The dreaded SEO- focus keywords
Posted 11/09/2012 - 09:39 - Helpful Comment
Link
The first thing you need to do Patrick is decide why you want people to visit.
What is the primary function of the site - is it to showcase your work through your gallery or to be heard through your blog? You may feel it is both - but from an SEO perspective - that could be tricky to manage.
Does the blog exist to create interest in your work or or do the images exist to support the blog?
I know it is slightly off topic but I hope you will not mind a little bit of feedback from a viewer. Clearly much of this is subjective, but to my eye your site is neither fish nor fowl. There does not seem to be a world of difference between your blog and your gallery. If you are going to use your images in the blog - it may be worth considering that in the gallery - you just show images - no story of the image - no text at all.
Please don't take this as a personal attack - I truly do not mean it to be and it is only my opinion, but all the song titles and references to them, clever though they may be, become annoying after a while if what you are wanting to do is look at images. I appreciate that you may feel this is something unique about your site - and in small doses it is quirky and fine - but overkill on image after image and it becomes a detraction
Back on topic - once you have decided on the primary function - it would be a good idea to research what the most useful key words would be.
If you do not know it already - check out the Google Ad Words key word tool link
A simple search will show you for instance that 250% more traffic is as a result of the search word "Galway" than of the search word 'photoblog'
Therefore - straight away - Galway is in the lead. If you then use the search words "photoblog Galway" - you will see there have been zero searches - so this one not a good idea - but check below the result and it will show other word combinations that may be relevant and do have searches for them.
Also - don't forget that key words alone will not optimise your site - these days - link building is equally if not more important. Search engines are biased towards sites that appear to be popular - one of the ways they decide this is the number of one way links to your site.
The easiest and cheapest way of doing this is to ensure that your address is featured in as many free directories and link pages as possible. A quick google search for 'Galway Directories" gets 6 million returns -so there are plenty to go after. This is time consuming unless you pay an SEO agency to do it but very effective.
Even if you get zero traffic from the links - the fact that the link exists will help your optimisation.
In terms of optimising visitors based on your photoblog - the oldest tricks in the book are relevance and timing. Ensure you always have comments on local 'big news' stories and of course wherever possible - images. If for instance - there were a local story saying street crime has risen by 50% - get out on the street and do a photoblog on vandalism/ graffiti. Find out what the hot topics are locally and phoblog them - it's easier than you may think.
I hope some of this is of use to you and that you have taken the feedback in the spirit it was intended.
Good luck
Carl
What is the primary function of the site - is it to showcase your work through your gallery or to be heard through your blog? You may feel it is both - but from an SEO perspective - that could be tricky to manage.
Does the blog exist to create interest in your work or or do the images exist to support the blog?
I know it is slightly off topic but I hope you will not mind a little bit of feedback from a viewer. Clearly much of this is subjective, but to my eye your site is neither fish nor fowl. There does not seem to be a world of difference between your blog and your gallery. If you are going to use your images in the blog - it may be worth considering that in the gallery - you just show images - no story of the image - no text at all.
Please don't take this as a personal attack - I truly do not mean it to be and it is only my opinion, but all the song titles and references to them, clever though they may be, become annoying after a while if what you are wanting to do is look at images. I appreciate that you may feel this is something unique about your site - and in small doses it is quirky and fine - but overkill on image after image and it becomes a detraction
Back on topic - once you have decided on the primary function - it would be a good idea to research what the most useful key words would be.
If you do not know it already - check out the Google Ad Words key word tool link
A simple search will show you for instance that 250% more traffic is as a result of the search word "Galway" than of the search word 'photoblog'
Therefore - straight away - Galway is in the lead. If you then use the search words "photoblog Galway" - you will see there have been zero searches - so this one not a good idea - but check below the result and it will show other word combinations that may be relevant and do have searches for them.
Also - don't forget that key words alone will not optimise your site - these days - link building is equally if not more important. Search engines are biased towards sites that appear to be popular - one of the ways they decide this is the number of one way links to your site.
The easiest and cheapest way of doing this is to ensure that your address is featured in as many free directories and link pages as possible. A quick google search for 'Galway Directories" gets 6 million returns -so there are plenty to go after. This is time consuming unless you pay an SEO agency to do it but very effective.
Even if you get zero traffic from the links - the fact that the link exists will help your optimisation.
In terms of optimising visitors based on your photoblog - the oldest tricks in the book are relevance and timing. Ensure you always have comments on local 'big news' stories and of course wherever possible - images. If for instance - there were a local story saying street crime has risen by 50% - get out on the street and do a photoblog on vandalism/ graffiti. Find out what the hot topics are locally and phoblog them - it's easier than you may think.
I hope some of this is of use to you and that you have taken the feedback in the spirit it was intended.
Good luck
Carl
No matter how many lenses I have owned - I have always needed just one more
Posted 11/09/2012 - 10:53
Link
Hi Carl,
Thanks for the quick, long reply. I don't mind constructive feedback at all and don't see it as a personal attack. As the site owner it's very easy to get tunnel vision and not see things from an objective/outside point of view.
I haven't seen Google Ad Word before, I'll look through it but can you tell me how did you get the 250% figure
I take on board your comment about song titles, I might consider having a 'proper' title and then song reference in brackets.
Good advice about relevance. I took some photos of the Occupy Galway camp and that night the police raided and dismantled the camp. I created my post, tweeted irish media about it and got over 1,000 visitors to that page in 1 day!
Function of my site- good question. It began as a blog, with just blog photos and about page. I decided to add bells and whistles to it to make it 'more complete'.
The gallery section is intended as a portfolio but has too many photo to be a portfolio I think so I named it galleries.
Thanks for the honest feedback, I'll mull over it.
Thanks for the quick, long reply. I don't mind constructive feedback at all and don't see it as a personal attack. As the site owner it's very easy to get tunnel vision and not see things from an objective/outside point of view.
I haven't seen Google Ad Word before, I'll look through it but can you tell me how did you get the 250% figure
I take on board your comment about song titles, I might consider having a 'proper' title and then song reference in brackets.
Good advice about relevance. I took some photos of the Occupy Galway camp and that night the police raided and dismantled the camp. I created my post, tweeted irish media about it and got over 1,000 visitors to that page in 1 day!
Function of my site- good question. It began as a blog, with just blog photos and about page. I decided to add bells and whistles to it to make it 'more complete'.
The gallery section is intended as a portfolio but has too many photo to be a portfolio I think so I named it galleries.
Thanks for the honest feedback, I'll mull over it.
Posted 11/09/2012 - 13:50 - Helpful Comment
Link
Hi Pa
Re adwords 250%. All I did was put in the search term Galway and the global result is 2,250,000 per month same for photoblog returns 1,000,000 per month. So actually 225% (1m x 2.25)not 250 - I must have misread it first time.
Sounds to me as if you have worked out the prime reason for the sites existence - blog - therefore make that your main target.
Pleased you accepted the feedback in the spirit it was intended - and don't forget - it is just my opinion and you need a dammed sight more than one opinion to be able to form an objective view.
Carl
Re adwords 250%. All I did was put in the search term Galway and the global result is 2,250,000 per month same for photoblog returns 1,000,000 per month. So actually 225% (1m x 2.25)not 250 - I must have misread it first time.
Sounds to me as if you have worked out the prime reason for the sites existence - blog - therefore make that your main target.
Pleased you accepted the feedback in the spirit it was intended - and don't forget - it is just my opinion and you need a dammed sight more than one opinion to be able to form an objective view.
Carl
No matter how many lenses I have owned - I have always needed just one more
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647 posts
16 years
I have a Wordpress based website- link.
It's my photography website/photoblog. I use it mainly as a blog, posting my latest photos. It also has galleries/portfolio section, about, links & buy prints. Even though I sell 0 from it.
Categories in the blog include abstract, architecture, Galway, people & animals, colours, macro, patterns, sport, b&w.
So for SEO I'm meant to pick 'focus keywords' for each page.
3 questions-
1. What should it be (in general)? I don't specalise in any 1 category of photos, I'm based in Galway but Galway photos are't the main category either.
a. Not my name- people won't stumble across my site by chance this way
b. photoblog maybe? I did manage to get the domain photoblog.ie and it is a photoblog. But do many non-photographers use/know the phrase 'photoblog'?
c. photoblog Galway maybe? Even though Galway photos aren't the main category it's 1 way that I might get up the search ranks?
d. any other suggestions?
2. Any recommended plugin to use? I currently use WordPress by Yoast' but also have 'All in One SEO Pack' installed (but will remove it).
3. Anything else to note?
Also for the tags for pages should I include 'photo', 'photos', 'photography', 'photograph', 'pentax' for every page?
Pa
http://www.photoblog.ie where every post have a musical reference as it's title.