by Sarah Santacroce
Photo: courtesy of Veronique Goy
When I asked my list subscribers this Monday what they would like me to blog about, several people asked me to write an other post on how to increase their website traffic. So that’s just what I’m doing :-)
This time I take a closer look at Flickr, a photo and video sharing website which is owned by Yahoo. If you are a local business, especially one that sells products (handmade bags, homemade birthday cakes, designer clothes or whatever it might be) or even some services (manicure, relooking, photographs or any other service that has an end product that shows nicely on a picture) Flickr HAS to be part of your Social Media Marketing Strategy. It is highly indexed and will increase your search engine visibility and hence drive more traffic to your website.
It’s easy to start working with Flickr. Just go to Flickr.com and create an account. Remember to use your company name for branding purposes.
A couple of things to boost your visibility (Search Engine Optimization):
- Titles: Use your keywords to create strong and descriptive titles for every picture. Think about unique ways to motivate users to click on your image.
- Descriptions: write descriptions with the user in mind. Put yourself in their shoes and think what would make them click on your photo.
- Hyperlinks: Add hyperlinks in your descriptions to relevant pages on your website
- Local place names: If you are a local business that only sells locally (no online sales) make sure you use local search keywords for communities you are targeting (for example, Lausanne, Switzerland, Suisse Romande) in your titles, descriptions, tags, and hyperlinks.
- Tags: Tag each photo with descriptive, searchable keywords. Include place names in the tags to attract local searches.
- Profile: Search Engine Optimize your Flickr profile page and Flickr photo "sets" with search-friendly titles, tags, fun and informative descriptions, and links.
- Flickr Groups: You can join relevant groups and post your photos there to get even more exposure.
Of course you will also want to use your Flickr photos and share them on other social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. Flickr makes social sharing very easy, all the buttons you need are right next to every picture.
Oh, did I mention that Flickr is totally FREE (unless you want to go Pro, then it’s $24.95 per year).
One last tip: If you are in the music, entertainment or art business, make sure you check out www.webdoc.com. It’s a very cool new tool for rich expressions. You can use pictures, videos, sounds, and apps to create your own mini-webpages for example for a concert, vernissage, exhibition etc. and share it all over your social network. Have a look and let me know what you think.
