For everyone that says the SEO for zen does not work well....

sarahashleyphotos · May 2013

Your probably just not taking the time to do it right.

Im # 2 - Hampton Roads Wedding Photography

# 3 - Grand Affairs Photographer (important because our studio is across the street from the venue - We are also on the 1st & 2nd pages for variations of this search)

#2 - hampton roads portrait photographer

#4 - Norfolk Wedding Photographers

#4 - yorktown freight shed photography

Anyway you get the idea. My images show up in the image search results, my blog posts show up in search results, and mostly its my homepage that shows up in search results.

SylvainPhoto · May 2013

Hi Sara, 
For sure you can improve your SEO a lot on Zenfolio when you work on it. The thing that most people is reproaching to SEO zenfolio is that on other provider you do not need to work on it ! Title, comment and keywords are usually enough to make it work. 
For instance, for the same amount of given info (keyword, title) the same picture on 500px popup first with a narrow google search never the zenfolio's ones. 
Cheers, 
Sylvain.

sarahashleyphotos · May 2013

I had been only using keywords for images, categories, and my blog. Though I also have a site description filled out and a welcome message tailored to brig search results. I am just now adding ALT tags today. I also think that a lot of people don't realize that adding quotes around things like "Hampton Roads Wedding Photography" in keywords helps so much. Quote phrases that people are searching for... which you can find out from google adwords for free.
"The thing that most people is reproaching to SEO zenfolio is that on other provider you do not need to work on it !"
Lol sorry but this seems lazy to me. It does not take long. I set aside my mornings for working on my website and afternoons for editing photos. But this is my business and it is very important that I am found. I also know a bit about building websites and seo from my dad who builds websites for people. So I think if your going to be lazy about it you have no right to complain.
 
Edit: Also google cares more about META Descriptions right now than keywords so that may be some peoples issue.

NYRT4R · May 2013

How long did it take for you to start seeing better results in searches?

sarahashleyphotos · May 2013

NYRT4R - I believe it took 2 or 3 months before we noticed a change.

Siko · May 2013

Zenfolio provides excellent SEO opportunities for those willing to take the time to do it properly! I went from page 20 to page 1-2 in rankings for "Raleigh wedding photography" in my very crowded market. It took about 2 months to start seeing results and now all it takes to maintain a number 1 or 2 rank is a blog post every week or so and entering the meta data to few images in my open galleries. I would also recommend using a blogger or a wordpress site to direct more links to the Zen site. Mine is http://www.silvercordeventphotography.com

Sarah Ashely photos, your work is beautiful by the way!

Will Nicholls Photography · May 2013

Guys, what do you do to improve your results exactly ?

50041 · June 2013

Having spent a bit of time with my alt descriptions my site is ranked almost at the top of Google.

Ayalem · October 2013

I'd be interested to see how you guys who had decent rankings are doing now that Google looks at things differently... ie in a way that isn't very good for the current setup on Zenfolio. It's a shame because I like everything about Zen but I, like many, are finding the SEO side of things producing very bad results. It's an age old problem and seems to be going nowhere fast sadly.

sarahashleyphotos · October 2013

Ayalem said:
I'd be interested to see how you guys who had decent rankings are doing now that Google looks at things differently... ie in a way that isn't very good for the current setup on Zenfolio. It's a shame because I like everything about Zen but I, like many, are finding the SEO side of things producing very bad results. It's an age old problem and seems to be going nowhere fast sadly.

I currently still have smiler results on all of the searches that I have linked to.

John Watson Photography LSWPP · October 2013

I second what Sarah says here. I was a wordpress user, but now switched to Zenfolio and the SEO work is easyer in Zen than in wordpress (even with the yeost plugin). also I getting better page rankings now and for "wedding photographer southampton" Im on page 2, in a very competitive area.
Yes you have to do some work but so what ? do you really want to trust some automated SEO that gets it wrong ?
If I put up a blog or a page, the SEO bit takes 5 mins extra, wooooooo!

halberst · October 2014

I've had a Zenfolio account for about four years now. At times I've also posted some of the same images to a shared Photoshelter account. Google images would reliably find Photoshelter images, and despite having the same images having the exact same keywords Zenfolio images were seldom found. It may be tweaking a bunch of stuff on Zenfolio will help SEO. But I think most of us who use the service don't wan't to spend extra time researching and tweaking SEO and spending time in front of a computer and not a camera. Zenfolio has a lot going for it but it's very frustrating getting such poor search engine results and seemingly little interest in fixing the problem.

GOBI Photography · December 2019

I wish we had more control over the Title and H1 tags in the blogs

For everyone that says the SEO for zen does not work well....

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