Quick Tip: Creating Google Velcro

If Google completed a personal ad, it might look something like this:

Seeking webpages specific to the phrase typed into search. I like popular pages full of HTML text and with rock-solid references.

For a webpage to be an eligible bachelor, it must pass the first criteria of search – the content very closely relates to the phrase searched by the user. That's why a search for “Maui wedding photographer” brings back pages about Maui wedding photographer – not “Hawaii wedding photographer” or “Maui weddings and newborns.” As a searcher, we all want to find information precisely about what we're looking for (the search phrase). No more and no less.

Your job is to create a page for each phrase you want to rank, starting with the homepage.

A homepage is the most likely to rank in search, thus should go after the most desired phrase. The best phrase usually uses a location, niche, and “photography” keyword, meaning your homepage should optimize for something like Maui wedding photographer.

Less important phrases will be ranked via subpages or blog posts. For example, a blog post about “Maui destination wedding photos from the Sheraton Hotel” creates a page specific to users who search “Maui destination wedding photos” or “Maui Sheraton weddings,” both desired secondary phrases that can grow business.

Imagine the result of 10 or 100 pages like the above! You could potentially rank hundreds of phrases that cast a wide net to attract new business. This approach works more effectively than a bunch of pages about the same general topic. Before creating a bunch of pages, first find the phrases you want to rank.

Interested in learning more about this SEO stuff, be sure to check out my Photography Web Marketing Guide. It dives deep on the stuff you NEED to know in order to get noticed.

2 Comments

  1. I left longer and more detailed post on Frederickvan’s blog to similar topic so here is just the very core missing from these articles:
    FIRST(!) create website with content and presentation that deserves to be in top 10 of particular Google search… Than and only than proceed to meddle with “Google velcro”/SEO.
    If “second page” Google results are better than your page in content/presentation it will not be only the karma that catches up with you but Google’s own quality testing by real people, not robots. And they do not give second chances, no matter the SEO.