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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Website Traffic
Joe Morahan, Photographer
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Denver | Co | USA | Posted: 10:58 AM on 12.10.09 |
->> So lately i have been a bit bummed on the amount of traffic on my website, blog, ext. I have been working on SEO for months now, and am making sure to populate my galleries with plenty of SEO information, keywords, and much more image info.
But here is my question.....what else can I do to create more GOOD TRAFFIC??? I want people in the sports industry visiting my website, not my mom and g/f.
Does anyone have advice to up my traffic? Great links, plugs, ext- |
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Harrison Shull, Photographer
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Allen Murabayashi, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 6:01 PM on 12.10.09 |
->> joe,
i took a look at your site, and your SEO is not as good as you might think. Your Livebooks website has good capabilities but you're not leveraging them completely.
Let's talk about page titles. Page Titles are the most important on-page factor for SEO. The page title for your homepage is "Joe Morahan Photography." It should be something like "Colorado Sports Photographer and Photojournalist | Joe Morahan."
People aren't searching for "joe morahan" they're searching for "colorado sports photographer" or "portrait photographer colorado" or "colorado stock photos."
The same would be true of your blog.
So then let's assume you have unique page titles for every page on your website, and you've keyworded and captioned, etc. The on-page factors only account for about 15% of your overall SEO score according to most experts.
The reason you're not coming up in searches is largely because you haven't built enough links to your website. I used a backlink analysis tool and found that you only have about 17 different domains linking to you. By contrast, Dave Black has 2500 different domains linking to him (since he has multiple links coming from the same domain, he actually has many thousands of links).
Each link to your website is effectively an endorsement. The more endorsements, the higher you'll rank because your site is deemed to be more important/significant/credible.
Next, you have 5 galleries of about 30 images each. So your entire "footprint" of images on your domain consists of 150 pages. By contrast, Brad Mangin has 30,000 images in his archive. Brad has 12000% more opportunities to be found (i'm simplifying, but hopefully you get my point) on the internet. Finding you on the internet is literally finding a needle in a haystack. You don't want to be the needle, you want to be the hay. Publish more content. If not on your portfolio site, then create an online archive or blog a hell of a lot more.
SEO is not just adding keywords to your images -- that is just a small factor. You need to add more content (the blog is a great start) and build more links so that you show up on the first page of results.
When that starts to happen, you will definitely see an increase in unsolicited visits. |
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Joe Morahan, Photographer
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Denver | Co | USA | Posted: 11:15 PM on 12.10.09 |
->> Allen,
thank you so much!!! I guess I needed to hear that-
So how in the world would I get 2,500 links to my site? Is there some where I can list my site to help me out?
I completely agree with everything you said above. I need more images, archive, links, ext-
thanks for taking the time to look through the site and giving details |
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Clark Brooks, Photo Editor, Photographer
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Urbana | IL | USA | Posted: 12:21 AM on 12.11.09 |
->> Joe:
What is your definition of GOOD TRAFFIC???? When folks from the sports industry reach your site, what do you want them to do? If you want people to do more than just look at your pictures and read your blog, then SEO is only one quarter of the work that you need to do. |
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Delane B. Rouse, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Washington | DC | US | Posted: 2:17 AM on 12.11.09 |
->> Damn you are a rrrrrreally good photographer. Dude...get a rep in NYC, LA or Denver.
http://www.joemorahan.com/ |
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Tim Clark, Photo Editor, Photographer
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Nashville | TN | USA | Posted: 8:29 AM on 12.11.09 |
| ->> Delane is right. That's some great work on your site. |
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Allen Murabayashi, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 10:41 AM on 12.11.09 |
->> Joe,
A few link building concepts.
Since you only have 17 different domains right now, then it should be pretty easy to double that. Trade associations and community websites (like sportsshooter) often have profile pages where you can link back to your website. If they have the ability to define the "anchor text" of the link, then use something very descriptive like "colorado sports photographer" instead of "my site" or "joe morahan."
You probably know a bunch of photographers with whom you can trade links. Once again, think about that anchor text. Instead of having them link via their blog roll to "joe morahan" or mention you in a post as "my buddy joe," convince them to link like this "joe morahan is a --great stock photographer in colorado--" (i'm using the dashes to connote the link).
Once you've exhausted the associations and friends, you might have 30 links. How do you get to 100 or 1000? You have to create compelling content that people want to link to.
In addition to being a top-notch photographer, Dave Black runs seminars, maintains a blog, and occasionally will write an article for someone else. All of these things create what we call "linkbait" (i.e. the content is compelling enough to bait people into linking to it) There are lots of strategies for creating highly linkable content. Here are a few:
- Create a list ("8 reasons why video won't change the industry"
- Create controversy ("How to fail as a photographer")
- Attack ("Tiger Woods is a gigantic piece of ***")
- Humor ("Alphabet updated with 15 exciting new letters!")
You have a blog entry called "Rock Climbing at Red Rocks, Colorado." That's some good keywording. But it's some terrible linkbaiting. No one is going to link to that. People use that keywording technique and have success, but the difference is that they link the image and or keywords to an archive where the visitor can transact.
Which gets us to the next part, which Clark pointed out. You can spend a lot of time building traffic to your blog or your website. But there's nothing for visitors to do once they get there. There's no searchable archive to see a broader range of work. There's no e-commerce to buy/license an image. There's no newsletter/update sign-up form. If you're expecting all your potential customers to call you, you'll be waiting for a long time. This is the age of Amazon. When people want something, they're gonna want to do it electronically at 1am in their underwear.
Re: page titles. Since it looks like you're starting to make some changes. I mentioned that page title is the most important on-page factor for SEO. The other part of that is that the order of keywords correlates to SEO. So don't put "joe morahan" at the beginning of your titles unless you're trying to get more optimization on that term (you're already #1 in searches for "joe morahan" so you don't need it).
Last point, then I'll shut up.
SEO is one marketing technique. It should not be your only one. Direct mail, portfolio visits, car wraps, print ads, phone calls, adwords....these are all techniques which could/should be incorporated into your marketing strategy (you have a strategy, right?).
If there's one thing that I've learned about business, it's that growth rarely just happens. Sometimes companies/people stumble upon success, but in most cases, it takes a crapload of planning and execution. Glad to see you're thinking about this stuff. |
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Brian Dowling, Photographer
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Philadelphia | PA | USA | Posted: 11:38 AM on 12.11.09 |
->> If you want more sports photographers coming to your site/blog, you need to offer us tutorials, before and afters since many of your shots look like laying(sorry, if I'm wrong!), behind the scene shots, etc...
Your work is amazing, but once I've seen it, there is no reason to go back. You need to focus on quality traffic, connecting with the user, and the all important "bookmark". Then, you can upsell visitors to your classes, seminars, etc... |
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Joe Morahan, Photographer
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Denver | Co | USA | Posted: 3:08 PM on 12.11.09 |
->> Thank you to everyone who is helping me out with this. I really appreciate you all taking time to help me out and help me realize how you need a plan first. I guess my first post was very broad and did not specifically say what I was after.
Each of you has a great point and are right in everything that you have said. I have also received quite a few personal emails from others who are feeling the same as I do. Needing better, more, and specific traffic to their website. So many other people who are not chiming are also very interested in the thread and what you all have to say so keep it coming!!!!
Back to my original question….How to drive traffic??? You are all right in saying that I don’t have a reason for people to hang out at the site. No eCommerce, no tutorials, no workshops, ext. (it's hard to book a workshop when you have only a few visits to the blog)
So lets say I do a whole bunch of before and afters, and spill the beans of creating images. I feel the only people who would be interested in something like that would be other photographers. I don’t mean to say that they don’t matter, but that’s not who I’m trying to attract. Yes its nice to give tips, tricks, and other stuff and have having tons of other photographers hang out at and visit my site…..
But I need money!!! How can I get my website to pop up when a decision maker at Nike is looking for a fresh new photographer? (I know it’s a far fetch….shoot for the stars….right) I am looking for my site to seen by the people who are hiring; art directors, ad agencies, ext. I want to have my work pop up when people look for advertising jobs.
Do these two things go hand in hand? Once other photographers are visiting my site, back-linking to the cool stories I am going to write, then when people are searching for “great photographers in Denver”….they see my site? Do I understand this correctly? To me this seems a bit wack. Meaning people who hire photographers are more likely to see my site if I write about how to do the images. I thought I would be better off key wording and writing descriptions about each piece of art, so when they are searching “woman running down the beach” my pictures, blog and website pop up. How does me writing before and after and showing my process help other find me?
Allen…. (Thanks so much btw), But you said
“You have a blog entry called "Rock Climbing at Red Rocks, Colorado." That's some good keywording. But it's some terrible linkbaiting. No one is going to link to that. People use that keywording technique and have success, but the difference is that they link the image and or keywords to an archive where the visitor can transact.”
So if I understand you correctly, you mean take that post and link the image, keywords to my archive? Send them to another place with my images? Here is the problem….Do want the decision makers at lets say Nike, to see my archive? I thought it might be better to show less. Would I really want a bigwig at Nike to see 5,000 pics of mine? Considering only 2% would even make my final portfolio. I always thought that if I leave them wanting to see more of my work that’s a good thing vs. having them look at 1,000 pictures and thinking to themselves, man…..I never need to see one of his pics again.
Thanks so much everyone!!!! |
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Allen Murabayashi, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 3:59 PM on 12.11.09 |
->> Joe,
You, like all of us, want qualified traffic. But it's impossible to drive strictly qualified traffic.
If 5% of your visitors are "qualified," then you have a few choices to increase that.
1. spend a lot of marketing to drive qualified eyeballs. you could use something like agency access to drive specific image buyers to your website. this is expensive and transient, but is highly targeted.
2. increase your "funnel." if you have 100 visits and 5% are qualified, then another way to get more traffic is to increase the number of visitors. assuming the stats stay the same (and they almost always do), 1000 visits will send 50 qualified users.
traffic begets traffic. the more people hear about you, the more people will go to your site: http://www.joemorahan.com
(i just helped you by making it easier to click to your website).
so you shouldn't just try to get qualified traffic -- you want a larger, aggregate audience b/c you never know who knows who.
in your nike example, part of the issue, is that you need to do more research to understand who is actually making decisions. i know nike a little bit, so take my example with a grain of salt.
nike uses an advertising agency named weiden + kennedy. there are specific creative directors there who work with marketing directors at nike to come up with new campaigns. the creative directors are always on the look out for new talent, but they also have a stable of very good photographers like http://marcusswanson.com/
so if you want to play with nike, you need to get a portfolio review with w+k. but you also need an honest assessment of whether your work matches stylistically.
as far as the blog goes...look at brad mangin's. he links every image and the names of players to his archive. does he want an editor seeing images outside of his portfolio? absolutely. brad isn't commissioned to shoot lit portraits. brad is hired to shoot games, and also relies on his archive to create a secondary revenue stream through stock sales.
http://www.manginphotography.net (blog + archive)
when SI comes to his site because they heard that he did a great piece on andy pettite resigning with the yankees, they're also gonna find a treasure trove of other content. brad primarily shoots the giants, and i never thought that i could go to him for pictures of pettite too. you just saved the editor some time.
more content, better information, frictionless sales.
in your case, nice photo on the blog, good descriptive keywords. if i want to license it, what do i do? is it available as a print b/c my sister loves rock climbing in red rocks. too much effort to contact you, so you lost a potential client.
everything i'm saying has nothing to do specifically with photography. the best e-commerce sites on the web are information rich and have reliable e-commerce (e.g. amazon).
the best photography review sites have an extensive archive and lots of activity that let you know the community is vibrant and credible (e.g. dpreview) |
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Jimmy Hickey, Student/Intern, Assistant
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Seattle | WA | USA | Posted: 4:31 PM on 12.11.09 |
->> Thanks for the helpful info everyone:)
In regard to getting more traffic from potential business, shouldn't you just contact them? Give your potential clients a call on the phone and tell them about your website, or try to arrange a portfolio review meeting. Also I'd imagine finding a good representative would be a step in the right direction. I don't think just sitting back and hoping a major client stumbles upon your website is the best decision when you "need money"
It seems like a more direct approach, on top of some smart marketing/back end stuff will bring you more clients. |
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Bryan Hulse, Photographer
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Nashville | Tn | USA | Posted: 6:02 PM on 12.11.09 |
| ->> Joe! Great stuff! I just added your site to my 'inspiration' favorites folder. |
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Ian L. Sitren, Photographer
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Palm Springs | CA | USA | Posted: 6:36 PM on 12.11.09 |
->> "But I need money!!!"
Understood, we all do. However if you want to get clients like Nike or such, depending on your website and Google searches is a long shot bet at best.
I would suggest you go on over to the APA website and start looking around there and also subscribe to their Forums.
http://www.apanational.com/
And then visit the website of my good buddy consultant, Leslie Burns at...
http://burnsautoparts.com/BAPsite/Index.html
Personally I would love to see my web traffic higher etc and I am working on it. But in the years I have had my website I have depended on it as my online portfolio where I send perspective clients to see my work. I have been expanding that concept but still do not even think that someone will stumble upon me and send me big bucks for doing projects. Although it has happened a few times and with very happy results. |
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Joe Morahan, Photographer
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Denver | Co | USA | Posted: 11:34 PM on 12.11.09 |
->> Thank you once again for taking the time to help me out. I guess your right, the more traffic the more likely someone is stumble into my site. So I guess I have tons of more work ahead of me, as far as the Internet goes…..wow this stuff complicated!!!
I do want to point out that I do actively look for more work, new clients, ext. I don’t sit on my butt and do nothing all day, but I want to up my chances of that 1 in a million shot. I realize that I have a long way before Nike, but that was just an example. Also a dream. I do however, want to make sure that my website is ranking well and is seeing lots of traffic.
Allen…So the rock climbing picture that you liked so much…. Should I link that to my archive or to Getty Images? Here is the dilemma with that. I could point visitors to my archive to buy a $30 print. (& they get to see tons of images) Or should I send them to Getty Images? There they could license the image. (less images…bigger payday) So how do I solve that? Where should I point people? It seems like a no brainier to me that I should send them to Getty….more money in it for me, but they would see more images at the archive. Should I put a link under each image, one for the archive and one for the license info? And would that be too many links and redirecting?
I have just recently been working with a new rep that seems like she could help out with this tremendously. However I am not going to sit around a wait to get a job. I am a go-getter and I have to continue to move forward to where I need to be. So let it be known that I am not “just sitting back and hoping” that’s why I am here asking these brilliant folks for some advice. I want to learn and move forward.
Allen… I just updated a new “How To” story on the blog. Is this something you think others might back link to, or does the story itself have to have links? I am on the right track with this new update?
http://joemorahan.wordpress.com/ |
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Clark Brooks, Photo Editor, Photographer
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Urbana | IL | USA | Posted: 1:11 AM on 12.12.09 |
->> Joe: Thanks for clarifying why you want more traffic to your site. To get the 'qualified' traffic you want - art directors, photo buyers and editors - you need to work on the other 3/4 of the campaign.
This kinda long so bear with me. Sorry for the length, probably should have invited you to call, but others make take something valuable away from this.
Allen gave you some great advice for helping making your site easier to find. I recommend incorporating it, but even with all that work, it will not bring the specific traffic you are looking for. He hit the nail on the head as it relates to your situation when he wrote, "SEO is one marketing technique."
Given the target audience you desire, once you've maxed out your SEO potential, for the next six months to two years - depending on the level of financial commitment you can make - concentrate on building, promoting and maintaining the Joe Morahan Photography "brand". Look at this way: When you see a swoosh - you think 'Nike'. You want to build you brand to the same point so that when an art director or photo buyer sees your logo they need to think 'Joe Morahan Photography'.
Jimmy Hickey wrote, "Give your potential clients a call on the phone and tell them about your website, or try to arrange a portfolio review meeting....It seems like a more direct approach,..." This is just the start. Once you've made contact, you have to follow up with a mailing, greeting card with your photo, a post card or a brochure. Every piece with your logo and web address on it. So they know as soon as they see it, it is yours.
Do you have a FaceBook Fan Site or MySpace site? When you make changes to your site and change content post those to their internal blogs or walls? If not, do. As Allen suggest, put links back to your site in every post. Now that both FaceBook and MySpace are open to the public your cross-posts should help your site return higher in the search returns. Even prior to this change over in privacy policy, FaceBook referrals ranks second in non-search engine related traffic to the PhotoNews site.
All of this will be a waste however, if you don't change how you use your website and use it to your advantage. To be more successful you need a more dynamic site.
The first step to becoming more dynamic is change the intro page on a regular basis. At the very least once a month change the photos, composition...ect... When you change the cover art, change the music. Monthly or every other month change your portfolio images and other content. Change the order of the photos.
Put the last five photos first. Personally, I hate flash driven sites - they take to much time to navigate. My viewing habits may not be typical, but I rarely make it past the 10th photo in a slide show gallery. There may be other like me - so moving photos from the back to the front may give your site the appearance of being more dynamic. Even better would be to incorporate code to use cookies to randomly display thumbnails in a different order on every visit.
If a visitor comes to the main page two or three times over a long period of time (1 or 2 months) and sees nothing has changed s/he will assume that nothing has changed on your site and they won't back. Unless a mailing, email or phone call mentions you updated the site, they won't bother to look - your mailing, voicemail or email will be 86'd immediately. It will be harder to win them back because the figure they will see the same 'old' stuff.
Another dynamic dimension is give the visitor something to do besides look at pictures or read your blog. On the PhotoNews site (http://www.iphotonews.com) visitors can recommend stories and photos to aggregates like DIGG, Mixx and YAHOO! Buzz. They can link photos to their MySpace or FaceBook blogs and walls using linking interface. The can leave story comments. PhotoNews site visitors can create photo albums of their favorite images, purchase reprints or send family and friends system created email postcards. They can register and receive a bimonthly newsletter or volunteer to beta test new site features, products or services.
Funny, thing is there are - about 600 visitors a day (according to our server stats --- google says only about 70. I like the bigger number) but most people know very little about all of the cool site features so next week I'm starting a blog that will give a weekly tips on how to get more out of their visit and how they can use each to their benefit.
According to GA's benchmarking report, when comparing our site to other sports sites as well as news sites of similar size, visitors stay on 92% longer (4:55 minutes compared to 2-1/2) and view 6 more pages/visit than the sites used for comparison. The longer visitors stay on the site the greater the opportunity for etching the PhotoNews brand in their minds.
One idea to get your target audience to visit you regularly is to create a quarterly contest for your core target group to enter while they are on your site. Give away small items like a iPhone, George Foreman grill or dinner for two. Or go big and offer a trip to Vegas, a ski vacation at Copper Mtn or Vail. After each contest, list who won, what they won and do a short write up. Create a reason for them to come back again and again.
Think out of the box. Think unique. Think different. Most of all think dynamic. This will make your site standout to your target group, keep them coming back and increase your opportunity toward getting the assignments you want from them.
Finally, when you do get to talk to a member of your target group, pay attention to details. Add their anniversaries - professional and personal - to your calendar and birthdays. Don't forget holidays as you try to "build a relationship" as SS member Kevin Krows is fond of saying. Thoughtfulness does count.
When I was a photo buyer one photo agency, a small family run biz, sent an expensive bottle of champagne for my first anniversary. Another sent chocolate every year for the Christmas holiday. It's been 10 years since I worked as buyer, but I still remember the names of the companies and the reps who I worked with.
Kinda long, but I hope this helps. In summary, once your site is maxed out in its SEO, then you need to focus on meeting contacts and maintaining communication with them, making your site content more dynamic and finally concentrate on building relationships with the your target group. Remember, having a great website is just part of the equation, not the end-all.
Good luck. |
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Shelley Cryan, Photographer
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New England | CT | USA | Posted: 9:06 PM on 12.19.09 |
->> Here's a question for the SEO gurus here: I'm happy that, after a long time online, my website ranks well on some of the search terms I deem important. But it's a flash site, and I'd like to update it so Google can find more of the content there. If I change my site completely to an html-based site, will I lose all the Google rankings I've built up over years, and effectively start from scratch with search engines? Inquiring minds want to know....
Thanks.
www.shelleycryan.com |
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Allen Murabayashi, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 11:11 PM on 12.19.09 |
->> Shelley,
Short answer: no. you won't lose your ranking.
Most of your website goes to a single URL, shelleycryan.com, because you have a flash website. So you've built up SEO juice to your homepage.
Creating an HTML site with more unique pages with different titles and content is only going to benefit your SEO because there are more pages that can be indexed.
Once you have more pages, you will be able to build links to "deeper" content, which will give Google more pages to serve up in search results. |
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Shelley Cryan, Photographer
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New England | CT | USA | Posted: 10:07 AM on 12.20.09 |
->> Thanks, Allen. Just what I needed to know.
Shelley |
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