Posts Tagged ‘Web search engine’

« Older Entries
Apr
20

Spring cleaning

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

The economy seems to be picking up a little.  Let’s hope it sticks.

As the economy grows, so do the opportunities for more visitors to your Web site. Now would be a good time to do a little spring cleaning on your Web site.  It’s easy to forget about the foundation of our Web presence when there are so many new and exciting platforms on which to share our message.

Take a fresh look at your Web site. Listed below are five quick things for photographers to consider:

1.)   Does your site look modern?

2.)   Is it easy to navigate?

3.)   Do you have contact information on every page?

4.)   Can the portfolio be updated with better or more current images?

5.)   Are there any dead links?

There are many more things to consider, but if you check and consider the above list, you should be in good shape.  If your site looks outdated, more work is ahead of you.

Make sure visitors can navigate easily on your site.  Ask friends and family to test it, too.  If they have trouble, most likely potential clients are having the same experience. This means you are losing opportunities.

Remember that search engines do not index Web sites, they index Web pages. This means people can land on any page of your site and it could  be their first and last impression.  Make sure your contact information is easy to find on all pages of your site. If you think your visitors can or should figure it out for themselves, you are losing opportunities.

We all have photographs to which we are emotionally attached, but the reality is old and outdated photographs may cost you work opportunities.  I recommend getting a second opinion about your site images from other photographers and clients. Ask them what they think are your strongest images and what photographs should be replaced.

Check all your links, both internal and external.  Click them all, even if the links worked the last time you checked. You might be surprised. External links change all the time.  If you have exchanged links with someone, confirm they have not changed their mind and removed your link.

Spring cleaning should happen more often than once a year.  Every few months, at the very least, check all five items on the above list so your visitors have a good experience.

What items would you add to the spring cleaning list?

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in social media | No Comments »

Mar
30

Who is stealing your work?

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

You might be surprised to learn that your online writing, photography and videos are being used by someone else on the Internet in an attempt to make money. These content thieves operate on the theory that using previously published material along with Google ads will lead to piles of cash.

Some do make money using this method; most do not.  One reason this approach doesn’t work well is that Google recognizes and redirects readers to the original content source .

I checked copyscape.com the other day to see if anyone was using material from my photography Web sites to promote their sites.

Turns out, people are swiping my content. I was a little peeved at first. Then I wondered: did I encourage content theft? On my roshsillars.com site, I write about the importance of photography in marketing.  I can recall encouraging others on one of my podcasts to use my ideas to promote the importance of good photography in marketing. Whether I encouraged people use my concepts, it’s not a good idea to use other peoples wording exactly.  The reality is some people just copied my site.

There is justice. If people swipe your content word for word, chances are they will gain very little search engine traffic. In most cases if visitors from the other site use the swiped information they saw from the imposter Site in a search engine it will benefit you. Chances are they will end up directed to your site not the imposter site.  In other words, they are advertising for you.

If I’m concerned about an image or video being taken, I don’t post it. Or I’ll make sure I have a good watermark on it.  If nothing else, I know I will get some free advertising out of the thief.

It’s a touchy subject, what are your thoughts?

Below are some links to helpful tools.

http://www.copyscape.com : Search the Web to see who might be using your writing.

http://www.tineye.com : This is a reverse search engine that tracks who is using your photographs.

http://www.copyright.gov : Use this site to copyright your work.

http://www.google.com/alerts : This helps you keep track of key words.

http://copyrightspot.com : Another site to detect plagiarism of your work.

http://www.doccop.com Here is another plagiarism detector. I’ve not tested it.

It’s a touchy subject, what are your thoughts?

Rosh

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments »

Feb
23

Wrong answer

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

I had a project estimate presentation with a large client.  We had a long list of topics and services to discuss.  One of the services was search engine optimization (SEO).

I was asked to justify the price tag for SEO.  I explained what we do, the actions, research and management of each page.  Although my response was accepted by the client,  I felt my answer was incomplete.  It was the wrong answer.

SEO is a valuable service.  Much of my photography work comes from people finding my portfolio through the search engines.  SEO works.  In fact, this company originally found our Web site because of our SEO efforts.

So what was wrong with my answer? I focused on what our company does — what some might call the features. No one really cares about feature details, only how the features will benefit them.

The client only needed to know one thing: Better search engine placement will help them make more money.

SEO is a good investment. The client most likely will earn back more than they paid for the service. I know it. I’ve experienced it.  The future of most companies hinges on being highly visible on the Internet.

The same principle holds true for your photography.  Your work is valuable.  When someone asks you  to justify your price, make sure you have a good answer. Here are a few examples:

  • “My photography will help you sell more products.”
  • “You are losing money with the poor photography on your Web site.”
  • “I will make you look beautiful.
  • My vision, style and passion will capture the memories of  the most important day of your life.”

People don’t care how you’re going to do it. They just need the justification to spend money on the amazing results you will provide.

Rosh

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in business, Seo, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Feb
17

Adwords for photographers

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

First, I want to thank @picseshu for encouraging me to write more about AdWords.

I’ve spent some time lately dismissing AdWords due to my frustration with Google’s bidding system and click fraud. All that aside, AdWords still offers photographers many opportunities.

There is a lot to AdWords. Now that I’m running more AdWords campaigns for Synectics Media clients, I’m taking another serious look at how the advertising medium can benefit photographers. I can’t share everything in one post, but I will make it a point to add the topic to the rotation of subjects I cover on this blog and podcast.

What is AdWords?

It is a pay-per-click system offered by Google and other search engines. You can create text-based advertisements for search engine results relevant to your Web site.

Sometimes search engine optimization (SEO) doesn’t offer the search placement results photographers require. Google AdWords allows photographers to buy their way to the front page of Google, related Web sites or Google partner search engines.

Many photographers have given up on AdWords. This is especially the case after Google changed its system of bidding on ads. This is good news because now there is less competition driving up bid prices.

Is AdWords right for you?

If you wish to sell cheap stock photography or low-cost head shots, it may not work. You have to test the system to see what works for you. The good news is you can test for a fraction of the cost of other ad models with better tracking information. This will allow you to test, change ads, and figure out if your plan will work before wasting an entire advertising budget.

Fortunately, photographers have higher price points and can risk a larger amount of money and still receive a quality return on investment. If done well, AdWords should be profitable (with tests and tweaking) within a month depending on the target, skill and competition.

The first thing you need to understand about AdWords is that it works like search engine optimization. Relevant words in the ads need to match the landing page, which is the page the ads are directed toward. Unfortunately, most photographers link their front page to AdWords campaigns. In many cases, photography Web sites don’t even have words on the front page. This lowers their Google ad score and ultimately costs money and quality placement.

Google wants its ads to work. If an ad score is too low based on Google’s criteria, a photographer can’t even buy his way onto the front page. This is why a good customized HTML landing page is recommended. Photographers need to create landing pages related to the search terms they are trying to attract.

If a photographer is bidding on the words “food photographer,” the ad should lead to a page with good information about her food photography. The ads should contain images to keep people on the page, quality written information about the service, and a method of contact. A form requesting more information is often advised to support the collection of prospects’ e-mails for future campaigns.

Be careful of the automatic tools Google offers. Many are valuable. Others, unfortunately,  optimize best for Google’s profits rather than the advertiser’s success. An example of this is auto bidding. Use Google tools and make your own judgments on how much to bid on keywords.

Use tools such as Google’s  Insight for Search and Keyword Tools to help find the best high-traffic related keywords. Start off with two to four unique ads using the keywords related to the search words bid on.

Consider focusing on local advertising placement. It seems like the more localized and geographically focused it is, the less click fraud is involved. Note: Click fraud has been estimated to be as high as 33 percent  for some expensive key words. Another way to fight against click fraud is to avoid content advertisement placements until you understand the system better. These are ads found on Web sites. Fortunately, Google allows advertisers to manage their ad placements. This can be very beneficial if you know or suspect a local high-traffic Web site may attract photography buyers.

To start a campaign, log into AdWords and set up an account. Decide on your best keywords. Remember the importance of search engine optimization. Use custom landing pages or subdomains connected to the main site and test, test, test everything until you find the winning combination.

Rosh

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments »

Jan
26

Are these upgrades important?

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Twitter is rolling out another application within the Twitter platform. It’s called local trends and will allow you to follow local keyword trending topics. You should see this on your Twitter site over the next few weeks.

This is an import step for Twitter.  It is nice to know what is going on around the world, but local is what affects you. We should see more local focus and applications in the near future.

Google continues  to work on improving search results.  Ask Google with its new Google Squared integration a question in the search box. The answer — if it is available —  should appear in bold face in the search results.

This should be easier than combing for the answer through the sites that come up in search results. Now you don’t even have to click the link to the site.  Is this a good thing for Web site owners?

Google Squared is part of a larger effort to improve the search experience. Another example is the use of rich snippets, which is a new feature that makes it possible to surface structure data from your pages on Google’s search. Results may be event details, biographical information or user reviews depending on the type of site and information it provides. Please note, if you think this might benefit your site, then more markup language will be needed from Google.  You can find more information at googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.

Bing has launched its new map service using Silverlight and Photosynth.  Keep an eye on this technology.  It could be very useful for photographers.  Photosynth seamlessly stitches together photographs from multiple sources to create a 3D space.  As more photographs are entered into Bing’s map system, more Photosynth 3D images of locations will be available.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

« Older Entries