Titles,keywords And Descriptions, Repetitively Used On Many Images Bad?

It's OK.

I do the same thing, Rich. I'm not into typing everything every time even though I type fast. I would rather have a sticky sitting on my desktop and cut and paste.

Besides, when I post 20 versions of something, it's easier just to number them in the titles. Only a few of my images have whimsical titles. I'm not that clever LOL.

I've thought about this a LOT, Rich, as my descriptions are filled with standard info: suggestions on finishes, info about framing, and contact info.

Does Google penalize me for having more than 700 blocks of similar or identical information here? I don't know.

Should I just delete all that info, anyway? Maybe -- especially as I doubt the descriptions are read very often.

Wendy,

Oh Man!!! Don't get that in my little head? Think positively................

JC,did I see a smirk on your face when you said it was OK?

Mary, my money is on you Girl!

RIch

I don't let everything I read about Google stop me from making good descriptions. If you are not spamming they most likely are not going to think you are spamming. . As for boiler plate stuff like contact info, the more you use it the less they are going to count it as significant to that page. That does not mean it will hurt you in the search on other words and phrases.
That's my opinion of course. I let Sean worry about getting the high Google ranking. I worry about making sure Google (and the viewer) understand what the image is about without a lot of ambiguity.

Bradford,

If I upload 50 images and they all have the EXACT info, are you suggesting that there is a negative to doing that?

RIch

I can't really say Rich. That's why I don't worry to much about it. But I don't see that they would penalize it so much as just ignore it, which I guess is a negative.

That was somewhat tongue in cheek but I do exactly what you asked about from time to time and I have no idea what the real answer is but generally have the same attitude as Bradford.

I don't mind being ignored. Heck, I've been ignored by better than Google! ;-)

I like to hope I'm not being penalized for adding pertinent info to my listings, but it's easy to shove those concerns to the back of my mind and just keep doing what I'm doing. No way can I keep pace with Google's wants and needs, anyway.

My business is local seo for small businesses. This question/this kind of site is a little outside my main expertise, but still I can tell you this should not hurt. All ecommerce sites will have repetitive info on each page, because of similarities in the products. That is something the site can correct for as needed and google also understands. Think of all the other info on the page that is different. The most important thing for us about keywords is to try to use as many as possible and use the ones that most people are searching for. If you happen to find a little niche that a small but substantial number of people are searching for, then for sure you want to add those!

The "being ignored" by Google, is tantamount to not being seen by Google!

Teal, my basic question, is this: if Google looks into my "Great Smoky Mountains" gallery, does Google "see" the images or just the ones that have a unique title/keyword/descriptions?

Rich

Rich, how about you run some tests on some of those images and report back to us in a month.

@Teal, that's certainly how I've been hoping things work. Thanks for chiming in. :-)


@Rich, I don't mind if my duplicated info about framing, choosing paper, etc. is ignored by Google; as long as they pick up the image, title, description, and other SEO relevant words or phrases from the page. I doubt my suggestion for 'choosing the Acrylic Print for this image' is gonna bring in much traffic from a search engine. That will only be relevant if someone has already spotted an image and found their way here.

Now, if having that repeated info 'ignored' means the entire listing is ignored . . . well, that's a serious problem!

Rich, I hear what you are saying and I have thought the same thing.

But I can't see any way around it. There are only so many words that apply to image.

If you try to get to clever and use different words that sort of mean the same thing, then you have words or phrases that are not likely to be used by buyers using the search.

Brad,

If I knew how to run some tests, I wouldn't have asked this to start! LOL!

Wendy, THIS is ABOUT the title,keywords and descriptions maybe being ignored by Google, or even FAA for that matter. If I have 50 images in a gallery and except for the actual image,everyhting is the same,title,keywords and description,does Google see 50 images or 50 duplicates and ignores say 49 of them?

That is the question!

Rich

If your images are not on the first 70 pages of search on FAA - it matters not what you title or tag your work - you won't be found. The ONLY way to make it to the top 70 pages is not just to sell - but to sell regularly - otherwise - it appears you are just whistling in the wind. ONLY if your title, tag or description has your name - and your name is used in search (whichever search) your images will your images be found on FAA - and there is no way to go beyond that 'page 70'; if anyone was so inclined to look through that many images.

Rich -- Okay, I get it. I have several nearly-identical series running; I'll just continue to focus more on marketing them outside the SEO system, as I just can't shape everything I post online to fit the Google/Panda/Whatever Mold of SEO Perfection.

Right this moment, I'm choosing to push this whole discussion to the back of my mind -- as there's no way I can write unique keywords and descriptions for the 20-piece series I'll start uploading in about an hour. Since I can't control the Google situation . . . I'm going for lunch, instead. ;-)

If a block of images all have the same title, description and keywords they'll just be seen as duplicates by Google.

I often use the same keyword set for a block of similar images but not the same title or description.

If there are a block of images that are similar it dies provide an opportunity to target more keywords in the FAA search engine than can be targeted by just one image.

Adam,

OY!

i don't think its bad as long as it's related. but if the images look the same, it will confuse the buyer. and if you can't think of a different description, that can work against you on searches outside, and for buyers.

---Mike Savad

Mike,

You sorta just answered the question. If I upload 50 images and they are ALL Fall Foliage Autumn Colors and all are of leaves of varying shade and color, the majority of the keywords will HAVE to be the same and that's 80-90% probably and adding "Red leaves on black branch" probably isn't helping, right?

ame with anybody that has city buildings, most will ALL have teh same Keywords,maybe just the "Franco Building" or the "Savad Building" added,which probably isn't enough keywords or description to help Google "see the difference"

Rich

I've always taken the time to mix it up a bit when uploading similar images. Have some synonyms handy and maybe rearrange sentences somewhat. I dunno...that's what I do because I learned way back when that we should avoid duplicate content, and not just on this site.

the tags aren't much of an issue. stock has the same words. its the descriptions that will always get you. since google wants content - real content - something that answers a question or helps people to understand the page. and if it's - this is a fall landscape number 1, and the next one - this is a fall landscape number 2. that they may not like. though i think google overall will punish the whole site and not just a few links.

like i'm not worried about my alphabet, which is mostly the same tags. but each one is described differently.


---Mike Savad

This is giving me a big headache...I think what I am getting is that tags are more important to the site and descriptions are more important to Google? But if you are not a consistent seller...none of it matters???

Val,

MAYBE that's why we're not consistent sellers!!!

That's what bothers me. All the time that we all here put into the total uploading process,is not utilized,then, most of that is wasted, then where do we go from there?

I, like any artist here, just want the buyer to see my work and then decide. If I'm doing something, in my process that deters that from happening, then I need to change that process!

Rich

Rich it is a conundrum!!! I'm beginning to think you don't need tags or descriptions all that much until you sell...then it helps. Back to advertising off site. Who said something about just getting the ball rolling. Mine is rolling at about the speed of a snail :)

Val,

FAA only sees keywords (tags).

Off-site search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) can see titles, descriptions and, theoretically, any relevant text on your page. (There's minor dissension re: 'any relevant text' part, but I've found that to be true in my own Google results.)

So, think keywords to be found by searchers already visiting FAA.

Think everything else for Google, Bing, and everywhere else. Which is why I really need to beef up my descriptions!

Roy said, "If your images are not on the first 70 pages of search on FAA - it matters not what you title or tag your work - you won't be found. The ONLY way to make it to the top 70 pages is not just to sell - but to sell regularly - otherwise - it appears you are just whistling in the wind."

I made this point awhile back, and was basically told that wasn't true. I think it is.

Here's a very simplistic statement about all this.

If you think FAA drives most of your sales,then keywords are crucial. If you think Google,Bing,Yahoo, drives buyers to FAA/Pixels, then content seems to be king.

Do I have this right?

What does everyone think? FAA or Google?

Rich

Sure wish we had some stats so that we're not feeling around in the dark. I just noticed something in my Etsy shop where I started selling jewelry a couple of months ago...I can see from the stats how people found me, through a search on Etsy, a Google search, or a search on other search engines. It's somewhat helpful.

@Rich -- Both! FAA gets huge amounts of traffic; you don't want to potentially miss out on that by ignoring the FAA-utilized keywords.

On the other hand, I'm sure many images sell here after being spotted on Google. You don't want to miss out on that possibility by only focusing on the keywords.

I just don't see that there's any shortcut in this situation.

You'll get traffic from the internal FAA search engine as well as directly from Google to an FAA page, sometimes with just your image and sometimes with your image on a whole page of images.

Buyers (i.e) people are the most important thing to consider but that often aligns with people.

Here's a few I've targeted with titles and descriptions that put me at the top of Google via FAA. It helps that most have little competition:

http://www.google.com/search?q=parachute+shield+prints

http://www.google.com/search?num=20&q=garibaldi+lake+prints

If the titles of these images were "cool cave formations" or "canadian mountain lakes" they'd probably be buried in Google and who know what people who search for those are really looking for. By using very bland titles that are exactly what the images are they show up in Google for something and probably what someone would search for if they wanted to buy what I'm selling.

Here's one where a good title got the artist individual image page to come up at the top of Google

http://www.google.com/search?q=tantalus+mountain+prints

If the title of the image was just "snow capped mountains" it would never show up near the top of Google or be very unlikely to anyway.

I'm not sure what exactly causes Google to pick a specific image page vs a page with a bunch of images.

Get specific with titles especially for Google, a good description gives Google more content which is always good.

Google must be charging for spots in the images shown on the top of the Google search page now, which is the only reason I can think of that I'm not seeing images from FAA showing up there with Art.com and the rest.

Rich asked:
"If you think FAA drives most of your sales,then keywords are crucial. If you think Google,Bing,Yahoo, drives buyers to FAA/Pixels, then content seems to be king.

Do I have this right? "

Not quite. Google drives a lot of traffic to the searches. So to get that Google traffic you have to be in the search and rank high. Its hard to really isolate the interaction there.

But if you want to drive traffic directly to the page where you can buy them, use titles that match searches and reinforce that with good descriptions. Then market those images extensively,both on social media and other sites.

I would say Google driving traffic to the searches is the most important thing leading to sales here besides direct marketing to buyers. The sponsoring of searches by thousands of contributors is the genius behind that. Most of the the puzzle pieces anyone needs to make sales are in the quote by Rich and and my post.

Visitors, Visibility and Exposure

One strange thing I find on FAA is how tough it is for new people to the site to get visitors and hits on their pages. On some number site (no name mentioned), I have been with half as long, my better images can easily get 1000 views and many likes and favorites within 24 hours, the same image here posted with more keywords and the same description gets 30 at best and the majority of those are bots. Is there a strange secret I am unaware of, on why the largest site gives me the fewest views? Is one small fish in the big pond of FAA the culprit?

I believe it is the way new images are presented to visitors of the site. I have 21000 views here and on other sites upwards of 60000, FAA is the one I have been with the longest. I guess the way I see it is views = exposure. The more views the higher the sales odds become. This would increase sales and benifit the artist and FAA, the main reason I am on the other sites is multiple exposure angles.

What I find with some sites is new images are presented upon entry of the main page and users do not have to click on a menu to locate them. Without devoted followers here it is hard to get new submissions even looked at and most get lost in the thousands submitted each day. I also have more followers on other sites not by asking but by presenting work. Submit enough good quality items and followers come.

One recent image here has 38 views and on the other site 1849 views, this amounts to 48 times the views and both were submitted within minutes of each other. Same title, description and keywords. I market both on the main social network sites too and do all the marketing the same.


What are some of the things you do to increase exposure views?

Do want views or sales?

There are lots sites with active lookie loos. Places where people like to look at each other's images and comment. If you are interested in sales you want to be on a sight that makes it clear that it is a place to purchase art.

Views equates to sales or an increased possibility of sales. All the sites are clear they offer pod. As I stated without views the chances of sales are nil. As far as looky looks, they do find things to buy just by looking, not sure if I was clear on that or where the question came from. If no one comes to look you will not sell so YES, I want views first.

Peggy,

I'm with you! If there was a way to let us,as artists know where the search originated, Google,Bing,FAA, and over time,we could know where and how to invest time in either the keywords(FAA) or content(Google). OR right now, there could be a "Meter" on the site that shows where ALL the searches are coming from,right now and we could chase that.

Wendy, you're not cheering me up,you know! LOL!

Adam,

I understand completely! BUT what started this,was my questions about "generic" shots of the Great Smoky Mountains,leaves,streams,ridgelines where it's impossible to determine which stream is this tiny waterfall from,etc. Or the red leaves,along the Blue Ridge Parkway, other than writing down the mile marker and I'm sure NOBODY is going to searc by mile maker! Maybe in the Keys. As I mentioned above, I've got a bunch more to upload and if possible,would like to do those right, or righter! Most Right?

Brad,

Thanks for this info. You sorta confirmed what I was thinking. A way to really confirm this theory,would be to ask one of the topsellers, to remove all their images from all the other sources and just use FAA and see how the sales continue. And then determine what % of sales disappeared, was due to the "other marketing sites" and which % is from FAA exclusively.

Bonfire, I'm with you too!. The "views" in and of itself,doesn't indicate sales potential, but the greater the views, the more the likelyhood of sales and that's another tool that we can use to judge our "success" in our marketing campaigns.

Edward, see above!

Let me know what anybody thinks about my "Search-O-Meter" idea,realtive to where the buyer came from,

Rich

Rich

I think your Search-O-Meter idea is a great one! It would be good to have more info so we could use our time wisely and focus on where people are coming from.
I thought I had set that up on Google analytics but I don't think it works like that.

I think another person mentioned that on etsy you can see your most searched keywords. This is a handy marketing tool as you can then incorporate them into listings more effectively. Oh and you can see what search engine people found you on too I think.

Georgia,

I kinda like the idea too! LOL!

Anything that helps us SELL, also helps FAA/Sean............

Rich

Rich, I'm a saint -- not a comedian! ;-)

Wendy,

How about a "funny Saint" then?

Rich