Morag Macdonald

by chloewoodphotography

As part of our professional contexts module, we had a visit from Morag Macdonald. She was to help people with their professional website and give professional careers advice.

Google Analytics:
– homepage should include text (website description)
– make sure the ‘homepage’ title is for the navigation page, not the landing page
– page ranking – number and quality of links to a page help to improve this

Website Advice and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO):
– make links within your site and get people to link back to your site to improve ranking
– keep your blog on your site and keep updated
– google web crawlers check your website so changing and updating your content will improve ranking
– write a website description with key search words to help get found
– split up key words and page and image titles across pages, write page descriptions
– submit website to google maps with relevant images
– use ‘alt tags’ on best images with buzz words

Alternative (alt) text:
– add alt tags to best or most important images when uploading them to the website, this will allow them to show when key words are searched in google images or bring up your website in search results.

Some More Important Advice:
– check the limitations for characters in web description in Google Etiquette
– make sure all information is relevant
– by attracting the right clients and getting more clients you can grow your business to a point where you can charge the fees you deserve
– make sure you look like the best option for your area
– scale back paid marketing activities, think of new and memorable “gorilla” marketing techniques
– design memorable “leave behinds”, not just a business card the people will forget, make it personal.
– learn how to use LinkedIn affectively

I found this workshop incredibly useful, although I do not want to become a professional photographer it was interesting to find out how google analytics work and how to better my website and professional presence online. I have written myself a website description using words that I think represent my work well and that may be included in peoples search results:

Chloe Wood specialises in soft, quiet, landscape photography and has recently exhibited her work in a university degree show. She enjoys working with natural and organic materials in a documentary style producing emotive and textural images. Based in the New Forest, her gentle nature and still life photography is suited to gallery spaces.