Increasing Website Traffic

bethany721 · Jan 30, 2014

Hi everyone! My name is Bethany and I am brand new to this site but love it so far. I have one question that someone more advanced may be able to help me with. I am in the stage of building my business, increasing clients, attempting to get more website traffic, etc. All of the images I've posted on my site were originally saved as a generic number file name (ex. DSC_4423) My question is, should I resave all of these images with file names to contain my business name or my business name + type of photography and repost on my website; will this increase my photo business to populate in searches? Thanks so much for your advice!

runnah · Jan 30, 2014

I would say name them as business type rather than name. This will create more unique search items. For example if you have a wedding shot, name it "mainecoastwedding.jpg" or "longbeachwedding.jpg".

acparsons · Jan 30, 2014

Two words, Social Media.

KmH · Jan 30, 2014

Is your web site a Flash based web site?

Do you have access to the coding of your web site that effect SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? Search engine optimization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Photography Business Secrets: The Savvy Photographer's Guide to Sales, Marketing, and More

There is some good info in here too - Going Pro: How to Make the Leap from Aspiring to Professional Photographer

For SEO:
SEO 2013 And Beyond: Search engine optimization will never be the same again! (Webmaster Series) (Volume 1)
An SEO Checklist: A step-by-step plan for fixing SEO problems with your web site (Webmaster Series) (Volume 2)

Braineack · Jan 30, 2014

acparsons said:
Two words, Social Media.

One word: spiders.

KmH · Jan 30, 2014

Or 2 other words - web crawlers.

But, traffic to your web site from outside your market area does you little good.
Hits on your web site from people in California or Australia aren't likely to generate a new customer for you.

That's why social media is so important.
Social media is just one of the ways you keep a constant buzz about your business going IN YOUR MARKET AREA.

Do you have contact information for the business section editor of every newspaper in a 100 mile radius of your business?
Are you a member of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce?

What kind of photography business do you have?
Wedding photographers depend heavily on B2B relationships with other wedding services vendors - florists, bakery shops, DJ's, caterers, etc. for referrals.
Do you have a customer referral reward program to help drive word-of-mouth referrals from your satisfied customers?
If you do retail photography, you should have been be doing shoots the last couple of weeks (and the next couple of weeks) or so that resulted from the Valentines Day direct mail promotional materials you sent out the first week of this month.
You should be putting the finishing touches on your Spring promotional and marketing plan and be starting to outline your Summer promotions and marketing plan.

A basic tenet of business is that it's a lot more expensive to generate a new customer than it is to get a previous customer to return.

bethany721 · Jan 30, 2014

KmH-I do have access to SEO on my website and have the keywords entered there to hopefully increase my traffic. I checked out the links to the books, thank you! I have also increased my social media use and added my website to each. Thanks for the tip on the file name also, Runnah! I wouldn't even know where to start with spiders and web crawlers! LOL!

runnah · Jan 30, 2014

It's easy really.
1. Add original key words in page/site descriptions.
2. Add Original Keywords into meta data
3. Create new content.

Using unique identifiable words help search engines put you in categories. Start with "wedding Photographer" then say "North Carolina Weddings" "Charlotte North Carolina Weddings", "Coastal Weddings" "NC beach Weddings" stuff like that. The goal is to define yourself out of the millions of other people out there. Creating new content in either a blog or social media allows you to be able to seen by web spider/crawler etc... These programs basically search and catalog the internet. If they see that your site has no new content they don't check it as often, so updating more gets them back and gets you higher in the listings.

When you do get things sorted I would suggest looking into google analytics as it's a good was to figure out what your potential clients are looking for.

Braineack · Jan 30, 2014

Website Title should be similar: Bethany Photography - North Carolina Coastal Wedding Photographer, Beach Weddings, Engagements, Senior Portraits

everything needs to be text, or have alt text, and metadata up the whazoo.

vintagesnaps · Jan 30, 2014

That's what a couple of photographers that I know do, post select photos on their social media pages and then link to their site. I don't have the expertise to offer suggestions on increasing traffic but I think photographers need to think about how to reach potential customers in their area - it seems like many people want to get their work 'out there' but that seems like it could be too vague and random.

I think you want prospective customers to see your work but it also needs to be protected. Reading the Terms & Conditions on any site would let you know if it would involve allowing the site usage of your photos.

ASMP has tutorials and resources available. I haven't read these guides yet but have used some of their other resources. http://asmp.org/tutorial/social-media-tutorial.html#.UurFG-Yo5LM

JoeW · Feb 1, 2014

bethany721 said:
Hi everyone! My name is Bethany and I am brand new to this site but love it so far. I have one question that someone more advanced may be able to help me with. I am in the stage of building my business, increasing clients, attempting to get more website traffic, etc. All of the images I've posted on my site were originally saved as a generic number file name (ex. DSC_4423) My question is, should I resave all of these images with file names to contain my business name or my business name + type of photography and repost on my website; will this increase my photo business to populate in searches? Thanks so much for your advice!

First, I like Runnah's suggestion.

Second, a general tip--view every post and "reach out" (such as posting photos in a gallery) as publicity for you. You don't need to do a hard-sell. But that means have a tag, or title or watermark that allows people to either find you OR to associate that kind of work (like weddings in Charlotte) with you.

Third, looks for ways to cross post/link. For instance, let's suppose you shoot weddings. If you have a blog on your website, do an interview with a wedding planner in Charlotte with links to her site. Hopefully she/he will cross link to your site. Plus, anyone who searches for that wedding planner should get a hit off of your site (which may encourage them to linger...after all, if they're looking for a wedding planner, they probably want a photographer).