SEO Optmizaton or Web design.

[Spadge]

Is anybody able to assist in helping me get maximum optimisation of my website in search engines? or maybe even in website design?

The website is for a photography business, i am currently playing about with Pixpa which provides all the basic needs, i would like it to be a bit more personal but gues you cant have it all when 1st starting out.

I have a very limited budget unfortunately but would be more than willing to provide a service in return for assistance (Product Photography or even a free family portrait sitting).

Any help is gratefully appreciated.

 

[piersa]

My advice would be pay a bit if you can. Websites done by amateurs look awful imo. The guy I use is cheap and would probably sort you out a 4 page website for 2-300 quid.

 

[Spadge]

I have paid for the Pixpa site and domain name and overall it has a nice professional feel and look to it, its just ensuring it turns up in search engines that i need to get right,

But i do understand what you saying and if i could afford it i would go for the whole independant design theme so that it is 100% original.

 

[piersa]

I have paid for the Pixpa site and domain name and overall it has a nice professional feel and look to it, its just ensuring it turns up in search engines that i need to get right,

But i do understand what you saying and if i could afford it i would go for the whole independant design theme so that it is 100% original.

fair enough

 

[hybrid_x]

pay someone in china to click on the site a few thousand times a day from different IPs.

or

link it on blogs and forums (scores of them).

to get up the rankings you need one thing....TRAFFIC.

 

[Spadge]

The website has been up and running for a year but i was not happy with the package from 1&1. so theres a nice flow of traffic, 1975 hits in 12 months, could always o with more and have started blogs, links with other sites etc.

Its the keywords etc that the search engines look for i need advise on.

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

pay someone in china to click on the site a few thousand times a day from different IPs.

or

link it on blogs and forums (scores of them).

to get up the rankings you need one thing....TRAFFIC.

Please ignore this advice. It is completely wrong.

 

[Spadge]

Please ignore this advice. It is completely wrong.

I am sure the blogs and links part is correct. Is that not?

 

[brighton_girl87]

I am sure the blogs and links part is correct. Is that not?

Things have changed, it isn't all about having a tonne of links into your site. The content needs to be relevant to your website.

 

[Spadge]

Things have changed, it isn't all about having a tonne of links into your site. The content needs to be relevant to your website.

Yeah but where does the contents info come from that the search engines use? Keywords? Actual site content?

Got to be honest with a photography website its not words that sell but the images so i am scratching my head a bit here.

 

[brighton_girl87]

Yeah but where does the contents info come from that the search engines use? Keywords? Actual site content?

Got to be honest with a photography website its not words that sell but the images so i am scratching my head a bit here.

Well obviously images sell to the customer but you were asking about SEO.

It all depends on how much time you have; I can write a whole post on what you should do but if you don't have time to write blogs, be active on social media and write articles then there isn't much point. It isn't something that you can just set up and you will be at the top of Google (unless you pay for Google adwords). You need to constantly be writing content and link building. Or pay for someone else to do it for you.

 

[HenryC]

Try these people...

www.verticalleap.co.uk

Highly recommended.

Good luck!

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

A few links for relevant, highly creditable websites will do you good. Thousands of links that Google sees as spam from any old blog or forum you can find will damage your SEO.

Make good content that gets used - or referred to by others - and you're half way there.

Use Google's free tools to find out what terms drive traffic for companies like yours and focus on a few terms. Be geo-specific if you can.

Use Analytics to help you work out which terms actually drive traffic that turns into business and focus on those - then try some new terms.

Focus your content around those. People love images - so share yours. Also video has incredible weight in Google currently. How about making some "How too" or "Professional's tips" videos?

SEO is complex and time consuming and never stops. I'd recommend using a company if you can afford it but in the first instance try the above. Vertical Leap are very good (based in Pompey), Site Visibility are one of the best and have lots of info to share - and are based in Brighton.
These guys might be useful too - http://www.photographers-seo.com/

 

[Colossal Squid]

You can do it yourself, provided you are prepared to put in the time and learn the fundamentals.

The way SEO changes means that what works one day could stop working the next. The post about blog comment and forum spam is one such example of a once tried and tested technique that will now do you more harm than good.

1. Research your keywords. There is no point optimising your site for terms nobody is searching for, or that won't convert. Google's Keyword Tool is the most obvious place to start, and is free to all: https://adwords.google.com/o/Target...&__u=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS

2. Make sure your site has a good amount of content. A handful of pages just containing images will do jack all in the search engine rankings. Even if this means creating fairly banal pages that you might think don't need saying, do it. So work out what you want people to find you for and then make pages specifically targeting those terms. e.g. A page about wedding photography in Brighton, or East Sussex, or anywhere else you might like to target. When doing this, ensure each page you knock up is unique. You can't just copy and paste the same page over and over and change the location.

3. Work on your metas. You need a good descriptive meta title and a meta description, which is what people will see in Google when your site comes up in the search results. Don't try and cram these with keywords, make them look natural. It is also advisable to use your name/brand in each instance, to reinforce your identity. So if you were called ABC Photography a good site meta title for your home page might be:

Professional Wedding Photography in Sussex | ABC Photography

Note the | symbol. Google loves this, and it really helps.

4. Build links. In SEO links are everything. If no other sites link to your site, you are unlikely to ever rank for anything competitive. This is the tricky part, because good quality links are hard to come by. Long gone are the days when you could just spam your URL across as many sites as you could find. Instead you need to find sites that would want to link to your site, with good reason. For instance if you have photographed weddings at a local hotel or venue you might approach them and ask for a link to your site. Another good place to look for links is in local listings magazine websites and directories. However you should be careful not to overdo it with these links and don't rely on them alone. You need a good variety of backlinks, and that's where more content comes into play.

Right now the most effective links you can get are contextual links within non promotional text on a relevant website or blog. So for instance, if you could perhaps write an informative article or blog post about different lens types or what different exposures can be used for (I'm not a photographer so I'm sure you can come up with more interesting things!) and then get this published on a relevant site, it provides engaging and useful content that other people could potentially benefit from. Now within that article if you happen to mention that such and such a technique would be favoured by a wedding photographer, and that links out to your website (and even better if it links to a specific page on your site devoted to wedding photography) then you've got yourself a lovely little link. The trick is finding the places that will publish your post and provide value. If, say, you managed to get a story on the BBC website (and you won't), that link back to you would be worth a million links from a website with no authority or relevance, because Google knows the BBC is a well respected authoritative source. If you can find some useful and well written/designed blogs about photography and cameras, these would be ideal for trying to get some links.

Be warned though, the blogging community as a whole is wise to the power of blogs and a lot of them will suggest you offer them a little sweetener in return for the lovely valuable link they'd be providing. This is technically contravening Google's guidelines and paying for links that aren't disclosed as paid for can land you in a lot of trouble. That's why the very best content marketers work hard to provide genuinely useful, engaging and share worthy content. If you're offering a blogger or webmaster something his readers are likely to find interesting, or that could potentially even attract new readers, then that should be payment enough. You get your link, the blogger gets a good solid bit of unique content that makes his site look good and nobody's done anything they shouldn't have.

Basically, linkbuilding is the most time consuming and often intensely frustrating part of the process, as well as being arguably the most important. Whilst there are shortcuts, these won't do you any favours in the long run and the web is littered with examples of sites that once ranked proudly atop the Google rankings and who are now struggling to find a place on page 10, because they chased the easy links that Google eventually caught up with and devalued. Just as a good strong link will work wonders for your site, a bad link can have a negative effect. You do NOT want spammy McPorno-Gamble linking to your site, at ANY cost.

Essentially I could go on and on but you've probably fallen asleep already. However if your'e keen to learn more send me a PM and I'll be happy to offer any advice as you may need. I can also provide a selection of sites you may wish to approach for links, as I work with a lot of local businesses who have benefited from good links from known to be solid relevant websites that I often call upon.

It's a long old process getting to the top, but manage your expectations and put in the time doing things the right way and you will get there. Best of luck

 

[sebtucknott]

^ this is very good advice.

I would add if you know you're way around a pc you could probably setup a Wordpress website.

There are some fantastic themes out there especially for photography.

http://themeforest.net/category/wordpress/creative

These will be 1000% better than a website from a company for £2-300 (unless they're just giving you one of these...)

There are loads of guides and tutorials on how to customise and setup Wordpress. Just need to dedicate some time to it.

With regards to SEO, again loads of info online if you're prepared to put in the time. I would start with www.moz.com

Please don't pay a cheap company to do it they're are very likely to be just taking your money. I would be wary of anything less than £250 per month and results in less than 6 months.

Good luck!

 

[Spadge]

You can do it yourself, provided you are prepared to put in the time and learn the fundamentals.

The way SEO changes means that what works one day could stop working the next. The post about blog comment and forum spam is one such example of a once tried and tested technique that will now do you more harm than good.

1. Research your keywords. There is no point optimising your site for terms nobody is searching for, or that won't convert. Google's Keyword Tool is the most obvious place to start, and is free to all: https://adwords.google.com/o/Target...&__u=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS

2. Make sure your site has a good amount of content. A handful of pages just containing images will do jack all in the search engine rankings. Even if this means creating fairly banal pages that you might think don't need saying, do it. So work out what you want people to find you for and then make pages specifically targeting those terms. e.g. A page about wedding photography in Brighton, or East Sussex, or anywhere else you might like to target. When doing this, ensure each page you knock up is unique. You can't just copy and paste the same page over and over and change the location.

3. Work on your metas. You need a good descriptive meta title and a meta description, which is what people will see in Google when your site comes up in the search results. Don't try and cram these with keywords, make them look natural. It is also advisable to use your name/brand in each instance, to reinforce your identity. So if you were called ABC Photography a good site meta title for your home page might be:

Professional Wedding Photography in Sussex | ABC Photography

Note the | symbol. Google loves this, and it really helps.

4. Build links. In SEO links are everything. If no other sites link to your site, you are unlikely to ever rank for anything competitive. This is the tricky part, because good quality links are hard to come by. Long gone are the days when you could just spam your URL across as many sites as you could find. Instead you need to find sites that would want to link to your site, with good reason. For instance if you have photographed weddings at a local hotel or venue you might approach them and ask for a link to your site. Another good place to look for links is in local listings magazine websites and directories. However you should be careful not to overdo it with these links and don't rely on them alone. You need a good variety of backlinks, and that's where more content comes into play.

Right now the most effective links you can get are contextual links within non promotional text on a relevant website or blog. So for instance, if you could perhaps write an informative article or blog post about different lens types or what different exposures can be used for (I'm not a photographer so I'm sure you can come up with more interesting things!) and then get this published on a relevant site, it provides engaging and useful content that other people could potentially benefit from. Now within that article if you happen to mention that such and such a technique would be favoured by a wedding photographer, and that links out to your website (and even better if it links to a specific page on your site devoted to wedding photography) then you've got yourself a lovely little link. The trick is finding the places that will publish your post and provide value. If, say, you managed to get a story on the BBC website (and you won't), that link back to you would be worth a million links from a website with no authority or relevance, because Google knows the BBC is a well respected authoritative source. If you can find some useful and well written/designed blogs about photography and cameras, these would be ideal for trying to get some links.

Be warned though, the blogging community as a whole is wise to the power of blogs and a lot of them will suggest you offer them a little sweetener in return for the lovely valuable link they'd be providing. This is technically contravening Google's guidelines and paying for links that aren't disclosed as paid for can land you in a lot of trouble. That's why the very best content marketers work hard to provide genuinely useful, engaging and share worthy content. If you're offering a blogger or webmaster something his readers are likely to find interesting, or that could potentially even attract new readers, then that should be payment enough. You get your link, the blogger gets a good solid bit of unique content that makes his site look good and nobody's done anything they shouldn't have.

Basically, linkbuilding is the most time consuming and often intensely frustrating part of the process, as well as being arguably the most important. Whilst there are shortcuts, these won't do you any favours in the long run and the web is littered with examples of sites that once ranked proudly atop the Google rankings and who are now struggling to find a place on page 10, because they chased the easy links that Google eventually caught up with and devalued. Just as a good strong link will work wonders for your site, a bad link can have a negative effect. You do NOT want spammy McPorno-Gamble linking to your site, at ANY cost.

Essentially I could go on and on but you've probably fallen asleep already. However if your'e keen to learn more send me a PM and I'll be happy to offer any advice as you may need. I can also provide a selection of sites you may wish to approach for links, as I work with a lot of local businesses who have benefited from good links from known to be solid relevant websites that I often call upon.

It's a long old process getting to the top, but manage your expectations and put in the time doing things the right way and you will get there. Best of luck

WOW! That's amazing, thanks for spending the time to give me such a great response.

Its going to take a bit of time to read through a couple of times and absorb the information and translate it so that I understand it (Me being a simpleton, not your explanation).

I will have a few questions when it all makes sense so will PM you very soon.

Thanks very much again!