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Thanks

Nigel Merrick
Merrick Photography

I always suggest photosgraphers to wrote something, build a blog and write so I can optimise around their contents and build more key phrases. I even told my client (who is photographer) to just let me know the info of the image and I create text content for him. That generate more enquiries but make the website more text in stead of photos. Hell, guess what, he don’t like that much of text and want me to remove it. Nevermind because he paid for it.

I would only add that the best way to max the benefit from blog is to merge the blog content manager with the typical flash site. (A link alone between the two really does not provide much.) We have a blogsite themplate that will replace the splash and info parts of a flash site and dramatically improve SEO. Also having all of your content (images, info and blog) on one URL enhances the photographer’s brand.

-Marc
http://www.prophotoblogsite.com

ps – We currently have a cross platform upgrade offer for current flash site owners
Just enter UPGRADE at check out and save $99.
http://www.thinklikeabride.com/theagency/kertesz/purchase/

In many ways I agreed with Stan or poster #29 that I thought of people using Google to find photographers as more low-paying clients.

The client that found me though works at a 1 million circulation magazine in Australia and has me shooting an editorial package on a high-profile visitor to the states.

Lesson learned.

SEO is a valuable tool for photographers.

Now as a web guy… I do have to say… this post breaks your site in IE. I’d normally wouldnt be viewing your site in IE, but my Feedreader uses IE as a base for internal browsing. I verified that in at least IE7 it is broken. The line I believe in question that causes problem is:

you can calculate exposure values in your head, I hope you can edit a

I’m guessing you were trying to use an example of a “a href”??? in IE… the individual post ends right there… and viewing your frontpage you get all the posts up to this one, and the site ends. (and you sidebars never load)

You should use the CODE tag for pumping out straight code in WP without it trying to run the code.

I could not be any more pleased with my choice to have LiveBooks create and host my professional photography website. Their customer service is the best that I have encountered. The site works fast and the images load big and look great. The back end suite makes it easy for anyone to be able to constantly update and provide fresh content for their target market. They will soon offer browser redirect for the Iphone and such. Please don’t listen to anyone that tells you a Livebook site is not SEO friendly. I personaly placed Google Analytics tracking code in my site, using the online edit suite. Google has index my site and can even index your images if you want. Again as easy as selecting that option in the edit suite. Not to mention the second html site that gets built and rebuilt every time you update your site.
For anyone that thinks I am shilling, your nuts. I paid my money like anyone else. I did receive a great discount through ASMP, and you can too if your a member.
Rest Regards,
Scott Shepard
http://www.scottshepardphotography.com http://www.scottshepardphotography.blogspot.com

And in regards to tip #9 on Google Local: after completing the form etc, I got a confirmation call within 30 seconds and I could be found on Googlemaps a few minutes later. Quite useful that.

Mike

Nice blog setup and very cool images. If you don’t mind, I’d like to offer up a couple small suggestions that would improve your blog’s effectiveness in terms of SEO (and help the other readers) …

1. You definitely want to change the permalink structure in WordPress. Right now, you’ll see that all permalinks are of the format ?p=123 in the URL. Search engines give weight to the URLs of your site–when they have keywords, it can improve your rankings.

In WordPress, you can change this under Settings->Permalinks. “Day and Name” or “Month and Name” are the best options IMO.

2. I would try and write slightly more descriptive/keyword-laden post titles. Post titles are in H2 tags–these headings are often deemed important by search engines. Therefore, if you can get some keywords in there, it helps.

For example, your post about the Inc. mag cover is titled “Inc Magazine Portrait”. I’d consider expanding it to something like “Inc Magazine September 2008 Portrait: Aaron Hall of San Diego’s Borrego Solar Systems” … that might not be perfect, but you get the idea.

Other than that, the blog is looking great. Nice work.

http://www.robertbenson.com/blog

Stan @27
I think you have overlooked the fact that many people now use their phones to google for a contact number. An art director may remember my name but not have my comp with him. What can he do? He can google me. Try scrooling through 10+ pages of names to find someone you had expected to be on or near the top of the list.

Regards,
Scott

” An established art director is probably going to have a decent list of photographers so they are less prone to consult an off line directory. Younger, newer people who hire talent are MUCH more likely to hit goggle. ”

As Rob as pointed out before, the AD and PE’s at high and medium level agencies and magazines receive hundreds of direct mail and email blast per month. Their stable of choices are packed. Then’s there are the online portals live Workbook, Photoserve, ASMP Find a Photographer, etc. at their disposal.

Mike @ 16 is right. They rarely need to use search engines to find talent. Having a site that is SEO certainly helps, but I really think a majority of clients using Google, Yahoo, whatever will be lower end clients.

Best…Stan

but then again, i only see the ad words “sponsored links” in FF and not IE so maybe there’s a browser issue at play.

Sign up for http://www.google.com/webmasters
It’ll track the terms that your webiste is googling well for and rank them. It archives them, so you can click “2 weeks” or 2 months ago and see if you are higher or lower for the term.

Also it counts the inbound links as well as the terms used in the hot link to your site.

Simple and free.

P.S. You are spot on about website services like Livebooks. I like what you are doing with your company. I think you have set the bar higher. Too bad it went live after I had finished my site with Livebooks.

Best Regards,
Scott Shepard