CLAIRE GILLO speaks to SEO expert DAN HINTON from Pixelfish for his top tips for getting your website noticed
-
WWW.PIXELFISH.CO.UK OR FOLLOW DAN AT TWITTER @PIXELFISHUK
WHAT IS SEO, AND HOW DOES IT WORK?
SEO is simply the means of how someone finds your website through online searches such as Google. The higher the ranking of your website, the more chance you’ll be visible to people searching online. You can broadly split SEO into two areas; on-site SEO and off-site SEO. In simple terms, on-site is your website, the content and the code. Offsite would include inbound links from other sources. The more reputable, the more they’ll help you.
WHAT TOP TIPS WOULD YOU GIVE TO THE READERS OF Digital Photographer FOR GETTING THEIR WEBSITES NOTICED?
As a photographer, you have the benefit of beautiful imagery that can take centre stage. Take advantage of this fact. To achieve this you should be looking to keep things simple and adhere to some cornerstones in effective digital design. A clean and straightforward page layout goes a long way, making use of negative space to help frame imagery and copy. If you add something that distracts from your photography, remove it. An asymmetric layout can help you curate a visual narrative as someone scrolls on your page.
WHAT TIPS WOULD YOU GIVE OUR READERS TO INCREASE THEIR GOOGLE RANKING?
• Try your best to build a lightweight site. The smaller the file sizes and less code bloat [you have], the faster your website will be – something that Google is increasingly prioritising.
• Make sure to add clear ‘title’ and ‘alt’ tags in all of your images uploaded. Make them read as you would say them. Add reference to your name and copyright for each photograph. • Set up Google analytics so you can track visits along with submitting a ‘sitemap. xml’ to Google.