SEO - Search Engine Optimization

[cosworth]

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Search Engine Optimization

What is it and why do I need it?

Well we all want to get higher in our Google search right? Whether we sell wedding services, want people to hit our blog or just want to get more people to our own personal site.

We type in search engine keywords that we think are relevant to our business, passion and/or location, specialty and such. Then you’re gutted to see you are not #1. Worse still is when you find yourself on page 37. That's a lot of clicking.

Google must have some club house or executive bathroom that you don't have access to right? Nope. You too can get the keys to the search results palace.
To get there you need to arm yourself with the right tools.

First off - Don't build your website entirely in Flash. Do NOT use Front page. Do NOT use Word. Search engines cannot see Flash. Yes, there are a couple little tricks in flash to get some words visible but it's just a waste of your time. Dreamweaver? It adds far too much extra code to be viewed as clean enough for proper ranking. It works, but you'll have to know how to clean the code up and save it properly to get that extra code out. Careful here. Front Page? It adds about 200 lines of code just to type "Hello world" on your website. Avoid at all costs. Word? Pretty much as bad. But you can use Word or Notepad to code a website yourself. That is the best route but the hardest. There are plenty of html tutorials on the web. I won't list any since you all know how to spell Google right?

So, you've got an html editor that makes clean code or you’re a whiz with notepad now. Next steps?

Title tag - I'll smack if you put "Welcome" in here. Tell your potential customers who, what, where, when and why. Better yet you are telling the search engines the same.

Bad Example: Welcome to Bob's Photography page. (WRONG)

Good Example: Bob Thompson - Exceptional wedding photography in the Austin and Dallas region

Now with title tags, you'll need one for every page. If your glamour page is done and you are ready to publish it, you add to it as such:

"Bob Thompson - Glamour photography in the Austin and Dallas region"

See how web crawlers will read your page? See how your sitemap.xml file (more on that below) will be created with the proper headings and links?
Now I just mentioned headings. Use the H1, H2, H3 tags in your html. That is what Google's algorithm is looking for. It's also looking for nice clean code. No color tags or size tags. To avoid this use a CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) include. It is a "make website look like this" template that you reference in the html. Very simple to use and create. Again, Google is your friend here as there are far too many sites to reference here.

Metatags? Hidden text? Typical no-no for Google most think. But I have seen no real world punishment for using them and legacy issues form older site allow Google to view these tags or blacked out text as "an evil necessary". I use them currently but in a muted form. Salt to taste.

So now the first 20 or so lines of your html are nice and clean. You’ve established who you are, what you do and told the webcrawlers that come looking for you that you are playing their game. In return for abiding by their rules they list you better than the person next door with crappy, bloated, non-compliant code. Now you need to get to stage 2, serving up content.

"I take pictures, good pictures. These are my prices." Seriously, who would get excited at this? Not me. Keep prices under wraps until you've built the value with your client or if you have a different kind of service then keep the prices clear and concise.

Newsfeeds. Pick a newsfeed for your website. Pick one that serves up some content relative to your genre. Do you do weddings? Then add some bridal newsfeeds that open a NEW window, not offer a quick exit away from your wallet. Do you shoot commercial? Add a newsfeed for something relative like fashion or style. Make it look good; make it look corporate but warm.

To soften that hard core coprorate look you add Special Offers, Demos, Webcasts, and Contact Forms. What do these do? A special offer is simply that, a way to appeal to someone’s pocketbook. Low on engagement booking where it's a day in the field and a day in post? Offer a deal. Demos? Have a little flash movie or youtube link that shows you working on a shot. Heck you don't have to say anything, have someone voiceover it. Show your passion for the craft. Webcast? What is that you say? Have a block of time where people can sign up and ask question about what you do and what you offer. Scared you'll only get one user? Who cares? Set it up; see if it works for you. Contact forms? Well of course we'll have those but make one that is VERY specific for those that WANT specialized treatment. Have a simple form and a complex form. What does all this have to do with search engines? They see these links to rich content on your site and you get higher up the ranking. Plus it adds GENUINE content for your prospects to interface with you. It's good for business.

Music on that classy, content rich page? No, bad dog. Web crawlers that find embedded wav, ogg or mp3 links run away and throw you DOWN the list hard. Even having and embedded file with the music turned off by default will kill your ranking. It's lame anyway - kill the music. Use it later/deeper in your site for a presentation OR in the flash or youtube link. Yes, using a swf (flash file) fools the webcrawler but it still freaks out he potential client surfing your site from work who mistakenly has their speakers cranked. Cube embarrassment makes your website get Alt-F4'd so fast.... Again - avoid music.

Buttons. Yes, on my website I have them. They're bad. Text link is the way to go. Even with an image description tag it hurts you. Chuck the buttons, go back to a nice text. Most operating systems have some really nice, standardized fonts preinstalled so %95 of the web can see your nice design. Move away from graphic buttons. I know it can degrade the looks but your ranking WILL increase with text links. A little javascript here won't hurt.

Start a blog. Why? Content that changes constantly. Google likes it and you can set it up to do anything you want. Deliver pictures, calendar of availability, feedback, etc. Sky is the limit here. I use wordpress personally. Not a plug, but it gets anyone not familiar a point of reference that is easy to work from.

Got PDF's on your site for pricing? Well that's good, but make sure you used Adobe Acrobat to create them, not a plug in from Word etc. Google knows this and will search your PDFs. Keep them in a PDF folder. BUT - make all your text content available with a LINK to the PDF. Google will like you. HTML plus the PDF. See? Sounds redundant but some people WANT the PDF. However, Google knows how upset people get when they click a link and then wait for Adobe to load and go "Aw crap." Excel files follow the same rules. Embed the table, but link to a spreadsheet. This is most likely related to pricing right? Good.

Site submission after all this too? Yes! You need to submit the site to google.com, dmoz.org (important), yahoo.com and yes - business.com. Now with Google you need to submit your sitemap.xml of course, but sign up for Google Analytics. Sign up for Google Ad Sense. Why? Google wants you to play the game and the more apps for webmasters you run the more they reward you. Play the game! But beware that you will have to seriously monitor your Ad Sense and exclude your competitors or sites you don't want people to go to from your site. Many will find it best to NOT use Ad Sense, but if you want to generate money on a blog perhaps, use it.

Now I'm not going to get into good web design (other than kill the music). What is good to someone is ugly to another and everyone's coding skills or wallet for web development is different. Remember that when your website launches - you need to start planning the next version. 6 months is almost the limit. That reminds me, I gotta get working on my site...

Now within a couple months this thread will require additions, amendments and changes I'm sure. The web is evolving and to do business online these days you need to be as liquid as the web is. Adapt, be creative and work the system. If I've missed anything you have come across recently in regards to SEO, please add it to the thread.

Remember there is a lot of snake oil out there about how to actually get your site higher. Research everything you read. Even what has been posted above, it might not all be true or relevant by the time you've gotten to this thread.

Some Wedding or Portrait shooters are going to read this and say "That's nice but my site needs to look good first." True - but a nice, arty website will get crushed by someone who has a gallery just like you but looks like a multi-million dollar operation who might have cheaper prices than you. Be warned, wedding shooters are getting web savvy - don't get left behind.

Good luck!

A special mention goes to Hallme.com for presenting a tremendous webinar that debunks many web myths. Their podcast can be seen here:

http://hallme.com/blog/category/seo-audio/

Their site is very tilted towards software VARs and serious web businesses. All businesses on the web are serious right?

[sevillafox]

Good stuff Cos and I was wondering about this in the back of my mind. Now all I need is time to digest it before putting it to work on yet another site re-do. (4th since August )

[slappy sam]

Thanks for the article. This is something I've been meaning to read about but never really got around to it.

So an html/css site with maybe some flash galleries would probably be the best way to go?

[cosworth]

Exactly.

[Nick G]

Top three tips for hitting high on a google search,

1) Sign up to Google analytics

2) Sign up to Google analytics

3) Sign up to Google analytics


It takes 5 minutes and in 24 hours put my site to number two on google search when putting in my name (even without the use of brackets)!


http://www.google.com/analytics/sign_up.html

[adam8080]

Thanks for the info!

[slappy sam]

Originally Posted by Nick G

Top three tips for hitting high on a google search,

1) Sign up to Google analytics

2) Sign up to Google analytics

3) Sign up to Google analytics


It takes 5 minutes and in 24 hours put my site to number two on google search when putting in my name (even without the use of brackets)!


http://www.google.com/analytics/sign_up.html

Hows this help? I already got logs/reports on my cpanel from my host. What else does this do (I'm signing up for it, just curious).

[cosworth]

Originally Posted by cosworth

Site submission after all this too? Yes! You need to submit the site to google.com, dmoz.org (important), yahoo.com and yes - business.com. Now with Google you need to submit your sitemap.xml of course, but sign up for Google Analytics. Sign up for Google Ad Sense. Why? Google wants you to play the game and the more apps for webmasters you run the more they reward you. Play the game! But beware that you will have to seriously monitor your Ad Sense and exclude your competitors or sites you don't want people to go to from your site. Many will find it best to NOT use Ad Sense, but if you want to generate money on a blog perhaps, use it.

Google wants you to play their game. Analytics gets you inside their system as a site to track, monitor and crunch numbers on. Supposedly, part of their algorithm is dependent on this being signed up for.

[BottomBracket]

Jason, this is golden stuff, a must read for people who would like to direct more traffic to their sites. Thanks for putting this all together. Hey great avatar by the way, welcome back indeed!

[sapearl]

I just signed up for Google Analytics myself - thank you for the tip Nick. I was a little bit concerned though about one portion of the fine print in the AGREEMENT. It's this part:

Google may change its fees and payment policies for the Service from time to time including but not limited to the addition of costs for geographic data, the importing of cost data from search engines, or other fees charged to Google or its wholly-owned subsidiaries by 3rd party vendors for the inclusion of data in the Service reports. The changes to the fees or payment policies are effective upon Your acceptance of such changes which will be posted at www.google.com/analytics (or such other URL Google may provide from time to time). Unless otherwise stated, all fees are quoted in U.S. Dollars. Any outstanding balance becomes immediately due and payable upon termination of this Agreement for any reason and any collection expenses (including attorneys' fees) incurred by Google will be included in the amount owed, and may be charged to the credit card or other billing mechanism associated with your Adwords account.

Normally I trust Google reasonably well, and I don't think they are trying to pull anything here. I would hope though that I get an "Opt In/Out" email prior to any charge structure being imposed. Just an observation...... - Stu

[and.duncan]

Why is signing up to dmoz.org important?

[Nick G]

I recon google would never resort to charging for this service. That would totally go against their "Don't be evil" Moro and besides that, they make do much money as it is

Topical ts@cs..

[Nick G]

appologies for the typos... The enevitable result of typing on an iphone

[JakPot]

Originally Posted by Nick G

Top three tips for hitting high on a google search,

1) Sign up to Google analytics

2) Sign up to Google analytics

3) Sign up to Google analytics


It takes 5 minutes and in 24 hours put my site to number two on google search when putting in my name (even without the use of brackets)!


http://www.google.com/analytics/sign_up.html

Sign up, but I don't think this is sound advice for getting listed high. There are many many other (more important) factors used in the ranking algorithm.

If you think you got listed #2 just for signing up for analytics, I think you're fooling yourself. Just curious, but what's your URL? Wouldn't be your name by any chance would it?

[jbrown1]

Originally Posted by and.duncan

Why is signing up to dmoz.org important?

Sites are added to the DMOZ index by real humans (rather than spiders). Google places very high value in any sites listed on DMOZ, because they know that a real person has checked the site. If you submit your site to DMOZ, their editors will (when they get round to it) check your site and decide whether to include it in their index or not.

So getting your sites listed in the DMOX directory is very, very good. But theres no guarantee it will get listed though.