Photography forum

[chris Hodgson]

We have our first pages on google
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&cr ... art=0&sa=N

[chris Hodgson]

OMG, just done some more SEO stuff this morning by adding twitter, youtube and aboutus.org pages and we have guests coming ,out of our ears

[Jayne-Yorks]

way to go Chris

[bandit]

Nice one matey

[Kya]

Excellent stuff!

[Kenny]

Well done Chris

I shall be calling on you to do the same for my webbie when I finally come round to building it...theres the small matter of images to put on it first LOL

...I know youve already given me some advice on that score LOL( the webbie SEO not the images)

Bessy regs

kenny

[chris Hodgson]

The basic key to getting up in the searches nice and quick are as follows:
First of all get your site exactly as you want it, and all pages content finished.
Make sure your page meta data is relevant and contains good terms that are popular (name dropping brands or places helps)

Open accounts with Google, Bing and Yahoo, then use their webmaster tools to submit your web address.
http://www.bing.com/webmaster
https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/mysites
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

If your site doesn't generate it's own sitemaps (most don't), you will need to create one. You can have one made for you to download (then upload to your site), by entering your web address in to this site:
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com
Then in the webmaster tools above, submit your sitemap.xml address too.
Ask.com don't do webmaster tools as such, but you can get them to go through your site by placing your sitemap address at the end of this url

Code: Select all

http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http://YOUR-WEB-ADDRESS/sitemap.xml

Then just click go, and your sitemap and site will be indexed by Ask.com

You can use some of the free site submission services, but DO NOT OVER DO IT. If the likes of google etc get too many hits from these, it can lower your ranking.

Placing your web address around.
Put links on Facebook, youtube, flickr, twitter, aboutus.org and any networking sites you can think of. Also place it on the free business listing sites like http://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk , as these will all help in growing your online presence

Other than that, just make sure your content is up to date, relevant to your site, and don't duplicate words too much

[Kenny]

wow!!!! above and beyond or what????

thank you VERY much Chris. All I need to do now is sort out the content I want on there.Ive got the look I want-which I showed you,just need to finalize a few more things and will then follow what you said.Im going to print this thread out so I can follow everything!

Once again,many thanks!

bessy regs

Kenny

[chris Hodgson]

Told ya there wasn't much to it m8
Another good tip, is to name your pages well, if you are creating them yourself. For example, name your portrait page, portraits.html etc etc.
One more tip is don't use hidden text in pages. It used to be the done thing to have a list of popular words on your site, that were the same colour as your background (so people couldn't see them). The bots now know if the text is hidden from view, and will mark you down if they spot it

As you may have noticed this forum renames the urls, to match the topics being viewed, rather than showing /showthread.php?t=XXXXX or what ever, and also puts the topic and forum title at the top of your browser (and in to the meta data) automatically It auto generates sitemaps, news and rss feeds for the whole forum, as well as for each forum section, so google has lots of info to read, index and refer to when people search In the background, the forum sends a ping signal to Google etc, as soon as a new post or thread is created, so the search bots know where to look for new content.

You may also notice the Here here here links in my signature. Not there for fun, but for the search engines to pick up on. They are links to the twitter and facebook pages etc, that are high ranking sites. All those pages have links back to here on them, so the search engines pic up on popular sites link to here. And up you go in the rankings

[Andy B]

hence why Ive been shouting out on fbook and twiiter too!!
Hoepfully gets more visitors!!

[Kenny]

Its all a wonderful learning experience for me and one Im taking in.Seems to be that the better you make your pages viable,visible and fun and interesting and the better the bots find you.Ive not got to the stage yet when i feel confident enough to launch myself wholesale into the big wide world of togging and to be honest,Im of the opinion I need to up my game in order to do so-which is why I have chosen to do a degree.I know that some of you guys havent done degrees but your work experience has done the work for you-IYKWIM.You've all " made it" because of your skills and I do admire you guys for doing so.I chose a different route but hope that I too "make it" like you guys have.Its been one of the joys of being on forums with you guys that I got such a learning ethic off you and also massive kicks up the backside when I needed them.I know Im sounding like a cliche but when I say you guys DO isnpire me I mean it. Ive never gone out of my way to say stuff I didnt mean and its part of my problem that I do say what I think.Its probaly why I get on with you guys so much LOL

anyway,thank you for the masses of info.I cannot believe there are people paying thousands to go to seminars when you just gave all that for free.

...then again...if the photo I tried to take yesterday at Euston Station in London comes out okay I might have a bit of a repay at hand LOL...

Bessy regs

Kenny

[chris Hodgson]

Yep, they pay thousands for stuff that is basically common sense. There are companies who will guarantee 1st place on google etc, but what they don't tell you is that it is for specific search terms only (eg: searching your company name). 95% of SEO is all about correct placement of links, words and content. Another good tool is google business listings, which is again totally free and part of google webmaster tools called "Local business center". You put your business details in, and select categories your business fits in to, and google then ring your mobile or business number to give you a code for confirmation. Once listed, your business will be pulled up when people search for "photographers in XXXXXXX"
This is how it comes up if people search for photo restoration, Yorkshire http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&sa ... arch&meta=
I get top slot in business listing, and normal google search page below And I've not touched my site or content in 8-9 months (I'm about to do a revamp on it next week )

[chris Hodgson]

And just to add, we now have a a flickr group
http://www.flickr.com/groups/massive-photography/