These days every photographer on the planet has a website, but very few understand how to increase their site’s visibility.  A few years ago, I was in the exact same place– wondering why I did not get more web traffic; but then I learned about Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  SEO is a set of web design practices that help you build a site that the major search engines will index.  I am not a web developer, but I have been able to implement most of these 10 tips on my own, so you can, too.

1. Commit. Longevity plays an important role in search engine rankings.  The longer your website has been online, the higher it will rank.  My website already ranks well since it has been online since 2001.  However, I recently found out that I was being penalized because my domain name was set to expire at the end of each yearly billing cycle.  Registering, and paying for, a domain name for multiple years lets the search engines know that your website is permanent.  Based on this, I just registered my domain name for 10 years.  This will help convince the search engines that my website is legitimate and lead to a higher overall page rank.

2. Optimize your title tag for each page. The meta title is the the title of each page, and it is one of the most important things that search engines use to index your site.  Now, look at the top of your browser when you view your website.  I bet that over 95% of you have your meta titles set to “Same Old Photography” on every single page of your website.  Now, get over your shame, this is one of the easiest things for you to fix.   For example, look at my above browser image.  My page is about Denali National Park Photography, Photos, Pictures.  The first few words are the ones that I want the search engines to find.  The “Cornforth Images” part comes at the end, because people searching for my name will find my website easily enough.  What I want is for people who have never heard of me and are searching for Denali National Park pictures to visit my website.  Finally, when writing meta titles, it’s important not to use more than 60 characters because the rest will get chopped in search engine results.

3. Optimize your meta description, and limit your meta keyword tags. A meta description is the sentence (in black above) that you see underneath every search result that you have ever done.  If you are like most people, you won’t click on a search result if this line looks like gobbledegook.  A meta description is another easy piece of code that you can add to each page of your website.  In 160 characters or less, this description tells people why they should click on your link.  Treat it as your sales pitch, which will attract visitors looking for what you have to offer.  While you may add meta keywords, these were made almost useless years ago, due to websites spamming early search engines with long keyword lists. It is now recommended practice to only include your top 10 keywords.

4. Use an <H1> tag on each page. Hierarchical tags (<H1>, <H2>, etc) are pieces of code that will further convince the search engines that your page is relevant to your meta title.  If you scroll down my Denali National Park Photography, Photos, Pictures page, you’ll see an <H1> tag is used on the big title above my lower-most copy.  Multiple hierarchical tags are only relevant for indexing long, written pieces, so one <H1> tag per page should be fine for most photography sites.

5. Use alt tags. Alt tags on images describe the photos to the search engines.  Search engines can not interpret pictures, they only index words.  Therefore, the more relevant text in your source code, the better your chances are of achieving high rankings.  This is my website’s biggest weakness and I need to fix it.

6. Write compelling content for your webpages and make sure that the search engines can “see” it. Are you a photographer that believes that your images speak for themselves?  Well, guess what?  Your images CAN NOT speak for themselves.  The search engines index words, but they can not judge whether your shots are awesome or crappy.  To each page of your website, add a few relevant, non-spammy, keyword-dense sentences.  Make sure the engines can read the text, which means do not embed it in Flash, or try to hide the text in a same-colored background.

7. Don’t use Flash, and get rid of that splash homepage. As far as the search engines are concerned, a Flash web site is invisible.  Search engines can not interpret Flash and graphics, fill out forms, or read JavaScript links and menus.  This does not mean that you should avoid these tools, but you will need to provide alternatives for navigating your site.  If a page is hidden behind a sequence of drop-down menus, the search engine crawlers will never find it.  Make sure that your site has HTML links on every page’s main navigation.  In addition, get rid of your pointless splash page!  The most important page of your website is the one the search engine first encounters.  If that page says, “Click to Enter”, then that is all you are offering the world.

8. Blog & participate in social media. Make sure that you have a blog, that you regularly update it, and that you engage your readers by allowing them to make comments.  Blog once or more a week to build up a loyal following of readers.  A blog should draw people to your site and help attract a broader audience to your work.  This article alone will generate a lot of search engine traffic for me from people looking for “top 10 photography tips” based on the way I used SEO.  Every time that you can reference your main website, add a link to it from your blog.  How about using Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and other new social networking tools?  That is a topic for another blog post, one that I am going to work on soon.

9. Reinforce your website’s reputation with inbound links. With quality content you will eventually be able to generate inbound links from other websites and blogs.  If your site is full of one-of-a-kind photos and information, other sites will naturally link to it without even asking.  However, it takes time, years even,  to build up these links, so don’t expect it to happen overnight.  Steer clear of link farms and other spammy schemes for getting links to your site.

10. Include a robots.txt file & install a sitemap.xml. The easiest SEO method that you can employ is to include a robots.txt file at the root directory of your website. This one command will invite any spider that visits your website to crawl all of your pages.  You can also install a sitemap, which the search engines can use to index your site.  Sitemaps include information such as the date each web-page was last modified, as well as the priority number you give each page of your site.  Such a map will help the search engines properly find and link to all of your content.

I look forward to the discussion that will follow this article.  I hope that it helps a lot of photographers, and also anyone else looking for SEO advice.

While I was visiting Wrangell-St Elias National Park last month, a rainbow briefly appeared above this beautiful tundra pond.  It is one of my favorite images from the trip.  I am always on the lookout for dramatic weather, clouds, & sun-breaks.  I also scout a location in advance so that I can anticipate an image like this.  Most of the time I get skunked, but occasionally all the right conditions come together and I capture an amazing image.

When photographing rainbows, the biggest challenge I have found is keeping my lens & filters water drop free.  I keep my camera put away or covered until it is worth risking the exposure to the rain.  I usually get 1-3 images before the water drops become noticeable and ruin the picture.  At this point if it is still raining it is impossible to dry everything off to continue.  My other trick for photographing wide-angle rainbow landscapes is to anti-polarize the light and use a 3-stop soft graduated neutral density filter.  A rainbow is polarized light, so I can either make it totally disappear or make it really pop by rotating the polarizer.  The grad filter helps balance the overall exposure.  I have used this set up many time and it always works.

This is another beautiful reflection pond that I photographed in Wrangell-St Elias National Park last month. It’s right next to the road, so if you ever drive the McCarthy Road you can’t miss it. As you can see, the fall colors were are their peak during my visit. McCarthy had already closed down for the season, so there were no other people around, let alone photographers. About 99.99% of the time when I am taking pictures, there is no one else around (other than my travel companions). That is just the way I like it.

I am going backpacking the next few days into the Enchantments in the Central Cascades. The larch trees should be at their peak for fall color. It probably snowed up there the last few days, but this week it is suppose to be sunny & warm. Wish me luck!

Along the McCarthy Road in Wrangell-St Elias National Park, the scenery was spectacular.  The aspen trees were brilliant yellow, the mountains were orange to their summits, and the many tundra ponds allowed for perfect reflections.  While scouting locations, this beautiful pond caught my attention, so I spent several days in a row photographing it at sunrise/sunset.  The scene was most dramatic during my first morning attempt.  I love photographing mountains when light beams from underneath dark clouds.  For a few minutes, I watched the light dance across the mountainside while anticipating the dramatic image that was about to happen.  I knew that I had my shot once the light illuminated the trees on the opposite side of the pond.

During my recent trip to Wrangell-St Elias National Park, I spent several days in a row photographing my favorite tundra pond.  Eventually I will post several spectacular sunrise images from this location, but for now I want to share these beautiful lilies.  I am best know for my dramatic wild-angle landscape images, but I also enjoy photographing nature’s details when the opportunity presents itself.  While I was waiting for dramatic light on the mountains, these lilies and blue sky reflection caught my attention.  I normally look for groups that contain odd numbers, but these 4 lilies in a broken circle inspired me to bend the rules.

What can I say about Wrangell-St Elias National Park?  I am spell-bound!  It is America’s largest national park at 13.2 million acres, which is 6 times the size of Yellowstone.  I did not see another photographer (or visitor!) during my entire trip.  A week exploring the McCarthy Road area is not enough time, even with ideal photography conditions.  I just scratched the surface.  I had everything that a photographer could ask for: cobalt blue skies, brilliant golden aspen trees, crimson colored summits, mirror image reflection ponds, dramatic rainbows, and clouds the size of giant marshmallows.  Above is a sample of my new images that I will be posting in the coming weeks.

I am currently in Anchorage waiting for my flight to Yakutat to visit my boat & winterize it.  The weather forecast predicts unseasonably perfect conditions the next 2 days.  Maybe my photo luck will continue?