WordPress.org is one of the best — if not the best — website systems when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), which is fancy jargon meaning the process of ranking highly in Google and other search engines. To succeed in search you must have a blog as part of your website. In fact, photographers should ditch Flash and gallery sites and move exclusively to a blog platform.

Here’s why WordPress sites outrank other types of websites:

• WordPress uses a highly searchable, open-source code structure.
• WordPress content is easily indexed, mapped, shared, Pinned, linked and bookmarked.
• It allows control of the key ingredients for successfully ranking: titles, descriptions, URLs, and image alternate text
• It offers extensions (plug-ins) that will enhance your options for SEO
• You can continuously add new pages with ease. (Google likes lots of content — and fresh content.)

If you’re looking for a great WordPress theme, I recommend ProPhoto.

Two Surefire Recipes for Optimizing Blogs

This post covers two surefire “recipes” for optimizing a blog so it ranks higher in search.

I talk about these recipes and 20 more in my newest ebook “Recipes To Rank Higher: The Search Engine Cookbook for Photographers.” Don’t miss the special offer for NewbornPhotography.com Members at the end of this post!

The cookbook covers everything I’ve learned the past 10 years that’s relevant to ranking higher, from image optimization to video rank to Google+ and Google Places. I wrote this ebook so you will easily get new business from search engines once and for all! No more wasting time on strategies that don’t pan out. My book is a must-read because much has changed in the world of search engines in the last few years.

How to Make Your Blog Homepage Rank

Total Time: 15 minutes      Level: Easy

Ingredients:

• About text (bio)
• Call to action
• Contact information
• Convincing meta description
• More tag
• Social media accounts
• Sticky post
• Keyword-rich title
• Your most important web pages (pre-written)
• WordPress blog

Directions:

Update your homepage title to focus on your most important keyword phrase. For example, “Premier Sacramento Newborn Photography Gallery.” This is typically your site name (under Settings > General) or there is a field for homepage title in the All in One SEO Pack (under Settings > All in One SEO).

Update the meta description, which appears as your page summary in search results. For example: “Zach Prez has taken award-winning photos for over 5 years. View his stunning galleries now.” This is typically your site tagline (under Settings > General) or there is a field for meta description in the All in One SEO Pack (under Settings > All in One SEO).

Truncate your blog entries so that only the first part of selected posts is displayed on the home. This helps the homepage load more quickly, and lets users choose a post that interests them without having to scroll through the entire post. When editing a post, click the Insert More Tag icon to split the post.

Use a Sticky Post to make your most important post appear first.

Offer clearly written contact information with a call to action. If you want potential clients to call you, then make a big button that says “Book a Session Now.”

How to Rank an Individual Post

Total Time: 30 minutes     Level: Easy

Ingredients:

• All in One SEO Pack
• About text (bio)
• Call to action
• Contact information
• Heading tag
• Images
• Links
• Convincing meta description
• Reviews/Testimonials
• Text on the page
• Keyword-rich title
• Keyword-rich URLs

Directions:

Update your blog post title to focus on a unique and specific keyword phrase.

• The title is created from the name of the post.
• With the All in One SEO Pack you can copy the name of the post into the Title field.

Update the slug. The slug is the final portion of your blog post's URL. By default it will use words from your blog post name. You can optimize the default by making sure those words are important, perhaps removing words like "and" or adding an important keyword.

Update the meta description to get potential clients to click your post in search results. This is typically the abstract field or there is a field for meta description in the All in One SEO Pack.

Optimize the post's photos with quality alternate text, captions (or placing text between the photos), compressed filesize, and filenames.

Make sure the post has 300 words of text or more. Include text about you, clear contact information, and a call to action to ensure readers call you to book a session. Add a testimonial at the end of the post so potential clients know they can trust you.

Find a way to link to one of your other posts from within the first paragraph. Add links to your best posts or related content at the end of the post.

Choose one category for your post. Good category names are one or two words, like “maternity,” “newborn,” “baby,” “child,” or “studio.”

Tags and/or meta keywords are not needed and aren’t useful.

Get a link to this post from another website, like an industry blog, article or partner site. If this is one of your best posts, make sure it’s linked from your regular website's homepage or splash page. Note: It’s better from an SEO standpoint to link to a specific post than to link to your homepage.

Post an image from this post to Facebook and Twitter, with a link to the post. Pin the image to Pinterest.

Ebook Offer for NewbornPhotography.com Members!

Recipes To Rank Higher: The Search Engine Cookbook for Photographers is a 100+ page ebook with:

• 6 tools helping you rank higher and measure success
• 31 ingredients telling you exactly what Google cares about
• 23 recipes walking you through how to update your website
• 10+ video recipes explaining what to do, in simple terms
• membership to Zach's private SEO group where you can get expert advice

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About Zach Prez

Zach Prez is an Internet Marketing specialist with 10+ years of experience. His expertise in SEO, social media, email marketing, and web design has been shared in dozens of top photography sites and magazines. He's a husband and father of three, ninja at Ms Pac Man, and loves books on art crime. Get all of my super powers on Facebook and Pinterest.