Award winning writer / photographer Tedric Garrison has 30 years experience in photography. As a Graphic Art Major, he has a unique perspective on the Elements of Design and how those elements relate to all aspects of photography. His photo eBook (Your Creative Edge) proves that creativity CAN be taught. Tedric shares his wealth of knowledge with the world, at: Better Photo Tips.com
By now you’ve probably heard that writing photo articles is a great way to get Qualified Traffic to your photography web site. By "Qualified Traffic" I mean people that are actually interested in photography to begin with. Let's face it, 10,000 visitors a month to your site means nothing if only 10 of those people are actually interested in photography.
I want to be up front with you. I have 30 years photography experience, 10 years web page design experience, but only two years of writing photography articles experience. So, you ask, why am I writing about writing if that's what I have the least experience in? I write about 48 years of lifetime experiences and relate them to photography. In other words, all that we are as photographers or writers comes from ALL that we are.
On my own website I currently have about 120 photo articles, 120 photo tips, 120 photo quotes, etc. The reason I choose 120 as the magic number was so that I could list 10 new photo articles, 10 new photo tips, 10 new photo quotes etc each month on my front page. This way my home page would have new and different information showing up each month for a whole year before anything was duplicated.
That having been said, I ran into an interesting design problem. When I had to list an article with a title like: "Depth of Field - A Major Player in Creative Control", it physically would not fit in the small space I had on the left hand side of the page. At first I shortened the link to something like: "DOF- A Major Player".
Keep in mind that web pages and articles have several things in common; one of the most obvious being that they do better when "Key Words" are included. Key words are those words people will type into Google or Yahoo to find your website or article to begin with. To give you an idea how important they are, my first photo website was called: "lordtedric.com", simple, unique, easy to remember. The problem is: it said nothing about photography. Unless someone knew me personally, they had absolutely no reason to go there.
I had learned that lesson when I designed my current website, but I still had not applied it to my articles yet. Maybe I get too focused in on one problem at a time. At the time I was thinking about web page design not articles, but I did realize I had a similar problem. Rather than using the short description "DOF- A Major Player" I went to "DOF in Your Photo". Presto! Problem solved. Short, concise, to the point, and now my link had another Key Word on my home page.
Sometimes one good idea leads to another, and another, and another, etc. I figured if it would work on my article, why don't I change ALL the links to include a key word? This is where I got my education about article titles. I did NOT write most of the photo articles on my site. There are many photo articles written by very good photographers, but a surprising number of them never mentioned the words photo or photography in their title. I am not passing judgment, because I did the same exact thing. True, "Depth of Field" is a key phrase, but not as basic or as widely searched for as photography or photo. By changing the title of my photo article to: "Depth of Field - A Major Player in Your Photography"; my search engine response for that article increased dramatically.
Notice the current article you are reading has the keyword "photo" in the title, twice. It is also no accident that I have started writing articles with my web site's name in the title as well. This is something that has been learned over time. I had already written 60 photography articles, when it finally dawned on me that I REALLY needed to include key words in the main title. For me, having the word photo or photography in the title of a new article is not even an option any more. No matter how clever or catchy a title may appear if it does not include a key word, (like "photo") then it defeats the purpose for having written the article to begin with.
Like wise, it is possible to write a photography article and only use the key words two or three times. Yes, it is possible to do this; in fact it is amazing how many people do, but if the reason you are writing your photo article to begin with is to draw attention to your photo website, then you need to include those key words in the body of your text as well. The article you are reading has the words "photo or photography" in it at least 30 times. Is that over doing it? You tell me. Read this article again, does it feel like those key words were forced? As long as the key words are relative to what you are talking about, use them as often as possible.
Personally; I believe photography is a gift from God, as is the ability to write clearly. Speaking as a parent (and as a grandparent), I also believe the best gifts are those that can be shared. A great photo can motivate, uplift and inspire. Do you know anybody who does NOT need a little more of those traits in their life? Go out and make the world a better place. Share the gifts you’ve been given with the world today!
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