Learn SEO While You Help to Feed People
UPDATE: Someone unloaded a can of whup-ass on me in the comments, to which I responded and uploaded yesterday's inbound search-related metrics. So if you would like some background info, it is there. But let's keep it civil, if at all possible...
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If you are in the Baltimore/Washington area and are interested in learning more about Search Engine Optimization, I will be speaking on SEO as it pertains to photographers at a "Photo Nights for Charity" event on 9/17.
If you are a shooter who is on the web, SEO is key to increasing your online footprint. This is not technical stuff, either. Anyone can do it.
One hundred percent of the money raised will benefit the Maryland Food Bank, which can really use our support right now. And there is a cool photo-related perk for attendees, too. I hope you will join us.
More details here.
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__________
If you are in the Baltimore/Washington area and are interested in learning more about Search Engine Optimization, I will be speaking on SEO as it pertains to photographers at a "Photo Nights for Charity" event on 9/17.
If you are a shooter who is on the web, SEO is key to increasing your online footprint. This is not technical stuff, either. Anyone can do it.
One hundred percent of the money raised will benefit the Maryland Food Bank, which can really use our support right now. And there is a cool photo-related perk for attendees, too. I hope you will join us.
More details here.
-30-
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by David, at 3:15 PM.
30 Comments:
I'll be there. With my pocketwizard.
Good stuff. Sometimes photographers are so much into photography, that they're forgetting about the marketing side of things ;)
SEO rules.
How about a downloadable text transcript, (with a Papal "donate" button for the charity element) for those of us who cannot attend?
Peter Bryenton
BryPix
Oops, I meant to write PayPal, sorry, (unless, perhaps, The Vatican now has an eBay account?)
I talked with David Hobby about SEO back April over lunch. I ranked for several key terms with my regular website but with a few tips my blog is ranking first page on Google for dozens keywords. David knows his SH....Stuff.
And I went to one of the last Photo Night Charity events at this studio and it was very wonderful. Well worth the donation and time to mingle with photographers.
David
How about putting some "SEO Love" into your own site first before embarrassing yourself by giving a workshop on the subject? By saying "This is not technical stuff, either. Anyone can do it." shows how little you know on the subject. If you're such an expert on SEO, why does your website have a low ranking in the search engines?
Google PR of 6
Alexa ranking of 9
Compete.com ranking of 16
These are low rankings for a website that has been around since October of 2000.
I find it comical that you would be giving a workshop on SEO when in fact we had spoken briefly at the photoshelter after party in NYC, and I was asking you why you did not optimize your site for the search engines, and you had no clue what I was talking about; Maybe it was the beers.... but giving a workshop on basic methodologies of SEO does not help people in the SEO game, and from my experience it usually hurts a websites ranking more than it helps.
I have had allot of customers come to me after the damage had already been done, by tinkering and applying SEO methods they learned in a workshop to their website.
Stick to Photography, which you do well, and leave the search engine optimization to the experts that know what they are doing. To paraphrase it into your lingo
"you can't shot SEO in auto mode, you have to go full manual for the greatest results. In the SEO world you don't have the luxury of firing off a lot of tries until you get the perfect shot. Your SEO memory card gets full fast, and it's not as easy as hitting the 'format button' to get another chance."
Good luck!
@David Swell-
Gee, David, where do I start?
While we may have spoken in NYC (I spoke to hundreds of people there) I have no idea who you are and will not be getting into a pissing match with you in the comments section of this site.
But I will address some of the issues you raised, many of which are in error.
First of all, my site did not exist until 2006.
Second, a Google PR of 6 is quite good for a blog -- I would expect it is probably in the 99th percentile in the overall blogophere, but I do not have access to that stat.
That said, you should know that the people I talk with at Google put rather less emphasis on the Google Page Rank number than do the general SEO public. Since having learned that, I cannot tell you the last time I checked my Google PR.
Quoting Google's Matt Cutts:
"My advice is not to obsess about PageRank too much; it is one of more than 100 different factors in how we score documents."
Third, Alexa is an utterly unreliable proxy (try Googling "Alexa sucks") for real stats. They guess from the outside, based on users' toolbars.
As you might guess, I prefer to use Google Analytics, which is 100% accurate, and does not rely on statistical guessing.
FYI, my primary source for SEO information for the last two and a half years has been to read, watch and/or listen to as much information as possible from Matt Cutts, who heads the search quality team at Google.
As such, I view him as very likely the single best source in the world from which to learn how to balance my writing to be be both informational and SEO-friendly. When he talks, I listen.
(I much prefer his info to that of the many people who claim they can "Make You Number One on Google!!!")
No one -- not even the search quality team at Gogle -- can guarantee that. That said, learning the general ways in which Google's search engine operates absolutely can make a difference, and they will tell you that at every opportunity.
Since you do not have access to my site's internal GA metrics, I will share some with you, and anyone else who wants to look into this particular issue:
Each day, the site gets an average of about 50,000 pageviews.
Each day well over 5,000 people find the site from a Google search.
Take yesterday, for example: 5,716 people came to the site from standard Google searches. 1,466 of those people visited the site for the very first time yesterday.
The searches comprised 2,392 terms, 1,997 of which did not contain any variant of the word "Strobist."
I have uploaded a PDF of the first 500 of those terms from 8/18/08, ranked in descending order, for you or anyone else to see, here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?qx1cisxowlg
That's only one day's inbounds, just from Google, but it was a pretty average day.
I do SEO tests about once a week. Dozens of terms of particular interest to the site are ranked very highly in search engine response positions. Many are first-page returns and more than a few are absolute first-position returns.
FYI, Google has stated that blogs are inherently highly search-engine optimized. This is especially true for Blogger (which, obviously, is owned by Google) and Wordpress. Blogs and search engines just get along well by nature.
Between an SEO-friendly platform and learning as much as possible about SEO-friendly writing, I have had results far better than I ever expected.
Granted, you did not have access to hard information about my site. But the snippiness and condescension was uncalled for. But since you at least had the decency to sign your name (most comments like this are anonymous) I thought I would not only moderate your post but respond to it in detail.
I have shown my numbers on this subject, and am not going to continue to argue them in the comments.
FWIW, if you had walked up to me in person and started talking to me the way you conversed today in print, I probably would have excused myself to get another beer.
Regards,
David
I am glad you are dong the "food bank" thing.
I am doing a series of stories on Photography and Darfur.
http://kblawson.wordpress.com/
Ken
good of you to offer some of your learnings for a good cause!
SEO is one of those things that you can really do A LOT of research on and get a good grounding and then share what your lessons offered as an outcome and pass those along to save people time.
I'm glad you're doing this, and even more so that its a good cause!
bolo
David.
All the chaps here in the UK could really benefit from some guidance in relation to SEO, if at all possible you could put up a link to your notes or a transcript of your talk, i am sure this would be very helpful. I am sure a small "Papal" donation would not go amis.
Glenn, UK
David, I respect your ability to give a measured, human response in the face of such an accusing post.
Why do some people behave like such *ssholes on the Internet? I bet some researchers have taken a crack at answering that...
Austin,
Economists, Psychologists and other social scientists have studied this. It mostly has to do with the lack of identity. Even if you post your name on a message board, you are relatively anonymous. (How many "Matt Adams"es are there?)
Think about how we behave with each other when we walk (as in a grocery store) vs. how we drive. When our face and identity is clearly visible, we tend to treat each other with courtesy and patience. When our identity is removed or masked, we behave quite differently and often more rudely.
The same could be said for message boards.
Hi David, I've been a web developer for the past 12 years and I work for one of Portland Oregon's top interactive design/strategy web firms. Let me tell you, your words in response to David Swell are right on! I'll admit, I thought it was odd to see the topic of SEO on your blog, but it sounds like you've done your research and you really do know what you're talking about. Best of luck with it, I wish I was in your area, I'd love to see your take on the subject.
David,
I'd love to see you talk about SEO, but I don't live anywhere near Maryland. I just wanted to say that I thought you responded appropriately to that person and I found the keyword file cool.
Two things, You may wish to block out your gmail address from the pdf you posted and also you had a type-o in your response to him.
No need to respond….
Also commenting this on blogger if you get that quicker…
All the best,
Bill
@Bill/3:19pm-
Only one typo? I am improving!
As for the email addy, it is a dead drop. Just there for my Google accounts. I do not even check it.
(Sorry, spammers....)
:)
Glad that's settled.
DH, get your behind to St. Louis for some workshops will ya? The only recent one of any importance was a stop by that McNally noob. ;)
Improving SEO might be great for photographers targeting the consumer markets (wedding photographers for example), but photo-researchers and art buyers willing to pay good rates will rarely 'google' for photos. Of course, rare subjects and specialties are an exception, so if you're an underwater photographer specializing in the marine life of the Persian Gulf, you might want to spend some time SEOing.
But for the generalists out there -- I'm referring both the editorial and commercial 'togs -- you might be better off doing more targeted marketing, like sending out your portfolio to researchers and buyers whose needs you could fulfil. Otherwise, you might be wasting your time replying to reserch requests only to find out that the client wants the photos for free or for micro-rates.
Of course, if you're a blogger trying to make more money through web-ads, then SEO is a no-brainer.
Appreciate your well-thought-out response to Mr. Swell, David. I'll take further issue with some of his opinions
"...giving a workshop on basic methodologies of SEO does not help people in the SEO game..."
This is utter nonsense, and smacks of fear-mongering from someone in the industry. At my day gig, I regularly speak to editors about the merits of "writing for the web/search engines", and am able to see the SEO benefits of providing this knowledge to them. Understanding the basics of how search engines work is not particularly difficult to grasp, and can have a dramatic impact on the success of a piece of content in search engines.
@ The Anonymous Poster (4:40p)
Depends entirely upon who is doing the searching. Key areas include corporate, looking for shooters in other geographic areas, and (especially) wedding, portrait and event shooters, within a geographic area.
@David Swell (4:50p)
Thanks for the second note. No harm, no foul. But not gonna keep that discussion going in this venue.
As a SEO Specialist by day and wedding photographer by night, I find this thread really interesting. I think as SEOs, many of us tend to focus on the minutia of on-page ranking factors and link-building schemes and forget the most important rule in SEO: Create relevant, useful content.
I think we can all agree that David has created some relevant, useful content here that has struck the right chord at the right time.
I also appreciate David sharing some GA stats with us, though I feel a bit guilty, like I'm looking through someone's underwear drawer.
I was actually kind of surprised by the bounce rate, which seemed kind of high to me. I look at bounce rate as a good indicator of the overall quality of visitors and how engaging your landing pages are. (For those that don't know, bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that leave after viewing just one page).
Rather than leaving unhelpful criticism, I might suggest engaging the users with stronger linking between articles, and perhaps a 'most popular articles' link or dropdown or some other feature(s) you think would get users to stick around, and I'd wager that bounce rate (and ad impressions) improves.
@ggfergu
Mind you, you are just looking at the bounce rate for those who land via a Google search. My general population's is better.
My "Welcome to Strobist" page is always a work in progress. At present, if you land there you are 74% likely to drill further in.
That page gets a lot of my retention efforts. About 1k people come through a day, most all of which are newbs.
Being just one guy -- chief, cook and bottle washer -- I have to pick and choose my areas of extra effort. It is an interesting (and daily) exercise in triage.
High on my list: Get to be better at HTML and CSS. But I simply do not have time, and I want to understand everything that exists in my template. So I have not yet hired anything out.
@gg, P.S.
Don't look through the underwear drawer if you cannot handle the skid marks...
David!
How great of you to offer to share your insights on SEO. Add my name to the list Left Coasters who would support a Papal webcast or, as a distant second option, a transcript.
Kudos also for posting the pontifications of Mr. Swell. Let's see... he couldn't get the hyperlink in his post to point to a valid site. When I Google on his name... he does not show up. He must know a lot (aka: "allot") about SEO himself.
Back to the truly important causes (easing hunger and the furthering the viability of photography as a livelihood), I seriously advocate that you turn to the web as a way to raise more money by sharing your SEO-juice far and wide.
Ciao! Syl
Reason #53 why I should move up north.
Have fun everybody!
Well, I think a new term has been coined. I'll gladly Papal a donation to get another opinion about SEO.
I, like you, follow Mr. Cutts and read as much information as he and Google can put out.
I've also read about SEO from tons of other sources. Very, very few get to the point though. It's all about the content. If you have the content and you're not absolutely stupid about a few things, the rest will just fall into place.
And thank you, ggfergu, for sharing your little tidbit. That is quite helpful advice anyone with a website sharing content for others should take.
Yes please for the West Coasters that can't attend.
when i type "off camera flash" into google.. strobist is 1st... good enough for me... keep up the the good work david... ignore the naysayers...
And just to clear things up for you, David, when folks keep saying west or left coast, they mean Phoenix.....
David,
Sign me up for the online downloadable by donation version--I can't afford to travel out from the west coast.
Jeff
do you think it'd be a good idea to speak even more broadly, and discuss some general marketing ideas? something like "how to make money in photography 101?"
dave
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