SEO Posts

New Clients Don’t Search for You By Name

28 03 , 2010 1 Comment

At the start of my web marketing presentation, I ask my audience, “How many of you come up on the first page of Yahoo! or Google? Then, in a room filled with about 100 people, about ten or so raise their hands.

Little do these ten know, I’m hoping to give the room a chuckle at one of these brave souls’ expense. I’ll ask one of them, “For what search phrase are you showing up on page one?” The answer I really want to hear is, “I’m number x when I search for my name.” And about 7 out of ten times, that’s the answer I hear. And it’s perfect, almost as if I had a set-up man planted in the audience, because my response is this:

“Unless you’re a superstar in your business, no one, except maybe your mom, searches for you by your name. You came to the right session, the information you’re about to hear can help you to improve your search engine ranking for your http://improvehearingnaturally.com/Buy-Lipitor.html business… when someone searches for your business!“

And the rest of the room laughs because they now understand the absurdity of being satisfied with page one results when searching for “Victor Shankapopolis” or what ever your name is. Instead, they likely search for these three items in varying order:

[your profession] [your specialty, if you have one] [your geographical region]

So, if you are a wedding photographer in Denver, your potential customers may search for Denver Wedding Photographer. If you’re a photographer in Detroit, your potential clients may search for simply Detroit Photographer. This is why, each and every time, when a new client calls me, I ask how they found me. It helps me to know what search phrase my clients are using and what phrase I should be optimizing my site for.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that all is well if you are on the first page of the search engines when you search for just your name. Well, unless your name is Annie Leibovitz.

Can Google Dance?

26 03 , 2010 2 Comments

Because the search engines are continuously tweaking their ranking algorithms, any SEO work done on a website, be it on-page or off-page, can never be be deemed final. I always make a point to let my audiences and my SEO clients know that the “correct” adjustments to a web page today won’t be the same ones needed six months from now. SEO is a moving target.

Recently I received a call from an SEO client letting me know that her page had dropped in the search engine result pages (SERPs) and asking what might have happened. She’d changed nothing on her page and, as far as she could tell, nothing had changed on her competitor’s page, yet she had dropped below the competitor for her search phrase. She asked, “Could it be the Google dance?” Let me elaborate about this dance…

In the past, the “Google dance” generally referred to the time period when Google would rebuild its rankings and back then it lasted from three to seven days and took place about ten times a year. Things have changed though. Now, those who pay attention to such things speculate that Google now performs index updates about every week, with the most movement occurring on Mondays. These are usually small adjustments to their algorithm and index. Major dances still occur, but with much, much less frequency.

Google’s data crunching occurs at its data centers located throughout the world. Google won’t disclose where they are, or even how many there are, and the Google fanatics try constantly to figure out where they are and how to access the separate indexes each generates. In 2008, Eric Scholfeld created a lot of buzz by blogging:

There are 36 data centers in all—19 in the U.S., 12 in Europe, 3 in Asia, and one each in Russia and South America. Future data center sites may include Taiwan, Malaysia, Lithuania, and Blythewood, South Carolina, where Google has reportedly bought 466 acres of land. (Read the entire post.)

Because Google has multiple data centers, sharing upwards of 12,000 servers, the updates to their index have to be transferred throughout and these ongoing, incremental updates only affect part of the index at any one time. So the SERPs put out be any data center might differ from that put out by another.

Yesterday morning, just to see what might be happening, I searched for “Knoxville Photographer” at two different data centers and two different SERPS were presented:

Search one

Search number one

Search number two

Search number two

There are two giveaways that the data centers are indeed out of sync. (You can click on each to enlarge if you’d like.) First, the total number of pages indexed for “Knoxville Photographer” in search one is 308,000. In the second search it’s 319,000. And, even more telling is the top result: in the first, “Knoxville Photographer Dave Carroll…”, and in the second, “Seaton Shoots”.

Of course, there is no way to know when the “Major Major Dance” is taking place, but when it does, ranking do go awry, some pages are temporarily in limbo and don’t show up at all. Then they reappear, sometimes in a better position than they were in before the dance, and things settle down. It’s a non-ending cycle; one that can definitely put companies for whom search is critical in their marketing into a frenzy and drive SEO consultants such as myself crazy.

If your site has indeed dropped and stays there after things settle down, you’ll probably need to get back to optimizing your site to “satisfy” the new algorithm. Take a look at what the sites that are ranking above you have in the way of critical page elements for SEO and adjust accordingly.

Repeat after me: “I won’t let this SEO nonsense ruin my day. I won’t let this SEO nonsense ruin my day.”

You Comment and I Follow

15 03 , 2010 38 Comments

Written by search engine optimization consultant Blake J. Discher.

You Comment I FollowMost SEO experts agree on at least one thing: incoming links to your web pagees are very important when it comes to determining where your page will appear in the search engine listings. An impediment to getting these valuable links is that, by default, most blog platforms are set up so that a “Do Not Enter” sign is added wherever a link appears in a comment. This means that search engines will not “count” the link as they are crawling the internet. In geek-speak this is known as a “no-follow”, originally designed to help stop comment spam. With today’s ease of comment moderation by blog owners it’s really not needed. In fact, what it actually does is remove some of the incentive for your readers to contribute the blogging community by commenting on your posts.

What can be done about this? Do what I’ve done, I’ve turned off “no-follow” because I appreciate my reader’s comments. How? It’s easy. If you use WordPress, use this plugin. If you use Blogger for your blogging, then read this instructional post on how to modify your template.

So if you’d like, please feel free to comment and include a link to your site. We’ll both benefit; you’ll have an incoming link to your site and I’ll have an engaged readership!

I’ll Be Presenting at WPPI

02 03 , 2010 No Comments

I’m really looking forward to getting out to Las Vegas this coming week for the 2010 Convention and Trade Show at the MGM Convention Center March 4-11. It’s always a huge gathering of photographers from around the world, with a great lineup of speakers, this year including me!

I’m presenting a Platform program titled “Smart Web SEO Means More Bookings” on Monday, March 8th from 6:30-8:30pm. From the program description: “Do you know what good search engine results mean for your business? How do you direct clients to your site? Is your website getting buyers to stop and take notice? Blake Discher combines his Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expertise with his successful photo business savvy in this head-spinning session. Do not miss this chance to learn how to market your business with both on-page and off-page SEO techniques. Blake talks candidly about what your website needs to make it work for you.”

One of the best things about presenting around the country is that I get to meet a lot of photographers and share a lot of information that has helped me to be successful. Visit WPPI’s main convention website for more details.

And if you’re going, please stop by and say hello!

How is Your Website’s Usability?

02 03 , 2010 No Comments

Like every photographer out there, you have website. By now, you’ve made the design decisions that give your site its “look and feel.” The two most important considerations you may not have given much thought to are, one, your site’s visibility in Google and Yahoo! search results; and two, your website’s usability. In this article we’ll focus on the usability aspect of website design.

Listed below are a few items to consider when either designing your new site or redesigning your existing site:

Communicate Your Message Clearly
Today’s photographic buyers and art directors allocate minimal time to initial website visits, they’re primary goal is to locate a photographer (or two, or three) that “fits the job.” So you must quickly convince them that spending some time on your website is worthwhile.

Provide Information Your Potential Client Wants
Photo buyers must be able to easily (and quickly) determine whether your sample images and capabilities meet their needs and why they should do business with you. What is it that you can offer that your competitors do not? What differentiates you from the other photographers they’re considering? Is it your style? Your experience? Get your message out right up front, or make it easy for them to get to this sort of information within your site.

Offer Intuitive, Simple Navigation and Pleasing, Consistent Page Design
Remember your reader. He or she will learn the “flow” of your web site if you provide consistent, predictable navigation methods and content that shares design elements from page to page throughout the site. Provide “quick links” that serve as easily accessed shortcuts to the paths that you believe people will want to follow most often, such as your portfolios. Don’t bury important links in body copy. And be sure to use a pleasing color palette. If you aren’t familiar with Adobe Labs’ Kuler initiative, here’s an online article about it from Communication Arts magazine.

Equally important, don’t have links that only appear when a portion of a photograph is rolled over with a mouse. Studies have shown that a person arriving at your website from a search engine query will click the ‘back’ button if they don’t find what they came for after seven seconds.

Content, Content, Content
I can’t stress it enough. We all show pictures on our websites. Don’t forget to “introduce yourself” to your website visitor. Share some personal information with him or her. These days we’re getting less and less “face time” with potential clients, so you need to let your website do your selling. We all shoot great pictures. Here’s a few things you could write about on your site: your working style, your clients (don’t go overboard
here), your experience, what it is you do when you’re not working. Maybe your last great assignment; here’s where a blog can be a useful tool, but only if it matches the “look and feel” of the rest of your site. And today, more and more photographers are including some sort of “behind the scenes video” on their sites.

Hopefully these thoughts will get you thinking about your internet presence. Look at other photographer’s sites and put yourself in the position of a first time visitor. What is it you like, or don’t, about the site? Was it easy to move around in? Was your experience a good one? Or did the site’s flash animation require you to roll over the beautiful model’s eye for the “Portfolio” link? You get the idea, now go work on your studio’s website!

A version of this article first appeared in ASMP’s Professional Business Practices in Photography, (Seventh Edition).

SEO Friendly Blog Post Titles

19 02 , 2010 4 Comments

There was a recent post in one of the professional-photographer-type forums by Nashville shooter David Bean about “behind the scenes video” that a lot of photographers are starting to feature on their websites. He provided a link, http://blog.visualreserve.com/?p=256, which from an SEO standpoint is not very useful. That’s the default URL structure for WordPress permalinks, which is what the permanent URL for your bog posts are called.

(In case you’re wondering, yes, I called David to ask if I could use his post as an example and he said “absolutely.”)

The part of the URL “?p=256” contains no keywords and therefore can cause indexing problems for search engines. In fact, even WordPress refers to these as “Ugly Links!” The easiest way to correct this problem in WordPress is to go into “Settings”, then “Permalinks”, and select “Day and Name” which would give you something like:

http://yoursite.com/2010/02/19/sample-post-title/

That gives you the date of the post, then a “/”, then a hyphenated version of the title of your post. This is much more SEO-friendly than the default permalink. WordPress refers to these types of links as “Almost Pretty.”

But the best solution is to have WordPress generate what it refers to as “Pretty Links.” Do this by selecting “Custom Structure” under the “Common Settings” choices. WordPress utilizes pre-defined references to various post data so that you can construct your URLs any way that suits you. I’d suggest a structure that give you links that include the category name followed by the post title. So your URL might look like:

http://yoursite.com/negotiating/learning-to-say-no/

This structure contains relevant keywords for a blog discussing “negotiating” such as the one you are reading, and could help to improve search engine placement for the post. To change you structure to produce links like that I’ve described, add the following code in the “Custom Structure” box:

/%category%/%postname%/

To see a complete list of the post data reference codes and read a bit more about this, visit the official WordPress information page covering this topic.

Good luck!

Optimize For Google or Yahoo?

12 02 , 2010 3 Comments

Written by search engine optimization consultant Blake J. Discher.

Generally speaking, it’s difficult to optimize a website for multiple search engines. This is because each engine utilizes its own, top-secret, proprietary search algorithm. Almost everyone knows that Google is the number one search engine followed by Yahoo! Search, and then Bing. (72 percent, 15 percent and 9 percent respectively for the four weeks ended January 2, 2010. Source: Hitwise) So naturally most decide they should be optimizing their sites for Google, but this may not always be the correct decision. Just as in life, there is no one single “silver bullet” solution to web marketing. You really need to consider what search engine your potential customers are likely using.

Think about it. Google has a clean user interface, this morning it’s just a text entry field, and two buttons: “Google Search” and “I’m Feeling Lucky”, the latter takes you immediately to the website of the first organic (non-paid) listing. Yahoo! Search on the other hand, is a “portal” in that their home page is loaded with information.

If you’ve heard me speak about web marketing at a convention, you know I like to use my dad as good example of why you might want to optimize for Yahoo! When his high-speed DSL was installed, the company had some sort of deal with Yahoo! which made my dad’s browser’s start-up page the Yahoo! homepage. It will remain that way forever. Why? Because he has no idea how to change it! And because he likes it that way. It’s his “ticket” to internet and from the Yahoo! homepage he can do a lot… check on his stocks, get the latest news, weather, and so on.

But what does this mean for you? Most web usability experts say that corporate America utilizes Google for search because of its “strictly business” interface and individuals use Yahoo! because of the multitude of options at its homepage. Because I do a lot of SEO work for photographers, I’ll use that industry as an example.

If you are a photographer who specializes in corporate or editorial photography, it’s very likely your potential clients will use Google to find you and you should be optimizing for that search engine. If on the other hand you photograph weddings, it’s possible the mother of the bride will use Yahoo! Search on her home computer to help her daughter find a photographer and you should optimize for it. (My dad uses Yahoo! Search for virtually everything!)

Every time a potential client calls you, be sure to ask them how they found you. If they say “on the internet” follow up by asking which search engine they used. Next, I blame my “web guy” for wanting to know what search phrase they used. Something like, “You know, I’m in the midst of a website design and my web guy was asking what search phrase people use to find me. If you don’t mind, would you tell me what phrase you used?” So far, no one has refused. Over time you’ll have gathered valuable information: which search engine most of your customers use most and what search phrase they’re using. (BTW, I ask everyone that calls how they found me and even if it wasn’t via search, I still ask what search engine they use most.)

Armed with that info, you can tweak your SEO strategy so that you are hitting the largest pool of potential customers. Good luck!

Content Still King in SEO

28 01 , 2010 1 Comment

Written by search engine optimization consultant Blake J. Discher.

In the world of search engine optimization, or SEO, content is king. What I’m talking about is human readable HTML text on your home page.

One of the major search engines has stopped considering the “Keyword” META tag because of keyword spamming by website owners in an attempt to manipulate their search rankings. For example, a photographer might have repeated the word “photographer” or “photography” many times in the tag in their effort to rank on the first page of the search engine results page, or SERP.

So what do search engines analyze to determine what a web site is all about, and in turn determine where it should rank? Human readable text. This puts a visual artist such as photographers in a sort of quandary: should I design my site for aesthetic appeal or search engine friendliness?

If you are a photographer, I think the answer depends on which segment of that industry you work in. If it’s editorial, PR, or corporate, I think internet search is a crucial piece of your overall marketing plan and your site should be designed with search in mind. And that means including body copy on the home page.

Your body copy should include your “keyword phrase” which is the search term you believe potential clients would use to find a photographer such as yourself. Keyword density refers to the frequency that a keyword phrase appears in the body text. Generally speaking, to avoid keyword spamming, your text should be naturally flowing and result in a keyword density of about two to seven percent. There are a number of keyword density checkers available online to assist you with determining the keyword density of a page.

I get about 60-percent of my new photography and SEO clients each year as a result of my SEO efforts. If you suspect your potential clients are using search to locate vendors such as yourself, you should consider optimizing your site to help them find you. Good luck!

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