Attn Webmasters: Promoting your photography website, Part I

[Jeremy Lim]

I work in the Internet marketing field, so maybe I can help shed some light. Though our core focus is on search marketing, I'm surprised no one's mentioned Flickr thus far. Personal networking is hugely important in a service industry like ours (photography, not marketing). Just because you're meeting photographers doesn't mean they won't bring you leads; some people shoot with different styles, and filling that niche in your locale is much better than squeezing into an over-saturated niche online. Flickr results are searchable too (both internally and externally), so being active in that space might mean more than just contacts.

Our space is pretty saturated, which makes search optimization hard. Very, very hard. Everyone's a photographer with camera phones these days, so what do you do?

As a search optimizer, I wouldn't downplay it, but try thinking smaller and more grassroots:

1) Hyper-target. People can be very specific in search engines. For example: "vancouver goth wedding photography" (if you so should be inclined). You're only up against 171,000 as opposed to the 449,000 for "vancouver wedding photography" and the 8,570,000 for "wedding photography". Alpha made a great point about mixing up your anchor text as well.

2) Flickr. Network. The Photo Forum it out. Post on blogs. Post on forums. Make sure people know you and are talking about you. Sure, you can do all the link building yourself, but give people something of value, and they'll link to you.

Hah, and hopefully this is of value, no? If anyone has questions on Internet marketing, give me a shout on Flick or by PM and I'd be happy to chat it out!

[TPF Sponsor]

[adamcoupe]

Nice resources

Thanks

Adam

Adam Coupe Photography | Home

[philanyware]

And always remember the golden rule for search engines: provide good quality, relevant content.

Search engines only want to return the best content when somebody searches for something. They are very good at identifying the best content and they get better at doing so every year.
Stick to your topic (or niche market), include useful/appealing information and photographs (that others will link to) and never try to fool Google (because they are much cleverer than you).

The above posts will help you follow this rule. If you're ever unsure how to do something, just follow the golden rule.

[jp_printroomguy]

Gonzo,

Thanks for those awesome tips. I've already updated the keywords for my website based on your info.

Cheers,
JP

[photobugimc]

Thank you for all of the very detailed information. I am new to the forum and my goal is to become an avid participant.

I will use this to post my gallery work and the ability to do so is greatly appreciated.

www.macworthington.com

At the bottom of the website there is a place to search - Lori Patterson will bring up all of my work.

I have no idea why the link did not appear to just click; still learning, sorry!

Lori

[Rere]

Wow!

Thank you so much for this. I really need it, since I just published a few weeks ago.

I'll check out the links and tutorials. This is another reason The Photo Forum is so wonderful!

[agompert]

Greetings tpf website owners,

Hosting:
I have used over 20 hosting companies when i was a web developer. Most have been really expensive, poor quality and quite frankly sucked. When I look for a hosting I look for the following:

1. linux servers
2. apache server with MOD REWRITE support (more about this later)
3. PHP/Perl Support
4. shared SSL (for secure connections)
5. CPanel - (this is a web management console, makes webmastering easy!)

All the above are musts and non negotiable.

Thats all fine and great, but I would have to add in that no matter how much you love or hate microsoft, asp.net is great and for that you want a windows server. But I guess it really depends on which languages you know PHP or ASP.NET. Also, Visual Web Developer Express is a great (free) tool to program on if your using windows.

[Lise Charmel]

Lingerie Fashion and gesigne.

[modlife]

Great thoughts. I've found that product reviews are big traffic drivers. I write simple photo equipment reviews like this panasonic lumix fh20 review.

I know it's a Point and Shoot...but it gets people to my site, and rankings are what matter.

[ChadHillPhoto]

A BIG thanks for all these resources!

[SusanMart]

Thanks a lot. Good selection

[supremespy2]

1. Get web hosting and choose a domain name
2. Install Wordpress
3. Choose a photography Wordpress theme to install
4. Install an SEO plugin such as All-in-One SEO or Platinum SEO
5. Do keyword research as instructed by other posters
6. Choose main long tail keyword to use in meta title, description and tags
7. Post each photograph and fill in meta data before publishing
8. Use long tail keyword as anchor text when promoting your photograph throughout the web for backlinks

[elevateudesign]

Really a great post! +rep

[bobaloula]

Wow, I'm just doing some marketing for lenswal.com and stumbled upon this old thread - times have changed!!! Social Media wasn't even around then and no mention of blogging or content writing?

I would make one comment which is if you use drupal or cpanel you are severely reducing the chances of your site having any real visibility because it is full of lots and lots of code that search engine bots don't like. Always build your site from scratch with a custom CMS - they are not expensive but are so worth it in the long run!

[photocoach]

Really appreciate it when people lay it out there like you do here.

Easy read, easy on the eyes, filled with tested and approved information.

Thanks!