This guest post is by John Simoneau the founder of “The Directory of Specialized Photographers” at LocalPhotographyGuides.com. He says, “I am a proud husband and dad to 2 Disney Princesses and love to chat about photography.

Photographers. What if I was to tell you that search engine optimization (SEO) simply doesn't matter anymore? Don't worry about it! Stop link building, stop forcing keywords in your blog titles, don't worry about what “meta tags” are or even what Google's new “Caffeine” search index is. Just kick your feet up and relax. Use all that spare time to spend with your family or being creative as a photographer.

Well, unfortunately I'm not here to tell you that. Search engine optimization is the most practical way to gain new photography clients at this time. The reason why is that it is a “direct” marketing approach rather then a “creative” one such as print ads in magazines and coupon books. It's quite simple really. We live in a time that people use Google for anything and everything. When someone uses Google for the term “photographers,” they are looking for a photographer. When they purchase a magazine, see your vehicle graphics, or view some Google adwords, they are not looking for a photographer. Only problem with SEO is that it's so time consuming and that it's been figured out. Sometimes a couple hundred photographers in each city are all competing daily for the 1st page of 10 results that search engines provide. It's really quite stressful and something photographers shouldn't have to worry about!

Then we have Social Media. In 2009-2010 studies showed that 78% of people trust peer-to-peer recommendations rather than ads. Not only that but social media networks is a step ahead of SEO in the sense that you can actually attract new clients in BEFORE they are even looking for a photographer. They notice and remember your photography from a friend sharing on Facebook and other social networks. It's free “creative” advertising with no-telling how many thousands of impressions your branded portraits are getting. Social media sharing is also a quick way to get your photography noticed worldwide for traveling photographers. Search engines can be quite weak in some of these areas.

Coming from the photography industry myself, I really wanted to research, analyze, and embrace the very best method to combine as much of this as possible and build the very best resource on the planet for connecting photography clients with quality photographers. I wanted to create a system that could eventually take some of this unnecessary technical marketing weight off of our photographer's shoulders. The problem was that the photography industry is so riddled with websites trying to make photographers feel as though they have such a miracle solution that it was going to be a really tough sell.

Our team finally came to the realization that the strongest offering was going to be to build a photographer directory. The sound of it almost made me cringe after seeing so many others online who focus on ads, affiliates, selling links, giving links, etc. None of them seemed to be focusing on connecting clients to photographers and most of them had very poor quality of photographers listed. It was quite a mess and a scary idea to start but seemed like the only solution that could force this much needed and entirely new direct marketing approach into the photography industry. So “The Directory of Specialized Photographers” was born.

From our launch we had support from several very popular and highly talented photographers including Baby As Art, Daniela Degrassi, Ashley McNamara, Nicole Goddard and many more! We have even featured some of these photographers on our homepage in a very unique way by quoting their styles which helps in setting our theme. We've created profiles to highly complement any styles of photography that may be needed in the future. Our social media sharing buttons have brought many thousands of visitors to our website alone and has been a huge hit! We are search engine friendly and offer no ads to any vendor outside our own featured photographer banners. We have finally created a virtual photographer phonebook for clients to utilize that focuses 100% on showcasing each and every one of our featured photographer's talents!

Please join us in pioneering this new amazing photography product that is beginning to bypass photography clients from utilizing search engines entirely. Visit “The Directory of Specialized Photographers” at LocalPhotographyGuides.com (link) and request a free or featured listing anywhere in the United States! Some of our guides have just recently been released so if this is your 1st time visiting then you be sure to visit one of our more filled listing pages such as our Los Angeles Wedding Photographers or San Diego Newborn Photographers.

Some time in the future I'd love to speak a little about our brand new international community and how it integrates with our directory offering but until then please visit our forums to register and post an introduction. Your account will be upgraded to 6 Months of Pro Access FREE for the next week! I look forward to working with you!

What are you doing to be found locally? Please sound off in the comments section below.

This guest blog is by Ellen Petty, the Head Brandslinger at Identity Kitchen, a marketing and design studio specializing in photographers. She and her business partner Marty Thornley just launched a new line of affordable all-in-one WordPress portfolio sites designed specifically for professional photographers at PhotographyBlogSites.com.

Early in 2009, Marty Thornley and I sat down to discuss a more efficient way for photographers to display their work online. We had both, separately, been working with photographers, and discussed the idea of an all-in-one portfolio blogsite that looks and feels like a flash site, with all the SEO benefits of a WordPress blog. We made our wish list; social media integration, customization, easy-to-use backend, unlimited galleries, and integration of fantastic photography tools. After developing many, many custom blogsites for photographers, we saw our theories in action and set out to develop Photography Blogsites.

WE STARTED THINKING ABOUT WEB PRESENCE

Creating a web presence from scratch is simply too much work. You need a hosting account, a website, a blog, facebook, twitter, etc. etc… That's already 3 or 4 places to login and update. If you have a second or third branch of your business this could be multiplied over and over. Like any software, WordPress needs to be updated from time to time. While WordPress itself has become pretty easy to automatically upgrade, sometimes the theme and/or plugins you have been using are not up to date with the new version. So you go through the automatic upgrade and your site breaks. To do this correctly you would backup your database and all your files in case something goes wrong. The problem is, do you know how to backup a database and restore it when something goes wrong? And if you do, you know this process takes a while. Again multiply this by all of your sites. It's not fun.

We set out to make this faster, easier and less expensive, while still providing all the SEO benefits, the support, the security and backups, and the upgrades. All the difficult stuff becomes much easier because we are offering sites on a networked system. We can fix any problems, answer any questions and best of all, release exciting new features to everyone at once. You will always have the latest features immediately.

THEN WE PERFECTED THE FEATURES

a) EASE OF USE

Our system is a networked installation, called WordPress Multisite. We backup everything twice daily and upgrade all of our plugins and themes, as well as the core WordPress files ourselves to make sure they are up to date and will continue working without a hitch. The process is totally seamless to site owners, who will never see the upgrade messages or worry about backups or upgrades or broken sites.

There is no need for hosting. No need for installation of anything. Ever. You don't even need to check your email for a confirmation link. The signup process takes about thirty seconds and your site is ready to start using. From there, our free trial period lasts 7 days. You won't even be asked for any payment information from us unless you decide to activate a subscription plan.

b) ALL IN ONE SITE

One login gives you access to the portfolio site, the galleries, and the blog. Everything is all one. We offer unlimited galleries, unlimited informational pages, your blog, plus a hub for your social media marketing efforts. One address, one place to maintain so you can get back to taking photos, your passion, and the reason you got into this in the first place.

c) SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a huge, often misunderstood, topic. What it comes down to is making sure that your site is as visible and findable as possible. While search engines like Google are a big part of this, you also need to be found on Twitter and/or Facebook. You need to be visible to iPhones and mobile devices. This means that your site should built 100% using HTML, and not Flash. There are varying arguments in the whole Flash vs. HTML debate. The only way for Flash sites to compete in the SEO world is to have secondary version called mirror sites for search engines, and a third site for mobile devices. Not only do visitors potentially see three different sites but these are three different pieces of code to maintain and worry about upgrading. Add to that a separate blog, sometimes on a different domain that opens in a different window.

One more argument for a Flash-free portfolio site, just last week Google announced a new feature called Instant Preview, which adds a snapshot of your site to the right of your search results. Unless, your site is Flash, which previews as a grey box. This will revolutionize how potential clients will do their searching. You can find out more information on our blog.

WordPress takes care of 90% of the on page SEO. We have put in some extra features to help take care of the rest. All of the standard SEO plugins are installed automatically: All in One SEO PAck, SEO Friendly Images, XML sitemaps are automatically generated and sent to Google, Yahoo and Bing. We have also developed a plugin in house specifically for photographers called SEO Image Galleries. The only WordPress gallery that uses 100% HTML (no Flash) and automatically adds valuable ALT attributes to every images.

d) EASY TO CUSTOMIZE

Out of the box, WordPress is not an automatic website/blog. You need to hire an outside programmer/designer to work a theme to your liking. That is where we come in. We created themes where just about every aspect can be easily customized by uploading patterns, logos, favicons, social media icons, blog post separators, your photos, or choosing from the options we have included in each theme. You can change the color or fonts on your menu, change the color the menu rollover the background. The possibilities are virtually endless.

e) COST

These sites replace a portfolio site, a blog and any hosting you might need for both. Our lifetime plans are a one-time payment, nothing else to buy ever, no monthly fees ever. Our monthly or yearly plans include everything – your full site, built in blog and hosting. For anyone totally happy with their current website, we also have a blog only versions of all of our themes.

f) SUPPORT

We have put together a support site focused on our sites, but is also a great resource for anyone using WordPress. We have detailed documentation, tutorial videos and a forum. If you have a question or concern, we have a built in ticket system that can be accessed directly from your site.

g) SECURITY & BACKUPS

To help prevent problems, we have enlisted a number of plugins and settings to make sure spam is kept to a minimum and the security of the site is as solid as possible. In the worst-case scenario that something does happen, the best way to protect a site is to have a good backup plan. We backup our database twice a day and all of our content once a day. The backups are stored both locally on our server and remotely.

h) AND FINALLY WE LAUNCHED

We are proud to announce our first three themes in both blogsite and blog-only forms: Latte, Espresso and Cuppa Joe. Because we believe in our product so much, we offer a 7-day free trial. Take our sites for a spin. You can upload your work, writes some posts, link your Twitter and Facebook, and even seamlessly switch between all our themes.

We are offering an introductory lifetime membership for $499. That includes all our themes (now and forever), 4 GB of hosting on our screaming fast servers, our support, maintenance and much, much more. For a full list of features visit our features section. This offer will end on November 30, 2010.

We’d love to hear your thoughts as we will keep developing our sites to be the best they can be. As always, thank you so much for your support!

Win on BLACK FRIDAY 11/26/2010! Photography Blogsites is generously offering ONE LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP (Worth $499) to a Tiffinbox subscriber. Here is how you may be able to win:

1) Follow @photoblogsites on Twitter

2) Tweet the following:

“I just read about Affordable WordPress Portfolio Websites @Photoblogsites on @PicSeshu’s Tiffinbox. #photoblogsites Please RT!”

3) Comment below and tell me WHY you deserve to win. Don’t forget to mention your Twitter handle so that I can make sure you have done both. We need to see a minimum of 50 real, honest, entries before I can give this away on Black Friday 11/26/2010. So whatchawaitinfor?

This is a guest post by Zach Prez who offers 1-on-1 coaching and SEO workshops. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

Everyone knows choosing the right keywords begins the SEO process (or at least you know now). After all, search engine optimization means optimizing keywords so you can rank for them. In this post I’ll refer to keywords as a phrase you want to rank for, and demonstrate how to find longer keywords where competition is less extreme. Even a new site or beginner can rank quickly.

Knowing Keywords is a Critical First Step

Without a keyword list it’s easy to optimize for the wrong words, repeat words, words nobody searches for, and words that don’t create new business. All of these take time away from your true talent (hint: not SEO) and are doomed for failure. Let me demonstrate some examples of what not to do. Feel free to bang your head against a desk for having fallen victim to one of SEO’s classic blunders such as:

1. Wrong words: optimizing for wedding binders won’t make you crazy cash like a successful rank for wedding albums. Go with words people actually use.

2. Repeat words: No need to put Los Angeles wedding photographer in all your blog titles and images. Do you really expect every one of them to rank for that phrase? A homepage will outrank a blog post for a main/primary phrase. Target one page per phrase please.

3. Words nobody searches for: Cool, you rank #1 for Arizona ocean photography but nobody has yet to search that in Google. Don’t waste time optimizing for that.

4. Words that don’t create new business: A #1 rank for celebrity photographer may build your online rep to Ashton Kutcher levels, but if you’re based in Minnesota and not willing to travel it probably won’t deliver new clients. Avoid the above by doing a little up front keyword research to find the most searched terms. We’ll put those terms into a list and map it to a content timeline.

How Longer Phrases Can Help SEO

Before you go picking the top 10 most difficult keywords in your niche, let me explain how Google works.
1. A user types a phrase into Google
2. Google looks for a page about that phrase
3. Google finds lots of pages about that phrase and ranks the page with the most authority at #1 (authority is mostly determined by the number of links pointing to the page or site)

Thus, Google looks for keywords on the page (in the title, then URL, then body copy and images). A phrase like Los Angeles wedding photographer appears on 3.5 million pages.

Rather than try to compete on authority for that phrase (or in addition to), find phrases like Hollywood Indian wedding photography ideas. No pages exist with that phrase, so if you optimize a blog post then you will easily rank very high. Plus you might even rank for different keyword combinations such as Hollywood Indian wedding, Hollywood photography ideas, etc. Even if only a handful of people search for that every month, that blog post provides exactly what they are looking for. Specific phrase + little competition = new client. Multiply the number of posts optimized for specific phrases and the traffic becomes significant. Look at this Google Analytics snapshot from a Sacramento Photographer. The main phrase Sacramento photographer was just 1 of 3,868 keywords that she ranked for and contributed to less than 1% of total traffic. Most of the few thousand phrases are very specific searches you would never imagine people would type.

Long-tail SEO is a strategy to find and capture search presence for the thousands of long phrases users will type to find you. Here’s how to locate and organize them.

Keyword List Worksheet

Start with a 4 column list on paper or spreadsheet using the following column headings

Adjectives: Indian best
Locations: Los Angeles Hollywood
Niches:  wedding photography
Nouns:  ideas

As the columns fill out, use various keyword combinations to develop the best phrases for your business.
1. Indian Hollywood wedding ideas
2. Best Los Angeles Indian wedding photography

Put the most important phrase at the top of the list. Next time you write a page or a post, take a look at the list and see if you can incorporate one of the phrases into your post idea. Or you can proactively start writing posts about each of your phrases. This week write about item 1, next week item 2, etc. Cross them off your list so that you don’t optimize for the same phrase twice.

Idea! Create a “best-of” post using content you already have written elsewhere. Take a paragraph here, and image there, and using old posts you can quickly create a new and optimized post.

How to Find Great Keywords

Two of my favorite 10 SEO Tools for Photography Keywords are free Google Keyword Tool and Traffic Travis PC software. Most everyone knows about the Google Keyword Tool for keyword research, but may be confused on how to get great ideas. I searched Los Angeles wedding photographer has 170 broad searches per month, meaning those 3 words were somewhere in the search criteria. Notice other keywords that users type as a part of their search phrase: Indian, top, ideas, photography. Add these to the keyword list worksheet for future use.

Yes, it is that simple. Looking up Hollywood Indian wedding photography ideas would not show any search volume, but we can see that users do search with those words in different combinations. If people are searching top wedding photographers, then they would also search for top in local searches as well. You don’t need 1,000 visits to grow your business. Rank high for something that 5 people search for each month and you can snag all of those clients ASAP. Traffic Travis just offers a second opinion. Another search uncovers more great keywords. I add the following keywords to my list: tips, best, destination, beach.

My next post might be something like “10 Photographer Tips for the Best Beach Wedding in Los Angeles” and capture users searching for beach wedding tips, best photographer tips, Los Angeles beach wedding, etc. The power of long-tail SEO gains a little traffic from a number of phrases.

Compare Two Keywords

The other time a keyword tool comes in handy is when comparing the search volume of two or more keyword phrases. If I’m a wedding photographer in Southern California it would help to know which cities have the most searches. After typing a few phrases (at the same time) into the Google Keyword Tool I find that Orange County is very highly searched. Optimizing for that location has a lot more potential than Beverly Hills, while Hollywood and Burbank have very few searches. The keyword list should reflect this priority with the majority of phrases going after Orange County and maybe only 1 or 2 for the other locations.

For the creative and visual learners out there this video speaks to some of the tactics above.

Take Keywords to the Next Level

Keywords are a small portion of search engine optimization strategy. My Photographers SEO Book and Blog SEO Zen ebook are quickly becoming the standard do-it-yourself guides for ranking photo and wedding businesses. Learn about site structure, link strategy, and tools with no technical knowledge needed.