wicklowphotographs

by peter
(Dublin Ireland)

Site: Wicklow Photographs

How much traffic do you get? Very little

How much comes from the search engines? 20%

How much money and time have you put into the site? €1,200 and 2 days

Has the site met your expectations? not enough traffic

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Peter, your site is in much better shape than most sites I see! That's the good news. And hey: there's more good news. There are some easy things you can do to improve traffic, perhaps significantly.

The bad news? I fear that your site's potential isn't what you might have hoped it would be. There's a virtual ceiling on potential traffic, and it could be that that ceiling is lower than you'd imagined.

Let's delve into this.

Did you know that Google has a tool that lets you know approximately how often a term is searched for?

Let's punch the term Wicklow photographs into it, since that's essentially the search term your domain name suggests you're "optimized" for.

58 searches per month. Hmm. Not a lot.

Now let's try Wicklow photos.

480. Hmm. Perhaps the easiest thing you could do, for starters, would be to move your site to wicklow-photos.com! (wicklowphotos.com seems to be reserved.) Especially since you're not even ranking in the top 100 for Wicklow Photos, which is practically criminal!

Regardless, I'd feature both phrases more prominently on your site. Most of your text is in your Introduction. I'd start there. I would use both phrases in your "meta" as well, bumping them both to the top of your keyword list.

Now let's take a look at how you're doing in the rankings. For Wicklow Photographs you're Google US's #7 today. For the UK you're on page 2.

Those rankings aren't horrible, but given your domain name they should be higher. Making the changes I've suggested above should help.

Oh, and by the way, I would make your 2 pages of Introduction into 1. The search engines judge pages' importance by their "distance" from the home page. There's no reason to make all that wonderful text on the 2nd page of your intro seem less important to them. Page 1 isn't all that long. But let's pepper it with some more of your great photos!

Speaking of photos, you're not posting them quite as well you could! Image search should be your bread and butter, and I'm looking at a photo you've entitled W13-1.jpg.

Hmm. Well, you're likely to rank #1 if someone looks for an image called W13-1.jpg. But if someone's looking for a great Wicklow photo, you've put yourself at a rather significant disadvantage.

Yes, you've given it some ALT text that describes the scene as Rocks at Ballynacarraig. But how about ascribing it a name that complements that description? What kind of rocks are they geologically? You could try to rank for those terms too.

And couldn't the folder those photos are in read "Wicklow Photos" instead of "Photos"?

(You have to think like a search engine, Peter. They don't know what's on a page unless you tell them!)

I just noticed something. When I click on your "Buy the Book image link (with that ridiculously small font!) I'm taken to a sales page not for your book but for the Giclée print Wary Deer at Ballinrush Woods. You might want to look into that!

Speaking of the book, it's dawning on me that it's called Wicklow Photographs, not Wicklow Photos. So, regarding what I said about swapping out domain names...

I think I still recommend it. But keep ownership of wicklowphotographs.com to provide a redirect to wicklow-photos.com. Two birds...one stone.

Or two stones, one bird. I'm not sure.

Now...

This is all well and good, but I sense it's possible that Peter Evers could find himself sitting atop the rankings for Wicklow Photos and STILL not be satisfied with his traffic.

But now you understand why. Wicklow photos only has so much search interest.

Dublin Photos? 1600 searches per month.

Irish Photos? 4400.

You could build a bigger site and do what it takes to rank for these terms. It would require many more pages. It would probably require you putting yourself forward as expert in photography throughout Ireland.

Now, I'm sure you either are or could become that expert. You would likely have to take it upon yourself to promote the work of other photographers.

Does that sound like a thankless task? It shouldn't!

Imagine attracting traffic for other popular Irish photographers and Irish photography subjects. You're the photog in the know, generous with your praise and advice. You build trust among all the lucky folks who stumble across you, folks who find out that, "Hey! Peter has a book!"

Such a site would be a whole different animal, with multiple income streams. (Like this site.) You collect commissions from Amazon when you sell books by other photographers, you place discreet ads by Google if you so choose (and share in the revenue), you refer customers to folks like this for a fee.

Like I said, a whole different animal. But doable, and a way to attract that traffic you want. But, lo and behold, you end up with a site that pays you.

Hey, if you make any changes, please come back and fill out the comment form to let us know. Good luck!