The more technology evolves in this world, the more independent we tend to be. Most of us creative professionals have begun to take marketing and web design into our own hands. In doing this we rely heavily on blogs, templates, customizable flash sites and other things. We can choose a template as a base and then tweak it exactly as desired. Heck, we can even edit some of the html ourselves if we google a couple things.
Now, only problem with do-it-yourself software is that it doesn't set you up for SEO (search engine optimization) which in-turn is going to cost you a heck of a-lot more money then if you had hired a professional in the first place. In fact, I'm going to venture and say that if you have a commercial photography/videography/design website well established and properly setup then about 80% of your business is going to come from search engines. In other words... if your not setup properly then your missing out a-lot of business! In fact, you are missing out on MOST of your business. This article is not meant as a step-by-step html tutorial since there is so many free ones already online, but I'm going to give you the basics and let you go search around from there. Even if you have already paid a professional to handle your web design and SEO I strongly suggest that you look into what they have done and be sure the things written about in this article have been followed. If you need help and/or are confused then please let me know and I'll be glad to lend a hand or take a glance at your site to be sure you heading in the right direction. Please remember that if you've already gone through the trouble of creating a site then just use what you can of this article until your ready
First & Foremost Rule!
CREATE YOUR WEBSITE OR BLOG WITH SEO AS THE FOUNDATION & BUILD AROUND THAT! If you want to be successful at online marketing then don't compromise SEO for design. Think of every single webpage or blog post you create as being an actual advertisement and chance to attract more potential clients. You can still make an amazing website or blog, you just have to be a little more creative then you would if using a Flash template.
HTML vs FLASH
When your site is designed you want it to be in HTML format. NOT Flash! By creating pages in HTML it gives you the opportunity to track every clients clicking path to learn from them (most popular pages, pages rarely clicked, if they continue past your homepage, etc). Not only that but every page you create is a potential search result in google. I realize that Flash sites can look very nice and show-off your work exceptionally but its not the way to attract online clients in most cases due to the fact that you cannot setup proper meta data. You may find still that some Flash sites are #1 on google. This doesn't take away from the relevance of this article as there are reasons for that happening that go beyond this blog post. For now, just listen to my advise & build in HTML!
Meta Tags
Search engines penalize your page ranks if they see multiple pages with the same exact wording in the tags. Make sure you have different meta tags for every single page. This includes title, meta description & meta keywords. In my experience Meta Keywords are now the least recognized tags so be sure you focus mostly on a solid title & description that will match your pages content.
Title
Word your titles in a way that you imagine potential clients typing search words to find your offerings. Be sure that the first few words will look good as a title link on a search engine at the same time.
Example; Title - Creative Hub's Wedding Videography of Los Angeles, California - John Whoever - Professional Wedding Video Specialist - /Title
If you notice, I was sure to put a city & state. This is vital! Target your local audience then build out from there once you are satisfied with your local rankings. Use different nearby cities or towns with each page. Feel free to include the same ones on more then one page but change your wording arrangement.
Descriptions & Keywords
Use the same rules as you would for the title. Don't get carried away with keywords!
HTML File Name
Use a file name that may be used as a keyword for that page as well. Such as "wedding-photography-portfolio-1.html" or something.
Page Content
Often times I get on people about their wording on sites. I'm not fond of unnecessary wording on what you do. Every single word should be strategic, important and well thought out to convey what your offerings as well as for SEO. It is important to have wording on every single page for search engines so by all means include some... just make sure its relevant as well as having similar to what's in your meta tags for that page.
Tricking Search Engines
Search engines are smart. Incredibly smart! If they sense they are being tricked then you WILL be penalized. They pickup hidden text if your trying to use the same text color as the background. They pickup images over wording. They pickup all these things. Just because you do it once and it works doesn't mean that 3 months down the road they are not going to penalize the heck out of your site for doing so. Don't try and trick SE's. Be honest with them and create your site to contain the relevant content to what search terms your going for and they will reward you with higher rankings. If you do have portfolio pages that don't contain wording then I recommend putting a little area on the page that states "Terms" or something. Then create a paragraph of words that match your meta data and the images or videos contained on the page. Create it in paragraph form so that it actually appears as page content other then just listing keywords otherwise you can end up penalized for that.
Images and videos
Image searches are huge. Every single image/video you display on your site needs to have the file name appropriately thought out as a search term that matches the image as well as having the image title/alt appropriately labeled. I realize that search engines don't go by file names specifically but I do think it goes into their recipe sometimes so best to be safe. Every single portfolio image or video should be thought of as a potential search result for SE's and a literal advertisement!
Portfolios
Create each page in HTML. You can use a lightbox or something on each individual image to make it look nice blown up... but don't use one as a slideshow for your gallery. More clicks is better for SEO as well as it being a way to learn from your potential clients. Most popular images, videos and such. Learn as much as you can about your potential clients and make edits to your portfolio's accordingly.
Breadcrumb Trails & Links
Its good to create a breadcrumb trail of links for your users to navigate through as well as hosting all the individual links at the bottom of each of your pages for fast navigation as well as for SE's to crawl easier. (you will learn about that when you sign up for SE's webmaster tools)
Now that your website is built you need to do a few things. You might need to google these...
Setup robot.txt files and robot meta data
Generate a sitemap. There are plenty of good free generators online so use one of those. Be sure the sitemap ONLY includes relevant pages. If it generates a bunch of gibberish from files on your server then weed that stuff out of it. You should only see your html web pages listed in it!
Submit your sitemap to google, yahoo, bing, etc and setup proper webmaster accounts. Don't believe every stat it shows you though. Often times they will say that your page is not indexed when you can plainly find that it is. Most people don't submit to SE's and then wonder why they aren't being picked up. Um???
Ping any search engines that still allow you too. (kinda outdated for most because submitting your sitemap does it I believe)
Have a "links" page on your site to host links to GOOD websites that are relevant to what you do. Get others to do the same for you and/or return the favor. SEO's love links as long as they aren't to garbage sites. You will get rewarded for this! You might also note that bing has a wonderful track-back feature in the webmaster tools that works well to find all the sites that have linked to yours.
Setup statcounter.com! Don't trust google analytics or your web hosts statistics. Use statcounter!!!! Study it every day to learn, keep an eye on your clicks per day and page ranks for search terms. See what terms people are finding you with and what they aren't! Then fix your wording so they do find you with those terms!
Patience! Don't expect things overnight. Sometimes it is, sometimes it takes a month or two. Remember also that the longer you've owned your domain is also better to SE's. Thats one thing that does get better with age...
Most of this applies to blogs as well. You CAN setup meta data, setup statcounters and submit sitemaps to google for them you will just have to search a little deeper or send me an email and I'll help point you...
Get setup with a google maps business listing with the title of your business including search terms as I did in the title of the web pages.
Adwords. I don't recommend them. 99 percent of the paid clicks are completely bogus. I also have a personal feeling that all these un-related clicks they bring to your site might do more harm then good with SEO. Yes, in a years time if you have an appropriate budget setup and proper keywords you may bring in more money then it cost you but if my feeling (based on nothing) is right then its gonna lose you money based off SE ranks. I DO believe they will do good for those selling products like computers and such but as for the creative artist I have to say I question.
One last note... NEVER fall for people trying to sell you guaranteed rank in google! You CANNOT purchase rank through google. Plain and simple! Most SEO companies charge and extreme amount and don't do much for you so be very careful. Some might be good so I'm not bagging on them but be careful! I would also stay away from purchasing rank through yahoo. Yahoo is extremely simple to get good page rank on your own if you follow my steps so why give them $50 a term or whatever it is???
This is my first official article so I look forward to any questions or feedback. I have not had time to set this blog up for SEO or too look pretty so please don't use it as a reference itself as of yet. I'm also curious to hear if you prefer an article like this in text form as I have it or in video?
