Links are a very important element when it comes to search engine optimization. Sites that have many quality links coming in from other websites are usually ranked higher than those that have fewer incoming links. How do you leverage the power of SEO to get others to discover your images? The following are some awesome link building tips for photographers.
1. Build links slowly
You need to come up with a strategy for building links gradually. If you build 40 links in a single day and then go for a whole month with no new links, your rankings might improve for one day only, and then go down for the rest of the month. Search engines value websites or blogs which have consistent activity, whether it is building incoming links or posting fresh content.
2. Join photographer communities
Find communities and forums for photography and create a profile. Remember to include a link to your site in the profile. Each time you post a comment or a question in the community, add a link to your site in the signature. Make sure you use your main keywords as the anchor text for your links.
3. Link from local sites and photography directories
Submit your site to free business listings, local search sites, and directories. Setting up these profiles is easy and only takes a few minutes. At times, these profiles could end up ranking higher in search results than your actual site.
4. Link from higher ranked pages
Search engines don’t place the same value on all links. Links from higher ranked pages are more valuable when it comes to search engine optimization. It is therefore a waste of time to link to pages which have a Page Rank of zero. Since such pages are not valuable, search engine spiders rarely crawl them. Your site might even get devalued by getting linked to these pages.
5. Link to deep pages
Some people try to improve the ranking of their sites by building many incoming links pointing to the homepage only. This is a big mistake. You will have a higher chance of improving your ranking if the incoming links point to different pages of your site. This way, your new links will not appear ‘spammy’ to search engines.
6. Vary the anchor text
The anchor text (the words that appear in the hyperlink) gives search engines an idea of what your site is about. You should therefore use highly targeted keywords which best describe your site. For instance, instead of having anchor text that just reads ‘www.domain.com’, you could change it to read ‘LA fashion photographer’. This will inform search engines that your website is about LA fashion photography. However, avoid using the exact same anchor text in all your incoming links. Make sure you vary the anchor text frequently.
About the author: Charles writes for istock promo codes and jupiter images coupon, as well as Lakeshorebranding.com. He also writes about coupon deals at discount blogs that share istock photo coupons and jupiter images discounts.