TomHarmon wrote:
Well, like I said, good SEO takes time. I've been in this market for 6 months and have made great gains in my keywords in that time compared to others that have been here for years. But I'm just wondering, if you don't do a lot of SEO and you don't really care about it, why jump on a thread and send shots across the bow? The OP wasn't asking if you think SEO is better than a nicely designed website, he was merely asking why he wasn't ranking well. If you don't think SEO has any benefit, fine, but don't come on here and tell me "I don't know how long you've been into this whole Internets thing" because you really don't have a leg to stand on and haven't given the OP any sound advice....Show more →
The sound advice I am giving if you would pay attention is to not try to game the system because it will always backfire. I have experienced it first hand years ago with a tech site I co-founded in 2003 and what we did wasn't even that bad. You can optimize your site for search engines without gaming the system, you may ride the wave for a little bit but they always catch on eventually and then you get penalized majorly for it.
The best thing you can do is worry about the best content for the user first and put SEO practices in the passenger seat. They don't have to go to the backseat or the trunk, but SEO should not be the driver.
I'm not sure you have a lot of experience with SEO so I'm not going to argue with you anymore. I agree that if you try to game the system you'll get caught and keyword stuffing is bad, but that's not what the OP is doing. Not once did he repeat any keyword in his text. Plus he's only got a keyword density of less than 2%. This is not considered stuffing by any means. You just seem to be regurgitating articles from the web and not actually understanding them.
delsol9400
In answser to your question yes you can gain back lost positions. Google likes to modify its system every few weeks and applies major updates every few months. I have been caught in them even though I try to follow the ever changing set of non published rules. Almost like guessing what speed to travel when the sign say just don't go too fast. Fast could be 65 for some and 85 for others. No way to really know without a exact speed posted. Same with web site content. Is it Ok for me to be active on forums like this and link to my site as a respected expert and post articles about subjects I know and understand to teach others. That is what Google wanted at one time but is getting a lot more picky today.
Today they are very focused on sites that appear to be pushing a product for sale and linking to it. Usually a small site with few words and several outbound links near the top of the page is the common look for that kind of site. Your site appears to this look. Few words and 3 outbound links near the top of the page. The other pages are slide shows and google may not even be able to read them as pages.
Do some research and adjust the site to the ever changing ideas of what Google feels is acceptable. Do that and you will see your rankings rebound. Just make sure any reports you read as reference are dated 2013. The rules of 2012 are already outdated. On average it takes me 6-8 weeks to recover from my mistakes and jump back up in the search results.
In all honesty, spending large amounts of time focusing on SEO is largely pointless and a waste of your time. Everything about SEO is relative and there are no absolutes, just because a site ranks high one week, does not mean it's going to rank as high the next. The web is ever-changing and if your site isn't as well then you're doing something wrong. All of the old SEO tactics are dead, and you'll now be punished for them. The search engines change their algoritms all the time and are constantly tweaking to provide better results to their users, and that's how it should be.
Google, Bing, Yahoo and all the other engines explicitly outline to not optimize your site for the search engines, but rather for your Visitors. As an example, thinking that block of text at the bottom of the OPs site is going to help in the long run is completely misguided, if you as a human read it and say it's ugly and reads weird (because it does), what makes you think the bots aren't going to flag that? Do you really think the engineers at Google, Bing, whatever haven't implemented an algorithm to sort out uncommon sentence structure? I mean this feature has been in Word Processors for over 10 years now. The reason it likely helped in the first place is because there was no other content prior to, and it a. Provided new semi-descriptive content to the site and b. Gave the search engines more info to classify and compare the site to others with.
You guys need to focus more on keeping fresh content on your site via way of blog posts, helpful articles, etc and stop worrying about tweaking your site for Google. Worry about attracting more clients with genuinely helpful information, a clean, easy to navigate site without clutter, and lots of social interaction and the rankings will follow. Making things clear, concise and easy to read will do much more than you think..
oh and btw, OP, putting a Recent Posts scroller or something similar (ProPhoto grid?) on your homepage will do Far more for your ranking than that ugly block of text ever will, providing you frequently blog and have relevant info in your posts and not just images. This is coming from trial and error with many different client sites over the past year.
I can't do a recent post grid the way it's setup now . On my server there are two different word press installations. I did this so I could have a static gallery on the main page, and have the blog separate with different settings for both via prophoto blogs. I can however, add a new link to the main site to the most recent blog post. I'd just have to manually update it every time I update my blog...
----> oh and btw, OP, putting a Recent Posts scroller or something similar (ProPhoto grid?) on your homepage will do Far more for your ranking than that ugly block of text ever will, providing you frequently blog and have relevant info in your posts and not just images. This is coming from trial and error with many different client sites over the past year.
tjsix wrote:
In all honesty, spending large amounts of time focusing on SEO is largely pointless and a waste of your time. Everything about SEO is relative and there are no absolutes, just because a site ranks high one week, does not mean it's going to rank as high the next. The web is ever-changing and if your site isn't as well then you're doing something wrong. All of the old SEO tactics are dead, and you'll now be punished for them. The search engines change their algoritms all the time and are constantly tweaking to provide better results to their users, and that's how it should be.
Google, Bing, Yahoo and all the other engines explicitly outline to not optimize your site for the search engines, but rather for your Visitors. As an example, thinking that block of text at the bottom of the OPs site is going to help in the long run is completely misguided, if you as a human read it and say it's ugly and reads weird (because it does), what makes you think the bots aren't going to flag that? Do you really think the engineers at Google, Bing, whatever haven't implemented an algorithm to sort out uncommon sentence structure? I mean this feature has been in Word Processors for over 10 years now. The reason it likely helped in the first place is because there was no other content prior to, and it a. Provided new semi-descriptive content to the site and b. Gave the search engines more info to classify and compare the site to others with.
You guys need to focus more on keeping fresh content on your site via way of blog posts, helpful articles, etc and stop worrying about tweaking your site for Google. Worry about attracting more clients with genuinely helpful information, a clean, easy to navigate site without clutter, and lots of social interaction and the rankings will follow. Making things clear, concise and easy to read will do much more than you think..
oh and btw, OP, putting a Recent Posts scroller or something similar (ProPhoto grid?) on your homepage will do Far more for your ranking than that ugly block of text ever will, providing you frequently blog and have relevant info in your posts and not just images. This is coming from trial and error with many different client sites over the past year. ...Show more →
I don't fully agree with your first point. SEO is not a crap shoot, and you can absolutely rank well for weeks, months, or years. It's all about keeping up with what works and what doesn't and doing your own testing. SEO is always changing and you just have to keep up with the times, like anything in technology. It's is not a set it and forget it thing either. It takes a lot of work to reach the top and stay there.
But what I do agree is that people should constantly try to produce unique and interesting content. This is huge now and will be for a long time. It's the backbone of good SEO. I think making great content AND working on SEO can get you really far. You can't just keep updating your blog and hoping people find it and link to it. You need to be active with your SEO to bring the whole package together.
TomHarmon wrote:
I don't fully agree with your first point. SEO is not a crap shoot, and you can absolutely rank well for weeks, months, or years. It's all about keeping up with what works and what doesn't and doing your own testing. SEO is always changing and you just have to keep up with the times, like anything in technology. It's is not a set it and forget it thing either. It takes a lot of work to reach the top and stay there.
But what I do agree is that people should constantly try to produce unique and interesting content. This is huge now and will be for a long time. It's the backbone of good SEO. I think making great content AND working on SEO can get you really far. You can't just keep updating your blog and hoping people find it and link to it. You need to be active with your SEO to bring the whole package together. ...Show more →
I never said SEO was a crap shoot, nor did I say it shouldn't be done. What I said is that it is fruitless to spend large amounts of time and effort on 'keeping up with what works', when it is much more productive to spend that time/effort elsewhere. If you follow the best practices for titles, links, content and site structure, there isn't any need for testing/tweaking as the best practices are there for a reason, they produce informative and well structured sites, and in the end that's what you should be worried about. It doesn't matter if you're #1 on all the search engines if people visit your site and are completely turned off that it's a cobbled mess of search engine targeted nonsense.
The sole point of a photographer's site is to showcase their work to entice potential clients to book them, you don't make any money otherwise, people landing on your site simply is not enough, you don't get paid for pageviews. Yet, I see many photographer's put so much time and effort into SEO and in the process do/change things on their site that takes away from the overall visitor experience and ultimately discourages bookings because their sites have turned into cluttered, keyword dominant paragraphs and obnoxious, paragraph length page/post titles.
My point is that if you were to take, say 20 hours of time and focus it entirely on SEO, yes you will likely see some results, for a short time anyway. Now instead, if you take that same 20 hours of time and focus it on a social media, referral or an overall marketing campaign, your results will far surpass the SEO efforts and will gain you much more business in the long run that SEO ever will. The latter will also have the side effect of boosting SE visibility as social media is quickly becoming a large factor in overall rankings.
In the end, it's your time, your site, your business and your livelihood, so do whatever you feel is best for your situation. I'm only offering the same advice I give our clients from years of experience in the web design/development world and what I've seen consistently work over the years.
tjsix wrote:
I never said SEO was a crap shoot, nor did I say it shouldn't be done. What I said is that it is fruitless to spend large amounts of time and effort on 'keeping up with what works', when it is much more productive to spend that time/effort elsewhere. If you follow the best practices for titles, links, content and site structure, there isn't any need for testing/tweaking as the best practices are there for a reason, they produce informative and well structured sites, and in the end that's what you should be worried about. It doesn't matter if you're #1 on all the search engines if people visit your site and are completely turned off that it's a cobbled mess of search engine targeted nonsense.
The sole point of a photographer's site is to showcase their work to entice potential clients to book them, you don't make any money otherwise, people landing on your site simply is not enough, you don't get paid for pageviews. Yet, I see many photographer's put so much time and effort into SEO and in the process do/change things on their site that takes away from the overall visitor experience and ultimately discourages bookings because their sites have turned into cluttered, keyword dominant paragraphs and obnoxious, paragraph length page/post titles.
My point is that if you were to take, say 20 hours of time and focus it entirely on SEO, yes you will likely see some results, for a short time anyway. Now instead, if you take that same 20 hours of time and focus it on a social media, referral or an overall marketing campaign, your results will far surpass the SEO efforts and will gain you much more business in the long run that SEO ever will. The latter will also have the side effect of boosting SE visibility as social media is quickly becoming a large factor in overall rankings.
In the end, it's your time, your site, your business and your livelihood, so do whatever you feel is best for your situation. I'm only offering the same advice I give our clients from years of experience in the web design/development world and what I've seen consistently work over the years. ...Show more →
Yup, I agree with all this. Unfortunately, a lot of photographers don't know the very basics of SEO.
TomHarmon wrote:
Yup, I agree with all this. Unfortunately, a lot of photographers don't know the very basics of SEO.
I find it laughable that you say you agree with what he is saying and then on your own website the text near bottom of the page reads:
"New Jersey Wedding Photographer
Wedding Photographer in NJ
Tom Harmon is one of the best New Jersey Wedding Photographers in Northern New Jersey. Tom is an award winning wedding photographer who serves all of New Jersey, New York City, Connecticut, the Hudson Valley, Upstate New York, and the Syracuse area. Being a New Jersey Wedding Photographer, Tom takes amazing pictures of his bride and groom that they will get to cherish forever. Tom’s wedding photography style can be described as artistic photojournalism with bold and dynamic portraits. Tom not only shoots weddings in New Jersey and New York City, but he is available to photograph your destination wedding anywhere in the world. Wedding photographers are a dime a dozen, so Tom wants to make sure you get the very best wedding photographer in New Jersey. Tom loves to take risks to get the best and most amazing wedding photographs he can. Tom is also a New York City Wedding Photographer as well as a senior portrait photographer in New Jersey. As a New Jersey Wedding Photographer, Tom has been photographing weddings for the last four years and has won several awards, including a Fearless award. To have an amazing photographer at your wedding, you really need to find someone that is willing to take risks, go that extra mile to produce amazing photography, and give you his all to make sure you are completely happy. Tom Harmon is committed to be your amazing and awesome wedding photographer in NJ. He will make you look so good, you’ll want to brag to all your friends and family. Your wedding will be noticed by everyone if you have the right photography. So contact Tom today and talk about how you want the very best New Jersey Wedding Photography."
Word Count...
Photographer (12)
New Jersey (10)
Wedding Photographer (10)
New York (4)
TTLKurtis wrote:
I find it laughable that you say you agree with what he is saying and then on your own website the text near bottom of the page reads:
"New Jersey Wedding Photographer
Wedding Photographer in NJ
Tom Harmon is one of the best New Jersey Wedding Photographers in Northern New Jersey. Tom is an award winning wedding photographer who serves all of New Jersey, New York City, Connecticut, the Hudson Valley, Upstate New York, and the Syracuse area. Being a New Jersey Wedding Photographer, Tom takes amazing pictures of his bride and groom that they will get to cherish forever. Tom’s wedding photography style can be described as artistic photojournalism with bold and dynamic portraits. Tom not only shoots weddings in New Jersey and New York City, but he is available to photograph your destination wedding anywhere in the world. Wedding photographers are a dime a dozen, so Tom wants to make sure you get the very best wedding photographer in New Jersey. Tom loves to take risks to get the best and most amazing wedding photographs he can. Tom is also a New York City Wedding Photographer as well as a senior portrait photographer in New Jersey. As a New Jersey Wedding Photographer, Tom has been photographing weddings for the last four years and has won several awards, including a Fearless award. To have an amazing photographer at your wedding, you really need to find someone that is willing to take risks, go that extra mile to produce amazing photography, and give you his all to make sure you are completely happy. Tom Harmon is committed to be your amazing and awesome wedding photographer in NJ. He will make you look so good, you’ll want to brag to all your friends and family. Your wedding will be noticed by everyone if you have the right photography. So contact Tom today and talk about how you want the very best New Jersey Wedding Photography."
Word Count...
Photographer (12)
New Jersey (10)
Wedding Photographer (10)
New York (4)
Ahahaha bro you're on page 2 with that ridiculous stuff and you think I'm upset I'm on page 3? I don't care what page I'm on to tell you the truth because the people who book me are qualified referrals. The google people typically don't have much of a budget.
And how do you differentiate the competitiveness of your New Jersey Wedding photographer vs San Antonio wedding photographer?
TTLKurtis wrote:
Ahahaha bro you're on page 2 with that ridiculous stuff and you think I'm upset I'm on page 3? I don't care what page I'm on to tell you the truth because the people who book me are qualified referrals. The google people typically don't have much of a budget.
And how do you differentiate the competitiveness of your New Jersey Wedding photographer vs San Antonio wedding photographer?
You live in a dream world buddy.
This just tells me you know nothing about SEO. You don't even know how to find out how competitive a certain keyword is, yet you are on here trying to give advice. I was just trying to give the OP some guidance for his original question and all you've been doing is acting like an entitled asshole and trying to argue with me like some stubborn child. Breath deep and let it go....
1) Please explain how I am acting entitled to anything. "I do not think this word means what you think it means." (from a great movie, Google it) ... Maybe you were going for condescending, that would be the right word here. Or 'correct' - that would also work.
2) Do you mean to tell me that I should be ashamed of my 3rd page ranking, which I've only applied good web design practices to achieve (i.e. I'm not trying at all to do anything except create good content for my users and let Google see it)?
3) Do you mean to tell me that I know NOTHING about SEO or web design when I coded my own website from scratch with nothing more than a simple text editor?
4) At what point did you go from being a police officer to an SEO-expert?
For reference in terms of the whole competitive keyword thing...
New Jersey Wedding Photographer: About 15,500,000 results
San Antonio Wedding Photographer: About 7,320,000 results
...but wait... there's more...
"New Jersey Wedding Photographer": About 43,800 results
"San Antonio Wedding Photographer": About 353,000 results
and more...
BING search results:
New Jersey Wedding Photographer: 3,550,000 results
San Antonio Wedding Photographer: 15,800,000 results
weird, huh?
At the end of the day, my point is that there's a lot of conflicting information about SEO optimization, keywords, and all the stuff you think you know so much about. The best thing you can do is adopt best web design practices and forget about 'SEO' as people tend to think of it. Make a good website with strong and compelling content, update often and get people to talk about your work. That's all you need to do. Any BS you think you can do to climb the ladder more quickly may work temporarily but in the end it's not going to last and it can only hurt you, and more importantly you're probably going to get better customers through other avenues of referral anyways so it's really all a huge waste of time.
I'm only arguing with you because someone needs to point out that this SEO nonsense is a complete waste of time and energy that is better spent on many, many other things.
