In my website so far, I haven’t thought about how to make it appear higher up on google’s list. To do, I must think about to optimise it for google to think it is more important than other sites. The main factors that determine this are ALT tags and relevant text linking to the page tittle.
Before this seminar, I had no idea what ALT text was, this is why I enjoy going to these sessions as I learn skills that I wouldn’t have if I decided not to study photography. Alternative text dates back to when internet speed was unbearably slow, to the point the images didn’t load, so text would replace this to help the reader know what the image was without loading it. You cant see this text unless promoted to, so they are normally written in code to help google render them faster. For me, moats of mine will be tagged with words associated with live music photographer in South West England, but each image should be different as they are all unique. Below is a MOC up of an image with ALT text.
Bloxx @ Reading Festival on 35mm
Live muisc photographer, Reading Festival, Bath, Bristol, South West, Photographer, Videographer
Website crawlers go through websites to determine if they are spam or real, they do this my reading all the text on your home page to see if they link back to the tittle, so I should always put that I am a live music content creator in Bath / Bristol so those crawlers know I am legitimate. Its worth noting that they scan the home page first, and if they think it is spam they will leave it alone until it is updated. Some companies offer free packages where they take over your website and change your alt text for you to promote your site to get more traffic, however my lectures have said that they are always trouble and never work, its best if I stay clear of any of these.
As google scans every website there is, and will acknowledge links to my website, making google think it is more of a professional site. We were told we could link other peers websites on our own and visa versa to gain traffic through out site. For anyone I work with, I should always ask them to link to my website
For my website itself, I should only show images I want to create, I am not a landscape photographer, so I should show that many photos of this theme as my audience is not interested. As summer is coming up, I should swap out my top images to festival photos as I am more likely to have clients who want to book me for these. But for now, I will keep the small venue shots at the top.
I should have referenced this in a different post, but this also links in to ALT text, the URL of a website page is very important in making the crawlers value my page, instead of “Gallery 1” it should be “Live Music Gallery”. The little things like this will definitely help my website appear higher up on google’s search results. All the content of my website has to be relevant, I should get rid of the burnt out car as it isn’t something someone will hire me to take photos off.