Organising Blog categories for SEO and usability.
-
Hello!
I'm a professional photographer and have used categories in an old blog to separate my work. (weddings, portraits, etc.)
I'm starting an new blog and everything was imported, except categories so as i started rewriting them, I noticed the 'personalised URL.
So I was thinking of re-writing my categories based on types of jobs and location.
For example:
*North Wales
-wedding photography
-portrait photography
-commercial photography
*Cheshire
-wedding photography
-portrait photography
-commercial photography
and so on...
Or do you think it's best to just have shoot style categories?
What do you guys think?
Thanks!
-
Here is how Graywolf (Michael Gray) sets up his categories and tags, it may also provide some insight. http://www.wolf-howl.com/blogs/how-to-use-tagging/
-
OK...so what about:
Portrait Photography
- Boudoir
- Family Portraits
- Newborns
Better?
-
I don't care for that category organization myself. It seems a bit spammy. That doesn't mean that it can't work but it really depends on how you present it.
What I would not like to see is www.greatphotography.com/portrait-photography/newborn-photography/ as a URL. I am already on a photography site. It's not helpful to twice more add photography to the category names.
Make your titles as useful and user-friendly as possible. I know this answer is a bit vague but only so much help can be offered with a general question in a Q&A format. There are many factors such as how much content you can have to offer, how much traffic is there for the chosen category names, how competitive is that traffic, etc.
-
I think the new way you have the categories set up is the right way. If you want to really focus on a specific locale, consider creating separate landing pages for each of these locations. The landing pages can feature a map and some images of the area, links to your blog posts featuring weddings you shot in that area, and general information about weddings in that area: popular halls and venues, etc.
If you're going to do this, it's important that each page have GOOD, UNIQUE content about that specific location. Otherwise, you'll create way more problems than you solve.
-
Ok.
What do you think of my current categories then?
| Ioan Said | less than 1 hour ago | Edit |
| at Celynnen Photography |Right.
So right now my categories are:
Commercial
- PR Photography
- Event Photography
- Interior Photography
Portrait Photography
- Boudoir Phootgraphy
- Family Portraits
- Newborn Photography
Etc... Carry on or.....?
Thanks!
-
I understand and agree with your thought process Ioan, but not the end result.
There is a need to balance usability with SEO. Also consider CTR. Ideally everything can come together naturally.
I do recommend optimizing your URLs but keep in mind there are 200+ factors used to determine a page's ranking. I think you are over-optimizing in this regard.
You can build relevancy by using other factors such as header tags, content, backlinks from local sites, etc.
Perhaps others will share a different view point.
-
Right.
So right now my categories are:
Commercial
- PR Photography
- Event Photography
- Interior Photography
Portrait Photography
- Boudoir Phootgraphy
- Family Portraits
- Newborn Photography
Etc... Carry on or.....?
-
I agree with Ryan when it comes to using tags instead of categorys. About your thoughts about subcateorys, I still think the most useful and cosmetic way is to use tags instead of subcategorys. You can see the categorys as the "big headline" and the tags as guidelines below the category.
Good luck with your blog
-
The reason for the "relevancy" for me is more to do with search engines. For example, I have clients in London looking out for photographers in North Wales where they would like to get married.
When I put subcategories, I noticed the category (weddings) and sub-category (north wales) were both mentioned in the custom URL, which I thought made it better in terms of getting to the website rather than when client look at things within the site itself.
-
Does your blog support tags?
If your site is focused on photography you may want to consider category names such as "weddings", "portraits", "commercial", etc. You can use tags for locations such as "Cheshire", "North Wales", etc.
From a user's perspective, if I visited your site and wanted to view wedding photos, I would hope to find a single area of your site which offered your complete selection. I don't think the location of the wedding has much relevancy to the pictures.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to Improve DA and PA of my Blog?
Greetings, Please help me how i can improve DA and PA of my new blog. I am new in this field.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Umer36700 -
Wordpress Blog in 2 languages. How to SEO or structure it?
Hi Moz community, I have got a wordpress blog currently in the spanish language. I want to create the same blog content but in english version. (manually translate it to english instead of using translation service such as Google Translate). How should i structure the blog for SEO? How will it work? Any structure markups i should know about? Any examples? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WayneRooney0 -
SEO Experts: Where did you start?
Hi all! I'm beginning to travel down the road of becoming an SEO expert! I've attended the latest few webinars on Moz, and have started watching the White Board Fridays. However I'm wondering, for the current SEO Experts, how did you get to where you are today? I.e. What books did you read? Did you pay for classes or just learn everything from Moz? Where is a good place to get an SEO Expert Certification/Is it necessary? How long did it take you to become an expert? (Stuff like that) I suppose I'm looking to make a list for myself, organizing what I should learn first, and then create a timeline moving forward. Thanks for your help Mozzers! - Briana B.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JCWhelan13 -
Social Impacts on SEO? How to Do this?
I'm new in SEO and heard by one of my friend that social signals are important for SEO of a website. If people have shared a website's url on their twitter, then it will automatically get rank in google. Is that true and how google sees this social sharing? and how can I do this for my website?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hammadrafique0 -
How to lay off your SEO compnay?
I have decided to replace my seo company. The pint is this company has been partly my developer too. So he has set up a demo server of my website. 1- Should I be worried about duplicate material when I end my cooperation with this company(The demo server) 2- Should I be worried that if they do not like it, they go and delete all the submitted materials and destroy my pages rankings? Thanks all
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlirezaHamidian0 -
Suggestions for a SEO Review
I think it would be beneficial to have a third party seo review of the network of sites my team and I manage and was wondering if any of you had suggestions for what sort of tests should be done or that we should expect to see done during one of these reviews. We are a small team who has varying seo experience and have been working hard to make improvements to our sites in the past year. Most of our sites have been completely overhauled in the last 12-16 months and seo work that had not been done in the past has been setup, along with some corrections that may have been harming seo. We believe we are on the right track and have learned a good amount about seo in that time, but it would be nice to have some "expert" feedback outside of our office to get a clearer picture on anything we may be missing or some suggested improvements. A sort of double check on the work we have done.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | unikey0 -
Page Titles SEO Title
Hi, I run an e-commerce store and within the CMS I define the SEO title, SEO description and SEO keywords for each item. I spoke to a SEO firm who advised me to start every product title with the colour, as this will reduce the duplicate page titles and serve me well in the future. Whats everyones view on this? Does naming something Grey Armani Jeans | Armani Jeans from Designer Boutique stand up better against Armani Jeans Grey | Armani Jeans from Designer Boutique? Any help or tips on how to format the page titles and descriptions would be great. Thanks Will
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WillBlackburn0 -
Breadcrumb Trail for SEO?
Due to the fact that we aren't in the #1 position, (dropped from #5 to page 2 - You have to love Devs and IT), our heads have hired a SEO Audit/Consultant company to review everything we are doing. I would like to post some of the things they are telling us to do, in which I don't 100% agree with and would like some other professional feedback. Especially since their site isn't marketed very well. http://www.trupanionpetinsurance.com Disclaimer: (this site was a complete nightmare when I started a year and a half ago. Yes, there are many issues that still need to be addressed.) Breadcrumb Trail They have asked us to implement a Breadcrumb trail on every page, where the final page is the only H1 Tag. Are breadcrumb trials important for SEO? (I know they are helpful for Users, but SEO) Are they important for Search Engines to track back for structure. Any thoughts about them? Similar question asked in February : http://www.seomoz.org/q/how-important-are-breadcrumbs
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Trupanion1