Conducting a reverse image search using Google Images takes your image as the query (i.e. search term), and locates images with visually similar elements (colors, textures, patterns, etc.) as well as similar text descriptions (metadata and captions).

There are two  main ways to start your image search on Google:

1. Upload your photo to Google Image search. Note you can also drag-and-drop your photo from your desktop to upload.

2. Copy your photo’s URL from its original location on the web (i.e. your website or blog) and paste it into Google Image search.

In this example, we’re using an image by PhotoShelter member and concert photographer Todd Owyoung that he gave us permission to use in our post 14 Respected Photographers’ Plans to Jumpstart Their Photography Business in 2013.

Once you’ve uploaded your photo or pasted your image URL into Google Image search, it will return a page that includes a collage of visually similar images, which might resemble yours but not be exact copies, and a list of webpages that contain matching images. This is where you can determine if anyone is using an unauthorized copy of your image.

Google will also try to determine a text description for your image – you can alter this in the search box if it’s slightly incorrect (in this case, “uestlove kit” instead of “questlove kit” or simply “questlove”). Once you go through these initial search results, you’ll want to try employing some advanced search techniques to help find any images that Google might have overlooked.

Google has a nice advanced image search page that lets you search by image size, file type, colors, region, and more.

Here are some other alternative reverse image search tips:

• If you have other versions of your image, upload those to Google, too – especially if you’ve posted them online at some point.
• You might find a manipulated version of your image out there. It could be cropped, black and white, rotated, or otherwise adjusted. Try creating these variations on your own and then doing a reverse image search to see if someone is using a Photoshopped version of your work.
• Upload different sizes of your image. Smaller sizes means that Google has to work harder to infer things like specific colors and patterns. You might get more results that are irrelevant, but it might also turn up some new results.

So what happens if you find unauthorized copies of your images? Depending on the specific instance, you might have a case for copyright infringement. To learn more about copyright law and protecting your images, see our free resource The Photographer’s Guide to Copyright. Get tips to keep your work safe.

Update: If you’re trying to do a reverse image search on an image that’s displayed on your PhotoShelter website using the URL, be sure to follow these steps:

1.  Navigate to the single image view of the desired photo.

2. Copy image URL by right-clicking on the image and selecting “Copy image URL”

3. Paste this URL into Google Image search.

4. Check out the results

Note that this is the same process you would use to search for any image by its URL, regardless of where it’s hosted (your PhotoShelter site, your blog, etc.).

I’m going to skip the argument about whether you really need another social media account or how it can benefit your photography business, because the bottom line is this: we know from the analytics that social media drives traffic to photography websites (the aggregate of PhotoShelter websites sees about 23% of their total referral traffic from social media). More visitors to your website ultimately means the potential for more business. The end.

It’s your choice what social media sites to use. We know that Google+ is starting to have a significant impact on SEO. So what I want to discuss is if (and when) you set up your Google+ profile, how do you know if you’re making the most of it? I talked to the social media-obsessed nature and travel photographer Shane Srogi, who is followed by 26,616 people, and growing. Shane was one of the first photographers that we noticed was really taking Google+ by the reins. Now he regularly posts updates to Google+, engages with the photographer community, and gets upwards of 40 +1′s on his photos.

So what’s the secret to building a profile that’s appealing to both humans and search engines? A big part of it is in the initial set up of your About page. There’s potential to add a lot of detail about yourself, and it can seem overwhelming. But for our purposes, the major components are:

• Introduction
• Bragging rights
• Occupation
• Employment
• External links: Other profiles, Contributor to, and Recommended links

“The introduction is important, first impressions and all,” advises Shane. “Starting a new network is like starting a new school. I listed what I shoot, where I’m currently located, and links to where you can contact me. Some of these things may be repeated elsewhere in my profile, but this way someone who is skimming my intro can find pertinent information quickly.”

While that’s all good stuff, let’s also not lose sight of how Google reads your profile – it’s a little different from the human eye. Here’s a rough translation of how the search engine views your profile’s content:

When you Google “Shane Srogi”, you can see that these components are being picked up:

It’s crucial to build out your Google+ profile not just to engage the Google+ community, but for Google’s algorithm as well. Treat it like a mini-website with a page title and meta description, both of which are important for building SEO and getting indexed by Google. Keep your keywords consistent across all platforms by using the same list on your Google+ as on your website. As Shane says, “I used the tagline [the description under your name] to specifically describe what I shoot. I found that ‘Photographer’ was far too vague.” “Professional fine art landscape photographer” is much, much better.

Also pay attention to your links. Since Google places weight on its social network, this is an ideal opportunity to build a backlink to your website. Shane also suggests using it to cross-promote your other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Your first objective for building SEO with your Google+ profile should be just to rank for your name. Shane’s G+ profile is #3 result when you Google “Shane Srogi”. This seems obvious, but as you begin to build social klout, you might start to show up in personalized search results for your specific keywords. Shane is already appearing for the search, “West Palm Beach nature photographer” – and that’s where you SEO efforts really start to pay off.

Once you’ve built out your profile, what’s next? “Upload between 10-20 of your best photos,” says Shane. “You want to upload a solid portfolio for people to look through and enjoy,” he says. Then engage with the community! Photographers have really taken a liking to Google+, so there’s no shortage of conversation.

“When you see an interesting image, make a comment,” says Shane. “Mingle. Carry on conversations. People will add you to their Cirlces before you know it.”

You can connect with Shane Srogi on his Google+ page, as well as PhotoShelter on Google+. And for more information on how to take advantage of Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and the other major social media platforms, download our free guide: The Photographer’s Social Media Handbook.

I happen to be quite passionate about Search Engine Optimization, but it wasn’t always this way.

Around 2007, I was introduced to HubSpot, which is a great marketing tool for small to medium-sized businesses. They were trying to explain SEO to me and they said “What words or phrases are your potential customers searching for to find you?” I had no idea what this consultant was talking about. “Um, I dunno, ‘PhotoShelter’?”

I didn’t get at the time that people were searching for non-brand terms – something like “photography websites” because they were searching for an answer to a question. Of course, nowadays, we search for everything. I can’t imagine a day where I was online and I didn’t search for something; search is ubiquitous in the information age. Once I made that conceptual leap, however, and connected the dots with website analytics, I was able to see how effective SEO was in driving traffic to the website and bringing up new customers. The next leap was to study specifically how SEO can help photographers and photography websites. Now, with access to thousands of photographers’ Google Analytics, there is no longer any ambiguity – SEO is a proven, powerful online marketing channel that can attract highly qualified potential clients and help grow a photography business.

We published our first SEO for Photographers guide in 2009, and had a follow-on in 2010. And although many of the basic concepts haven’t changed, the rise of social media has altered the search landscape, and Google’s frequent algorithm updates have both improved the quality of search results yet also punished some innocent bystanders.

So we’re happy to announce a brand new version of our “SEO for Photographers” Workbook, plus a Bootcamp – 4 weeks of emails delivered to you with valuable information and videos to help guide you through the subtleties of SEO.

Inside the Workbook, you’ll find a comprehensive look at the factors that influence SEO and how you can improve your website to improve your search engine rankings. It’s a step-by-step guide designed to give photographers all the information they need to make smart decisions about their website content and take action on tactics that will help drive more potential clients from the major search engines.

The Bootcamp is a nice bonus we created to extend the conversation and provide more insights – each weekly email contains one more video and two more articles with topics you’ll find helpful as you focus on optimizing your own photography website. The Bootcamp includes:

Week 1: Interpreting SEO Metrics for Success

Week 2: The Simple Explanation of How Google Ranks Websites

Week 3: Proven Tactics to Beat the Competition

Week 4: Tracking Your Progress to Get More Business

Sign up for the SEO for Photographers Workbook & Bootcamp today!

Google has repeatedly hinted that social sharing in the form of Facebook shares, retweets, etc. count as “votes” for your web content. It’s another way – albeit less impactful than backlinks – that Google determines whether your content is respected by the community and thus a valuable inclusion in search results.

Bottom line: In general, don’t waste time trying to figure out what keywords to infuse in your social media posts; instead, work on building an audience and engaging with your industry. These are the people who will help market your content, give it “votes” in Google’s eyes, and spread it beyond your immediate network.

That being said,  you should pay close attention when building out your social media profiles. While not as strong as your website’s on-page factors, inputting keywords in your profile helps create a seamless integration across all your content. You’ll probably never see a Facebook Page in the top results for “Cleveland wedding photographer”, but a search for your name will likely yield your social media sites, which should succinctly describe your business using your keyword hit list.

A Google search for “Grover Sanschagrin” yields his Twitter & Facebook profiles at the top of page 1.

The major exception to this rule is Google+. SEO experts generally agree that Google built its own social media platform to take away some of Facebook’s thunder (whether this is possible or not remains to be seen). The reason they have any chance of succeeding is because Google pays very close attention to your G+ page and interactions. For more on this topic, see How Google Gets Personal and Why You Need To Know About It, #3: Google Products.

Of course, all these social media platforms have a different set of rules for what types of content sharing and self-promotion work best. We could fill another guide with social media optimizations (oh wait, we did! The Photographer’s Social Media Handbook), but here we want to give you a glimpse into some of the factors that are operating on the other, less talked about social media sites.

Facebook

Ok fine, Facebook is much more than mainstream these days, but there is a new-ish term that you need to be aware of: Edgerank. Edgerank is the term that Facebook has coined for its algorithm that determines whether your posts appear in your friends’ newsfeeds. The newsfeed is the core way that people learn about your activity on Facebook, so don’t operate under the assumption that people are going to your Profile or (business) Page. In Facebook parlance, an “edge” is any piece of content (e.g. photo, wall post, video, etc.). The idea is that you can improve Edgerank by getting your followers to interact with it via Likes, Comments, Surveys and Shares.

Facebook Insights: "Reach"

One of the benefits of using Pages (as opposed to a Profile) is the built-in “Insights” that can help you understand your “reach,” that is, the number of people who are seeing and interacting with your edge content. Good Edgerank gives you better visibility, which in turn can help you build your audience and get more likes/shares. But remember, most people on Facebook are passively browsing content, and not raring to buy your products and services. So as with most social media, use Facebook as a “top of the funnel” mechanism to engage your potential customers and get people to spread your content.

Related reading:

• Why You Need To Ditch Your Personal Facebook Page
• No One Is Going To Your Facebook Page
• 5 Pimped-Out Photographer Facebook Pages

Pinterest

This week’s soup du jour is the virtual pinboard, Pinterest. Pinterest’s audience skews heavily towards 30-something females, and is mostly used to “pin” photos of clothing and accessories. When items get pinned and categorized, other users can “like” and “repin” content. They also have the opportunity to “follow” you and get a steady stream of your newly pinned items.

Pinterest works really well for retail businesses, and can be a strong referral traffic source. Imagine a woman pinning a new spring blouse from J. Crew and having several hundred people click through to the source, and buying the item. Retailers love it because it’s free marketing, and the photo that’s used for the pin isn’t the monetization point (i.e. J. Crew isn’t selling photos, they’re selling the item in the photo, so they’re not concerned with copyright theft). For photographers, the value is less clear since 1) the photography channel isn’t as vibrant as, say, clothing, and 2) photographs don’t see the same intensity of repins.

Succeeding with Pinterest means growing an audience who believes in your curation skills. This is why it’s important to pin more than your own work, pin often, and keep in mind that the thumbnail of your image needs to be eye catching enough to trigger click-throughs. An image that looks good on a full screen display might lack the contrast and large detail as a thumbnail. If you can generate significant referral traffic to your website via Pinterest, it could positively correlate with an increase in organic traffic.

Related reading:

• Hey Photographers! Pinterest is Not for You
• Is Pinterest the Next Social Media Commerce Changer? – Inforgraphic

Tumblr

“Follows” and “Notes” (e.g. reblogs, likes and replies) are the currency of Tumblr. Tumblr’s search mechanism across all the tumblogs operates via tags (similar to hashtags on Twitter), but people are typically finding content by following others or traversing notes left by others. Audience building is key, so interacting with other people’s content is fundamental to building visibility for your own blog.

Another reason audience building is so important is because the set up for tumblogs doesn’t encourage good on-page SEO. For example, Tumblr has a reputation for being highly visual, and images simply aren’t going to get you the same keyword optimization as textual content. This means that people are likely visiting your Tumblr via the Tumblr homepage or other tumblogs, not organic traffic driven by search engines.

There are a lot of advantages to hosting your blog on Tumblr – easy to create new posts, a great reblogging feature, and fun themes. But remember to optimize your content with relevant page titles, meta description, and images that link back to your photography website with keyworded anchor text.

Related reading:

• Distilled: SEO for Tumblr Blogs

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon = random navigation of the web. Users literally stumble upon user-submitted content on everything from photography to video games to extreme sports. It’s one of those sites where you could sit down and start hitting “Stumble!” again and again, then realize that three hours have gone by.

There’s not much in the way of building SEO with StumbleUpon, but it can be a strong source of referral traffic. Across the board, PhotoShelter members have seen roughly 2.8% of their referral traffic come from StumbleUpon (compared with 12.8% from Facebook and 10.1% from Twitter). But keep in mind that StumbleUpon penalizes users who consistently submit just their own content – the idea is to share anything and everything you find across the web.

Quora

Question-and-answer sites have been around long before Google took over the world. Remember the days when you would enter a question into a search engine and every result was from Yahoo! Answers? (actually, those days still exist to some extent.)

Then along came Quora, the Q&A platform that claims to deliver information on every subject from the people who know the answers first-hand – like “real doctors, screenwriters, police officers, and military veterans.” The estimated user base is already hovering around 3.5-4 million after just under three years of operation.

The interesting thing about Quora is that it’s kind of legit. You will actually get flagged by other users if you try to answer questions that are clearly outside your expertise (people often judge you by your Quora profile) or if your answers are self-promotional in value. But if you’re a true expert in your field, you can start to build a following and get your answers promoted by people who appreciate your response.

Currently it looks like searching for a question on Google rarely yields results from Quora, but there’s certainly room to grow into that possibility. Still, the more active you are on Quora, the more likely a Google search for your name or business will return a link to your Quora profile. There’s no linking to your website, but your answers might encourage people to look you up elsewhere on the web.

Takeaway

Simply put, the more traffic sources you have pointing to your website, the better. Linking directly to your site’s content via social media platforms is an effective way to build an audience and drive traffic. Google is also constantly indexing all these sites, so active participation can also help your social profiles – and even website – move up in the rankings. As with any marketing strategy, it pays off to plan strategically so you’re working with the platforms that serve you best.

Want more strategies and insights to improve your website’s search engine rankings? Sign up and get the free 39-page SEO for Photographers Workbook, plus more tips sent right to your inbox with our 4-week Bootcamp.

For example: when you come upon a webpage that has a cooking recipe, how do you know it’s a recipe? Does it say the word recipe? Is there a list of ingredients with measurements? Are there descriptions of each step to take?

A search for “apple pie recipe” yields 11+ million results. Which is the right result for you?

It’s relatively easy for humans to parse through a webpage quickly and intuit the intent. The same cannot be said for search engines. Yes, they can find textual clues (i.e. the word  “recipe”), but there’s always a bit of ambiguity on whether their algorithm picks up on the site’s overall intended purpose. And this ambiguity is significant because when you search for the phrase “apple pie recipe,” you’re probably looking for a recipe, and not a photo, book, t-shirt, or video. So how can you tell search engines that your website is truly about apple pie recipes, or photography, or whatever?

Most of the content on the web is actually unstructured, which means that there’s no meta data explicitly describing what it is, and thus helping search algorithms understand what your website is about is kind of difficult. To help fix this technical miscommunication, Google and Yahoo! got together and created what they call “microformats“. Microformats are web-based specifications that help describe structured web data. (If you’re heard of vCard – .vcf files – then you’re already familiar with the concept of microformats, albeit the microformat version is hCard.)

Bottom line: Microformats help remove ambiguity about the intent of your site’s content.

If you want to get really geeky about it, here’s what some HTML describing the text on a business card might look like without microformats:

<ul>
    <li>Joe Doe</li>
    <li>Jo</li>
    <li>The Example Company</li>
    <li>604-555-1234</li>
    <li><a href="http://example.com/">http://example.com/</a></li>
</ul>

And with microformats:

<ul class="vcard">
    <li class="fn">Joe Doe</li>
    <li class="nickname">Jo</li>
    <li class="org">The Example Company</li>
    <li class="tel">604-555-1234</li>
    <li><a class="url" href="http://example.com/">http://example.com/</a></li>
</ul>

This seemingly simple addition of naming “class” and other HTML make a world of difference to search engines, because now it’s unambiguous that the data being displayed on the page is business card information, and each specific field of data is defined.

Turns out there is a microformat for images too. You already know about the HTML image attribute “ALT” which defines “alternate text” for an image (and if you don’t, then it’s time to check out the SEO For Photographers Bootcamp). But the ALT attribute isn’t as explicit as having a microformat field called “caption.” And if you were going to try to optimize your images for search, it makes sense to use the microformat spec that was created by the major search engines. If you have a PhotoShelter site, then we fill the following fields for you automatically:

• Filename
• URL
• Keywords
• Caption
• Author
• Size
• Date Created

Google has stated that microformats don’t directly affect SEO, but they’ve also implied that removing ambiguity about the meaning of certain content could improve the propensity of search engines to find, index and rank content. What have we found? A 400% increase in indexed images after we introduced microformats into PhotoShelter websites.

If you don’t have a PhotoShelter website, then you can use Google Webmaster’s Rich Snippets Testing Tool to determine whether your website is using the Image microformat or not.

Here’s an image that does:

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=http://marc.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/2011-bideawee-calendar-selects/G0000Y9P6i3z9Fww/I00004a.DALnrP9o&view=

Photo by Marc Yun

Using the microformat explicitly identifies specific data on this page.

And one that doesn’t:

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thelivewellcompany.com%2F&view=

Images without microformats don’t have explicit mark-up to allow search engines to “understand” content.

Takeaway

If you’re not up to speed with on-page SEO factors like page titles, h1 tags, ALT attributes, etc., then don’t stress about conquering microformats. But if you’re more advanced and familiar with HTML, it’s worth looking into so that you touch on the various components that positively (or negatively) affect your website’s SEO.

Want more strategies and insights to improve your website’s search engine rankings? Sign up and get the free 39-page SEO for Photographers Workbook, plus more tips sent right to your inbox with our 4-week Bootcamp.

It’s time to start thinking of your blog as a place to build backlinks, create content around your keyword hit list, and build a following that regularly posts your work to social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. We’re not saying that these should be your only  goals in blogging – your SEO efforts should never interfere with posting good, valuable content – but given what you now know from the SEO For Photographers workbook, you can now start better utilizing your blog.

Here are our 5 reasons why blogging is crucial for SEO, followed by tips for how you put these strategies into practice.

1. Use the anchor text you actually want

Remember when you read this whole post about anchor text, and so you went out and got a ton of backlinks to your website, but everyone kept linking to you with “click here”? Pretty frustrating, right? Well guess what – with your blog, you’re in the driver’s seat. You have total control over what webpages you link to and what anchor text you use.

Now when you post about you work, you can say “Here’s a story about my latest gallery, Underwater Caribbean Stock Photography” and link “Underwater Caribbean Stock Photography” to your gallery for some awesome anchor text. You’re in charge of your blog, so take advantage and put those anchor text best practices to use.

2. Give people something that they can naturally link to

Although it’s totally possible to email someone about your galleries and score a link, sometimes people aren’t motivated to do so unless there’s a story to go alongside it. It’s much easier and more natural for people to link to your blog post  about how you shot those photos. And if your blog posts links to the gallery with those images, then you’ve just helped your website’s SEO.

Joe McNally gives a shout out and link to Strobist on his blog.

Next time you have new work to share, consider writing a blog post about it – tell some funny story from the shoot, or talk about the beautiful scenery, or even run through how you actually set up your camera and captured the shot. For more ideas on what to post, check out 9 Ways To Blog More In Less Time and just remember to use anchor text that complements your keyword hit list.

3. Encourage people to “socialize” your work

When you regularly post to your blog, you have more content to share with your network via social media – namely, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Similarly to how people are more likely to link to your blog posts, people are also more apt to retweet you, like your Facebook post, or +1 it. It’s an easy one-click of a button – and ease is key in getting people to share your work. Once someone has shared your post, then it get shared with their  network, thereby increasing its reach beyond your own personal network.

Adorama links to Zack Arais’ blog post “Why I Moved To Medium Format” via Facebook.

How is social sharing related to SEO? Remember that Google takes socialization into consideration for its ranking algorithm, especially from Google+, so it might actually help your blog and website move higher up in the rankings.

4. Increase website traffic & build a following

If you post engaging content that presents value to your readers, then they will probably spend more time on your blog and continue coming back for more. If you’re frequently linking to your images, your blog becomes a tool to drive traffic to your website.

Another likely outcome of building a following for your blog is that you’ll get found by new clients and customers. If enough people are sharing your posts and your blog is moving up in the SEPRs, photo buyers are more likely to stumble across it. When they do, be sure that links to your contact information and website are obvious so that they can see your portfolio and get in touch.

5. Play nice with Google’s Freshness Update

In fall 2011, Google announced that it had altered its search algorithm to provide users with fresher, more recent search results. Dubbed the Google Freshness Update, the intended purpose was to place greater emphasis on returning the most up-to-date web content. Said Google:

“Search results, like warm cookies right out of the oven or cool refreshing fruit on a hot summer’s day, are best when they’re fresh. Even if you don’t specify it in your search, you probably want search results that are relevant and recent.”

Although this was meant to help ensure that when you search for something time sensitive – like recent events or hot topics – you get the most recently updated webpages, it ended up affecting about 35% of all searches.

Searching for “Nikon” yields to the minute results

What does this mean for bloggers? SEO experts largely agree that Google’s update means that fresh content can boost your blog or website in the SERPs for a certain period of time. Bloggers have an advantage because they continuously publish large amounts of fresh content.

Keep in mind that in most blogging platforms, every time you publish a new post you’re also creating a new page. Large sections of content and new webpages are signals to Google that you’ve updated your blog and therefore might be more relevant.

Takeaway: How to put this into practice

You know that blogging takes time and effort, so if you’ve chosen to make it part of your regular workflow then it’s a good idea to know some SEO best practices. Below are our top tips for how to blog and  help boost your SEO at the same time.

Infuse your keywords throughout the post. Most people initially think that “keywords” refer to a big comma-delimited list of terms they want to rank for in their webpages. But this a great way for Google to ignore you. You want to provide as many keywords in context as possible (in other words, write like a human being, not a computer). Again, don’t appear spammy and unnatural, but get specific – instead of “Here’s a sneak preview of my beautiful images from the local farmer’s market” try, “Here’s a sneak preview of my New York City garden stock photos from the farmer’s market.”

Pay attention to your post title. Most blogging platforms take your blog post’s title and use it for both the URL and the page title. Meaning that choosing a relevant and SEO-friendly title is critical. Use this as an opportunity to input your keywords, and try to keep it at 70 characters or less, which is SEO standard practice for page titles.

Input the alt text. When you upload an image to your blog, there’s usually a place for you to input a caption, alternate text, and link. Be sure to utilize all these features – include a descriptive caption, choose alternate text that’s relevant to your keywords, and link to the original image on your website. If you can’t find where to input the ALT text, then simply include a text link under your image. Because Google can’t read images, this all helps to tell the search engine what your image is about.

Utilize social sharing buttons. Find a widget or plug in that’s compatible with your blog platform, and use it to install social media sharing buttons. It’s an easy and effective way to get people sharing your posts.

Strive to post frequently. Make a commitment to posting at least once a week. The more you post, the more you can positively impact your SEO.

Want more strategies and insights to improve your website’s search engine rankings? Sign up and get the free 39-page SEO for Photographers Workbook, plus more tips sent right to your inbox with our 4-week Bootcamp.

And truth be told, when Google tweaks algorithms, we don’t just see search traffic fluxuate, we also see indexed content move around too. How do you know what’s indexed? Go to Google and type “site:[yourdomain]“.

The results show you the number of pages included in the index. You can also do the same on Google Images.

When Panda hit last year, we started to track indexed content on a more regular basis. Then we decided to collect the data on the total indexed content over a trailing 90-day basis, and graph the results. Here’s a graph of Facebook and Flickr images:

Quite honestly, we were a little shocked. The day-to-day fluctuations ( or “sawtooth” formation) were disturbing. There were some days where we witnessed a 90% drop in (reported) indexation. But in doing some light testing, it didn’t seem like the results on the top SERP (search engine result page) for any given keyword term were falling out, so we assumed that the content in question was poorly ranked content. Not long tail content, mind you, but stuff that might be on page 73 of Google search results, and whose presence (or lack thereof) would have little impact on the majority of searches.

The theory behind the daily sawtooth is that we’re hitting different banks of servers at various times, and it’s a thought that we shared with Will Critchlow from Distilled, one of the top SEO firms. He agreed that this was probably the case.

The more disturbing trend was these massive upswings. If you’re Facebook (in blue), you’re thrilled. Your total number of  indexed images went from 10 billion images to 17 billion overnight and stayed there for the most part. If you’re Flickr, you’re pretty pissed off (and I’m not talking about your feelings toward Yahoo!). Flickr is a great site with awesome images used by millions of people. So what is Facebook doing that Flickr is not? It might be a sitemap. It might be that a lot of pages of images were in robots.txt for exclusion. It might be the addition of some other structuring of data that made indexing more effective. It might be an algorithmic change.

Takeaway

Whatever the case may be, the indexation graph provides us an interesting look at the unpredictability of SEO, and can illustrate that signal and algorithmic changes can dramatically affect results. Fortunately for PhotoShelter members, our internal results have yielded very favorable results with overall image indexation up 400% in the past few months. This doesn’t necessarily mean that every member was positively impacted by our regular SEO updates, but rest assured that we are monitoring these types of trends closely and continue to test various improvements.

Want more strategies and insights to improve your website’s search engine rankings? Sign up and get the free 39-page SEO for Photographers Workbook, plus more tips sent right to your inbox with our 4-week Bootcamp.

While we definitely appreciate the fact that you shared our post on your blog, the link isn’t as valuable as it could be in terms of SEO.

The reason is simple: crappy anchor text.

What is anchor text?

It’s the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink, and is usually blue and underlined. A link that would have incorporated better anchor text in the example above is digital point-and-shoot cameras used by pros. If you Google the term “digital point-and-shoot cameras”, you’ll see that PhotoShelter’s blog post on this topic is in the top results (under all the darn ads and shopping results, of course).

Part of the reason that post ranks so highly on the search engine result page (SERP) is that 142 backlinks point to it. You already know the importance of backlinks in building good SEO, but it’s really important to understand that there are links, and then there are GREAT links. A great link is one that uses anchor text that matches or is related to the terms on your keyword hit list.

Both Brian Smith and Dave Pattinson graciously link to the PhotoShelter blog post on point-and-shoot cameras with relevant and SEO-friendly anchor text.

Why is anchor text so important?

Remember that search engines are just robots at the end of the day, and they need your help in figuring out what your website is all about. If someone links to your website with the anchor text “click here”, that tells the search engines nothing. But if they link to your site with something like “Washington DC stock photos”, then the search engines have a better idea that your website is about Washington DC stock photos and thus your site is relevant to someone who searches for that term.

Just like on-page SEO, we have to do everything in our power to make search engines see that our website is relevant to the keywords that we’re trying to rank for. Getting backlinks to your website with relevant anchor text is also like giving your site a vote of confidence from the Internet world. Imagine that when Google scans your site, it looks for backlinks as a sign that other people trust your website and what it’s about.

How do I get the anchor text I want?

Anchor text is like an extra boost for your SEO – as if saying to Google that not only do other people like and trust your site enough to link to it, but they also all agree that it’s about Washington DC stock photos (or whatever your keyword terms may be).

Problem is, not everyone understands this concept, and so plenty of people will link to you with bad anchor text. You might have to be a little pushy. If you know that someone is blogging about you, or if you’re contributing as a guest blogger, be explicit: ask that when they credit you, to please link to sports photojournalist Jamey Price, for example. It might seem silly, but it’s your best bet in guaranteeing that you get the right anchor text and benefit most from the link.

We try to help boost photographers’ SEO on the PhotoShelter Blog by linking to their websites with good anchor text.

People who are clued in about anchor text will often look to your page title for keywords that you would want included in your link. They can easily find this by opening your website and hovering over the tab. So there’s one more reason to pay attention to your page title.

Takeaway

Now that you understand the importance of relevant anchor text, you might be asking yourself if there’s an equivalent for your images. There is, and it’s called the ALT attribute (see the SEO For Photographers guide). Ensure that the ALT attributes for your images include your keywords, since this is what search engines read when they come across an image. Whether it’s on your own blog or your comfortable sharing your photos on other websites, the right ALT attribute is just as important as relevant anchor text when getting a backlink

Want more strategies and insights to improve your website’s search engine rankings? Sign up and get the free 39-page SEO for Photographers Workbook, plus more tips sent right to your inbox with our 4-week Bootcamp.

One PhotoShelter member saw a 90% drop in traffic after Panda.

We started to look for clues as to why some people were affected while others were not, and we engaged SEO expert Tom Critchlow from Distilled to help us analyze the problem. He suggested that perhaps certain sites were more affected because of their page design.

It was a bit of a jarring idea. We had been aware of concepts like Microsoft’s Vision Based Page Segmentation (VIPS) and Google’s “Ranking Based on Semantic Distance” for some time. These concepts, in essence, suggest ways to infer importance of any given website’s content based on its position on the page itself. For example, content appearing in the footer of a page is probably less important than content appearing in the main body area.

Still, the notion that simply positioning things differently might adversely affect SEO seems unusual. Why should a generic site that just happens to place good content at the top of its page benefit more from SEO than a higher quality site that puts it near the bottom?

When Panda was released, Google provided guidance on what questions webmasters should ask themselves if they had experienced a drop in traffic. In theory, Panda was designed to lower the ranking of poor quality sites. However, as many people experienced, some good quality sites also took a hit.

We tested this theory by analyzing fifty different PhotoShelter sites using two very different PhotoShelter themes: 1) Maui, and 2) Caboose. Maui is the default and most popular theme. Caboose is used by a lot of stock photographers for various reason. Each one inherently places various on-page SEO factors (h1 tags, gallery descriptions, etc.) in different positions.

Do you think this site is better optimized for on-site SEO... / Example of "Maui" theme

...or this one? / Example of the "Caboose" theme

We wanted to try to isolate on-page SEO factors as much as possible, meaning that we had to get a sample of sites from each theme that were nearly equal in all other SEO factors – perhaps the most important being backlinks. So we performed a backlink analysis  using Majestic SEO on these one hundred total sites, and recorded the number of domains and backlinks for each. Outliers were thrown out, and we came to a final sample of sites from both themes that all had roughly the same number of backlinks and domains (A more fine grained analysis would also have considered “domain rank”, which attributes a number from 0 to 100 on how “powerful” any domain is SEO-wise, but we figured things would average out based on the size of our sample).

The results showed a material difference in content indexation – or what Google actually “reads” on the page – between the themes:

Maui: (avg: 2,500 images on-site), each site had:

• 3,715 pages indexed
• 420 images indexed (images indexed/# of images = 21.99%)

Maui proved to be the “winner” in terms of greater percentage of indexed content. What’s important to note is that we’ve generally observed that sites with more indexed content tend to drive more search-based traffic. Also, there seems to be a ripple effect among search, referral, and direct traffic; while it’s impossible to determine causality, there was a negative correlation between search traffic and other traffic (i.e. when search traffic goes down, so do other traffic sources).

But before you say that the design is the sole cause, Tom also suggested that the quality of information might be poorer on the Caboose sites. Did these photographers provide adequate captioning and keywording? Did they rename their image files? Were they using known on-page factors like h1 tags to create a high-quality site? In a few sites that he observed, the textual information quality was poor, which led him to believe that they were already “on the threshold” before Panda hit. And once the algorithmic change was in place, they dropped below the threshold and were adversely affected. Was it page design? Was it content? Was it a combination of both?

In the end, we don’t really know for sure. But before you start worrying about a total site overhaul, I would continue to stress the importance of providing descriptive captions and content as much as possible.

Takeaway

Given the mysteries of Google algorithms, we’ll never really know for certain, but our test results indicate that on-site SEO factors play a major role in your site’s overall SEO. Don’t underestimate the importance of page titles, meta descriptions, and other on-page text, as well as the placement of these key elements within the site design. Provide descriptive captions and content as much as possible. Because we all deal with images instead of text, our websites are already behind the curve of having strong textual content.

Continuing to pay attention to and build your on-site text, including Homepage content, About page content, and strong gallery and image descriptions will only help your SEO efforts. If you too were impacted by the Panda algorithm update, refocus your attention to be certain you address these basic SEO factors – that in itself should help you regain your former status. And if you still see little-to-no change over the next 6-12 months, an outright site design change may also be worth considering if you your website’s structure is out of date with current SEO best practices.

Want more strategies and insights to improve your website’s search engine rankings? Sign up and get the free 39-page SEO for Photographers Workbook, plus more tips sent right to your inbox with our 4-week Bootcamp.

Fret not. Let me explain.

Back in 2006, Facebook came out with the News Feed. This initially controversial feature aggregated all your friends’ updates into a single page. It was sort of like Twitter before Twitter, and it prevented you from having to click to every single friend to see what was going on. News Feed is the dominant mechanism by which we get micro information about our friends.

Similarly, when you “Like” a Facebook Page, you are subscribing to get posts in your News Feed. So although it’s nice to believe that tons of fans are dropping by your Page regularly, it simply is not a daily destination. This is an important reality to accept. It’s the same reason why we encourage photographers to participate in social media in the first place: your photographer website is not a daily destination for your customers, but your customers are likely going to Facebook daily. Go to where your customers are.

Your Facebook Insights allow you to see how much traffic is going to your Page. PhotoShelter’s Page hasover 25,000 Likes, but only about 400 people visit our page on a daily basis.

But we’ve worked hard at improving our Edgerank, which helps our content to show up in News Feeds.

While only about 400 people visit our page daily, we’re getting about 12,000 organic views and about the same number of viral views through the News Feed and shares. In the News Feed, our content look like this:

So if you’re constrained for time, don’t worry so much about building out your Page with “Like gates” and fancy apps. It’s more important to create compelling Wall posts that encourage people to Like and comment to increase your Edgerank, which will in turn, increase your visibility to your customers.

Want more on how to successfully channel your social media efforts? Download the free Photographer’s Social Media Handbook and get the best tips and tactics for your workflow today.