Search Engine Madness

Here I am again in front of my computer about to churn out more inane dribble in a hope that the search engine God Google will see fit to recognise my efforts and I may gain a couple of places in my listing category or that I will not drop further into obscurity.

It does not matter what I say the content would appear to be of little consequence I do not need a “command” of the English language nor do I have to write about my subject with any real proficiency. Google simply doesn’t care all it wants to see is more new text and from that it will deduce that my website is alive and kicking and worthy of recognition.

It would not matter if I never changed a single image on my site nor would it matter that every image was so badly shot that it looked like I had given my camera to a monkey with a hang over to play with. The fact that my business is a visual medium is of no consequence because Google only recognises text and not images. It is of no consequence that I keep abreast of the latest developments that my style is ever changing in line with the fashion industry.

In case you are wondering why none of the of the really high profile photographers, the industry giants, never appear in generic search engine searches. This is because their sites concentrate on projecting their work and are not cluttered with a load of inane words put there solely for the search engines. In other words they are established and do not have to promote themselves in this manner.

However it is a fact of our modern day living that gone are the days when you picked up the yellow pages to find a local tradesman we head straight for the search engines and Google is king.

Photographers such as myself are having to adapt their sites to cope with Google’s working practices and in my case I have a section where I keep all the “words” quite separate from the images as I do not believe that anyone is in the least bit interested in reading them when looking at my work – if I have to tell you that I am proficient at my job and if I rely on bulling you with words into liking my style of photography then there is something wrong.

One final gripe (now if you if you believe that this is my last moan, then the fairies at the bottom of my garden are not going to kill themselves laughing) The latest cash cow that has developed are the Search Engine Optimisation companies who promise that they can get you on the first page of Google – for a small or not so small consideration of course.

Yes you are right I have fallen for that one too and did it work not a bit of it. Nor did having my website listed on all of the portals who promised to fill my dairy with weddings.

There is no substitute for a word of mouth recommendation from a client who was delighted with not only their images but our (my assistant and myself) working practices, we make a point of knowing what we are doing and spend as much time before the wedding preparing our clients for their special day as we do spend shooting on the wedding day and I spend an equal amount of time working on the images afterwards to be sure that my clients are presented with images that are truly special.

So why do I bother with writing this stuff? Well the fact of the matter is that we are in recessionary times and the wedding proportion of my business needs new clients and new brides use the internet to find their suppliers of which I am one.