How to Harness the Power of Page Titles - High Performance Photoblogging - September, 2009Posted by drfl on September 2nd, 2009
An early Native American title, artistic, but not Search Engine Optimized.
When I first began placing my photography on a website I figured that my work would stand on it’s own. I was under the assumption that if I posted photographs to the web, they would come. Who “they” were, I wasn’t sure, and why I thought they would come… well, let’s just say that it was the beginning of a long and never-ending education that I am happy to share today.
My first websites had many photographs that may or may not have had a title and there was usually no description. Visitors were sparse and driven only by other communities in which I participated. Analysis of my web traffic data showed strange search phrases driving search engine traffic. Like many artists my titles would be something abstract such as “Ethereal Sunrise” or “Awake from Dreaming“, titles that I thought helped my work fit into the “art” category. Indeed, many photobloggers today subscribe to this belief as well. In order for the photo to be art it has to have a catchy “artsy” name.
While these original photograph titles may satisfy the artist on a creative level and it did for me, on a technical level it does nothing for driving people to the site through search engines. In fact, many great artists toil in obscurity because of their titles, and as a result they try for catchier and even more abstract titles perpetuating their enigmatic condition. For most artists who post images to the web, this is counterproductive to what they are trying to achieve, recognition. In part 1 of my 3 part series “When a Photograph is Not Worth 1,000 Words - SEO Tips for Photographers“, Tip #2 is:
Make your page title readable to those who are searching and contain the most important keywords first.
Through research and trial and error I have found there is a balance between the “artsy” title and the “technical” title.
My website originally had the title of the photograph be the page title. As this is what most search engines display and catalog, I realized by searching for my own work, that even I wouldn’t click on it since it didn’t appear to meet my needs! I changed my strategy and instead focused on targeting a specific set of words and then placed these words at the beginning of the page title. An image originally titled “Small World” became “Nebraska Nature Photograph | Small World“. Of course, I could draw it out a bit more to “Nebraska Nature Photograph - Snail and Mushroom | Small World“, but you want to make sure that you’re not “keyword stuffing” into the title. Too many keywords and search engines begin to dismiss the legitimacy of your site. The point here is that anyone searching for a snail and mushroom photograph will now find my photograph, whereas before my hits probably came from individuals looking for something that indicating a miniature planet.
The same concept translates well for photoblogging. For my blog, I wanted to keep my photograph post titles specific, but I wanted the search engines to pick up additional keywords related to the post. There are many tools that can do this for all the blogging platforms, but since I am using Wordpress I downloaded the “All In One SEO Pack“. This gives me the flexibility to display a different title than my the acutal post title that people see. For example: “From the Photo Archives: A Touch of Light” now becomes “Scenic Waterfall Photograph of Multnomah Falls, Oregon | A Touch of Light“. Now anyone that is searching for a scenic photo of Multnomah Falls is more likely to find my image, but the post viewer still sees the original title.
By harnessing the power of the page title, web travelers are more likely to find your site and stop by. Remember, individuals looking for a specific photograph are not going to know what your title means, but by providing some insight into the picture, they can have a better understanding of what you have published.
Tip Recap:
Tip 1: Use the power of your page titles. Put keywords related to your photograph first and the “artsy” title last.
Tip 2:Find and use an SEO plugin for your blog or website, this will help to publish search engine friendly titles that are separate from your post titles. I use the “All In One SEO Pack” for Wordpress.
Bonus Tip: I frequently use the pipe symbol “|” and the hyphen “-” to separate, but others use the tilde “~” or the colon “:” as well. Anything that gets web travelers to see a visual separation in the search results is good.
Technical Details: Canon 20d, 70-200 f/4l @ 84mm, f/4, 1/160 sec.
Indian Cave State Park, Nebraska