can't think of him off hand right now though...

I believe this is what J Allen was referring to www.photographers-SEO.com there is a SmugMug guide:)

caroline

SM & Poor google rank?

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