6 Tips for Taking Great Vacation Photos

I love traveling! But I also love coming back home and having a lot of pictures to build my scrapbooks and to show my friends. The problem is that I realize that they just seem to be some old boring building photo to other people because they don’t have any context, or it is such a famous landmark that everyone has the exact same picture. So I have started taking some pictures that have a little bit of a story in it or that are part of a set to make them more interesting for everyone to see.

Tips for great travel pictures:

Focus on details that grabbed your attention:  Try to get pictures that are focused on something that attracted your attention, for example instead of taking a picture of an entire statue at the Rodin museum, try taking a picture of the hands. Rodin always focused on getting hands to look realistic, so you are telling his story with your picture as well.

Slow shutter picture

Take photos with different lighting:  Don’t get stuck taking pictures of beautiful buildings during the day. Take a walk at night and shoot the buildings when the lights are creating a palette of colors and the building looks majestic. Be sure to set your camera to a slower shutter speed to allow the light to show details of the buildings. Also bring a tripod, I don’t lug a huge one around, I just use my GorillaPod because it is tiny and so helpful!

Go back to take photos at a different time of the day:  If you are staying at a destination for more than 3 days, it is wise to take your usual pictures, but also think of a perfect time to come back and get nice shots of special spots. I decided to visit the Louvre on the day it was closed just so I could get some nice shots of the pyramids at sunset with no people.

Don’t be afraid to take quirky photos:  Take peculiar things into account, like the way a place smells. It will not appear on the picture, but you can make the picture about that. For example, if you get to the Opera building and it smells like sweet chestnuts, you can take the picture with the chestnut car in front of the building at an artsy angle.

Use your imagination for more creative photos:  Forget point, shoot and go! Take your time to imagine what would look good in the composition of your photograph. Think about why you traveled to your destination. Do you love the food? The beach? Museums? Make sure you get the things that made you go there into your shots.

Snap a lot:  Make sure you snap a picture when there is an interesting subject or action happening. I was sitting enjoying the sun in a small park with a fountain when I saw a little boy strip and jump into the fountain. I quickly snapped 3 pictures before his mom could get him out, two of them were awful but the last one was just perfect. So make sure to take lots of pictures and discard what doesn’t work later.  With digital cameras, you can get away with it! Remember that you can always edit and crop some unwanted things later on.

Hope this post helps you with some ideas to get great pictures for your coming summer travels.

Taking Great Pet Photos

Picture showing personality

Some of us have a website just for our pets, but I find it hard to fill it up with anything other than pictures from my beloved pooch. But after going through my pictures, I found that I only had one or two shots where my pooch looked good (and not like a rabid-possessed-devil-creature with red eyes). Taking good pictures of animals is difficult even for experienced photographers because animals never do what you want them to, but it is very rewarding when you get the perfect shot. I really wanted to have pictures that show my pet’s special personality, so I decided to do a little bit of research into pet photography.

Here are my most important takeaways:

Patience: Be ready as this task will require a lot of patience. If you are calm and patient you will get your pet to relax or calm down so you can get the shots you want. I also noticed it is not a one-day gig, it worked better when I extended it to tiny sessions over a few days.

Personality: When you want to take pictures of your pet, you want his/her personality to shine through, so make sure you take pictures in the context of your pet’s personality. For example, don’t try to get Fido to sit still wearing a suit if he is an active dog that doesn’t like sitting around. Instead, take a great action shot!

Position: Make sure you get down to your pet’s level… and no, I do not mean you start drooling and licking your butt! I mean that you need to lie on the floor, or bring your pet to a higher location, so that you don’t get a bunch of shots of the top of their head. You will end up with very personal shots and get a feeling of closeness.

Lighting: As with any regular picture, lighting is VERY important! With pets it is especially important because you don’t want to use a flash on your pet and startle them or get the ugly red-eye. Natural daylight is the best. Direct sunlight is a good idea if you have a dark haired pet.

Props: Use props whenever you need them to get your perfect shot. Use their toys, favorite blanket, and treats to get them to calm down or come to you. Get a friend or family member to help you as well… it works perfectly for action shots as you can lay on the floor while your pet plays with your helper.

Zoom Lenses: When you need to do a close shot but don’t want to come too close because it will ruin the feeling, use a zoom lens. They are great for indoor or outdoor pictures and your pet will act more natural as you are not right in their face.

Freeze!: Use a fast shutter speed when you have active pets as that will freeze the action in your shot. No need for fancy cameras… most digital cameras have a sports setting that allows for the fastest shutter speed in your settings.

Lots and lots: Take tons of pictures, take them from different perspectives and angles. If you are using a digital camera, it’s a no-brainer and it’s free! Even when using film, you need to take more pictures than you normally would… you will surely find your pet’s perfect shot!

Good luck! 

How to Choose Your Domain Name

You need a name

It is important to chose the right domain name as part of your overall website design, whether it is for your personal website or your business website. Your domain name will define the theme of your site even before people visit it.

Did you know that years ago the extension of your site identified what your site would be about? For example .COM is short for commercial and was only used for business sites. .NET is short for network, and it was originally designed to be used by technical Web sites. Now you can register most any extension you want (with some restrictions, you can find more information at the ICANN site.

The most important things to keep in mind when deciding your domain name:

Dot COM: always try to get the .com version as it is the first extension people will try since it is one of the oldest extensions and therefore more known.

Get them all: if they are available, get all the extensions available to your domain name. You can then forward them to your .com name and insure there won’t be a site with the same name… just different extension.

Keep it short: preferably under 7 characters. You can register a name up to 63 characters, but people need to remember it. Avoid hyphens as it is not memorable and when you say your domain name, it does not have good continuity. If you need more ideas, use a thesaurus to find synonyms.

Describe: your domain should be something that describes what your site or business is all about. Preferably you want to have the name of your company and a keyword.

Unique: choose a name that does not get confused with any of the popular sites. Even if people land on your site by mistake, they won’t stay. That’s not the kind of traffic that you want.

Ask Around: When you have selected your domain name, ask your friends and clients what they think. A name might make perfect sense to you, but other people might find it hard to remember. Is it easy to say? Is it hard to understand? Could you say it over the phone without having to spell it out?

Triple-check: make sure to pay very close attention to spelling, once you purchase it, you cannot make any changes and domain names are not refundable.

No trademarks: you could get into trouble when you infringe a trademark. Search for copyright listings in your country.

No Slang: Stay away from slang unless your site is created specifically for a younger audience and it is part of the site’s idea.

Not sensitive: remember domain names are not case sensitive, so avoid getting a name that can be confusing when it runs together. Look at Citymax’s list of funny and embarrassing domain names.

I hope this post helps you accomplish this very important item in the long list of chores of being a site owner.

How to Insert Keywords into Your Website

From my last post, you learned how to generate keywords using the Google Keyword Tool for your website. The next step is to put them into your webpages, but how you do this can affect your search rank.

Before you start, remember that people are actually going to read your page, so make sure your writing has good flow. This is more important than putting keywords everywhere. Focus on 3 keywords per page at most.

Here are different options for inserting your keywords on your Orbs.com site:

Title tags and headings - Use your keywords as part of your title tag. Title tag text is generated from the text you turn into a heading on your Orbs.com site. This should be your first line of text on your page. Highlight it and then click on the H1 button. You can confirm your title tag is working by looking at the top left corner of your browser. It will match exactly with your heading.

Subheadings – Create subheadings containing your keywords. On Orbs.com, highlight your text and click on H2 or H3.

Images – Whenever you upload an image, you can add a description of the image as part of your code. To do this on Orbs.com, click on the “HTML” button and search for instances of “img” in your code. You can then add in a ALT and TITLE description for your image. Normally, you’ll see something like this in your code:

<img originalwidth=”600″ style=”width: 600px; height: 326px;” bsrc=”https://static.orbs.com/is/4d8b7e4496ba032e62000076.jpeg” src=”https://static.orbs.com/is/4d8b7e4496ba032e6200007a.jpeg”>

After the last closing quote, insert:

alt=”your keywords here” title=”your keywords here”

You should end up with something like this:

<img originalwidth=”600″ style=”width: 600px; height: 326px;” bsrc=”https://static.orbs.com/is/4d8b7e4496ba032e62000076.jpeg” src=”https://static.orbs.com/is/4d8b7e4496ba032e6200007a.jpeg” title=”Mary’s High Tea Restaurant in Vancouver” alt=”Mary’s High Tea Restaurant in Vancouver”>

Web address – Include your keywords in your web address. On Orbs.com, the name you choose for your page as it appears on the Table of Contents is automatically put in your webpage address.

Links to your page – Include keywords on link text to your page. This includes links from other pages to your page and links on your Table of Contents/Breadcrumbs. On Orbs.com, this means if “high tea menu” is a keyword for page A then on page B, you might have a link like this:

Our high tea menu includes scrumptious scones, pastries and miniature sandwiches served on a stunning three-tiered tray.

Avoid using links like “click here” or “read more” which offer no description of the link-to page.

For the page links on your Table of Contents, you can rename them by clicking “Page Options” and then “Rename.” Whatever text you put here will automatically be used in your breadcrumbs too. Breadcrumbs appear at the top of subpages so there is an easy way for a visitor to go up a page level like this:

Page Content – Throughout your page, include your keywords so that you reach a keyword density of 3% to 5%. The more times your keywords are used, the greater your keyword density. Use KeywordDensity.com to check your page for free.

The above are some of the basics of getting your pages ranked higher on search engines. There are other methods such as meta tag info and naming uploaded files with your keywords, however these are not available currently on Orbs.com to give you other advantages like simpler editing.

Remember you don’t have to employ every tactic to get your pages ranked highly.  Google will look at the total of everything you do and how well you execute each tactic. Do not sacrifice good flowing text for increasing your keyword usage. Ultimately, you want your information to be useful and easy to understand for your visitors.

Outside of inserting keywords in your pages, the other 2 major tactics for increasing your page rank are link-ins from other websites and regularly adding changes to a page (e.g. dedicating a section to announcements or upcoming events). Learn more by reading:  How to Get Your Website Ranked Higher on Search Engines.

How the Google Keyword Tool Can Help Your Google Search Rank

If you’ve never used the Google Keyword Tool, let me explain how it works and show you one method of using it to improve your Google search engine rank.

Keywords include single keywords and keyword phrases that someone might enter on Google to find the information they are looking for. Your goal is to find keywords that match with your website content so a visitor who finds your site on Google Search will be satisfied that you answer their questions.

Here are the steps to using Google Keyword Tool to help your Google Search rank:

1. Enter any keywords you think are relevant to your website content

I’m going to use an example of a restaurant in Vancouver that serves high tea. First, I enter any keywords that I think of that are relevant to my business. It doesn’t have to be a complete list as these will help generate a larger list on the Google Keyword Tool. I came up with:

vancouver high tea
vancouver restaurant
british high teas
what is high tea
vancouver tea shop
afternoon tea british columbia
afternoon tea in vancouver
tea house vancouver
high tea lower mainland
high tea in bc
vancouver restaurant

You enter them like this (remember to select a country and language too):

2. Scan the keyword list that’s generated and expand on your keyword search.

A list of potential keywords appear below. Scan them to see if there are keywords you want to add to your search list to generate even more keywords. When you have a large list, checkmark all 3 match type options on the left:  Broad match (should already be selected by default), Exact match and Phrase match.  Here’s the difference between them:

Assume a person types into Google Search:  high tea vancouver

• Broad match: vancouver bc high tea restaurants. The searcher needs any of the keywords in their search and it doesn’t matter what order or if there are extra words.
• Phrase match: place for high tea vancouver. The searcher needs the keywords in the same order as their search and it doesn’t matter if there are extra words.
• Exact match: high tea vancouver. The searcher needs the keywords exactly as they are shown without any extra words.

3. Select keywords to target and then put them into groups of similar themes.

You now have a large list of potential keywords. I recommend printing the entire list out so you can see everything at once. You’re going to checkmark good keywords to target and then use different highlighter colors to put your keywords into groups.

How do you decide which keywords to target? First, take a look at your list of keywords. A snippet of our search is below.

You need to consider the following:

• Competition: The more page links that come up for a search, the greater the competition for the search term.  This means it will be more difficult for you to rank your page higher.
• Local and Global Monthly Searches: The more searches there are for a keyword, the greater supply of people you may draw to your website if you can get a good ranking. People will only check so many pages of Google Search results so if you’re not on at least the first few pages, your link probably won’t be seen.

Remember, whatever keywords you select must be relevant to your website content otherwise people will come to your website, see that it isn’t what they were looking for and leave. There are a few options when selecting keywords:

• Select keywords which have low competition and good local/global monthly searches. These will be the easiest to get higher ranking on but there may not be many.  However, if you look at the big picture, you may find having lots of these really adds up to great traffic.
• Select keywords which are highly relevant to your website even if it may be difficult to get a good ranking. Over time, you may be able to improve your ranking to make this worthwhile.

Caution:  Sometimes you may see keywords that look like they may be relevant to your website, but they really are not.  When you’re not sure, click on the keyword link and it will show you what Google search results appear for that keyword. Look at the results to see if they suit your website.

Once you have checkmarked your list with the keywords you would like to target, put them into groups. Each group represents 1 page of your website. I would not recommend grouping more than 3 keywords per page. Note that if you have broad, phrase and exact match for the same keyword, that would only count as 1 keyword.

In my next post, I’ll explain how to put your keywords into your webpage.

How to Get Your Website Ranked Higher on Search Engines

The gist of getting your website ranked higher is to have good website content and get lots of sites linking to your site.  Here are the practical steps to doing this:

1. Get your sites listed as soon as you can.

Once you have a few pages of good content, submit your website to search engines for free in particular Google and Yahoo.  It takes several weeks to get listed so better to submit earlier.

2. Find out what keywords will work best for your website.

Keywords are any words or word phrases someone might type in a search engine to find the information in your website AND your website’s information is relevant to what the person is looking for.  Here are some free tools for this:

• Google Keyword Tool
• Google Search (while typing in potential keywords see what suggestions show up below)
• Wordtracker (just use the free trial)
• If you know HTML, you can go to competitor’s sites and see what meta keywords they used to get ideas on what keywords to use.

3. Create great content and then work in about 3 keywords per page.

Good content is making sure you answer all your visitors’ typical questions about your business, cause, project, etc.  Great content is anticipating any other information that might be helpful to a visitor.  Read “What to put on a Bed & Breakfast website” to see an example of great content.

Next, work in up to 3 keywords per page.  The keywords should be used at least 3 times each.  Ideally, more is better but there comes a point where the text doesn’t read smoothly.

Try to work at least 1 keywords into the page title at the top.  On Orbs.com this means highlighting your text and clicking the H1 button.  No other text should use H1, but feel free to create subheadings with H2 and H3.

4. Get sites to link to your website.

Submit your website to any directories or listings that are relevant to your website.  There are usually topical directories (e.g. a directory for restaurants) and geographical directories (e.g. businesses in Rochester) you can find on Google.  Another idea is to contact bloggers who may be interested in sharing your website information.

5. Keep adding more content and more links.

Google will rank higher websites that post new content regularly.  At minimum, you should be adding new content once a week.  Having regular articles related to your topic is one way to do this.  For example, a comic book store could post reviews about new comics being released or how to store comic books effectively.

If you think your article may be of interest to other website owners, let them know about your article.  As an extra, offer to help anyone you contact with your knowledge and/or contacts in the industry whether they write about you or not.  It’s a great way to build relationships with people who may be able to help you in the future.

These tips should help you get started with building a successful website.  Good luck!

Writing Relevant Copy

A common question we get is “How can I get listed on the first page in google results?”

This is such a  hard question, mainly because it depends on so many factors, like what keywords are being searched, but I will usually answer: Make sure your content is well written and it is relevant.

How do I write relevant content?

Writing relevant content starts by your site name, your title, your headings, and finally the page content.

Lets say you are writing a site about a rabbit farm, you first want to put some thought into your site name. You might not always find the name you want, but make sure that your site name relates to what the site is about and that it will be easy for your users to remember.

Use your titles to your advantage, robots will read H1, H2, and H3 formatted text in the page as the most importnat content. So make sure your titles are descriptive and make sense. In orbs.com the first H1 will also become your meta title for that page.

Then your content, which should be the expanded version of the title you used above. Try to use the same words you used in the title but don’t copy it over. Distinguish what are your keywords and use them in different ways along the page. Keywords are words that are the main focus of your site and that you want people to find you through.

For example, look at this rabbit meat site:

 

Sample Site

Why a Table of Contents?

You might be wondering why Orbs.com has chosen to organize pages through a table of contents rather than using buttons like any other website.

Orbs.com Table of Contents

We believe in making things easy to find so we put a lot of thought into the organization of sites. Whenever you go beyond 5 pages things may get complicated when you have website buttons as you cannot fit more than 5 buttons across the website. The sites that have buttons on the side become a huge list with no apparent organization and it is hard to find what you are looking for.

With a table of contents you can organize by creating subpages easily and then dragging and dropping pages into a page. A table of contents also gives you clear view of what you will find in the website. You won’t have to go to a page to find out what the subpages are, you can see it right away on the table of contents.

Extra things you can do to keep your site easy to use:

• don’t use blinking or scrolling text
• put some thought on how you will organize your site
• limit the page length to 5 screen-fulls to avoid excessive scrolling
• don’t write more than a couple of words in ALL CAPS
• use a spell checker, people might notice the mistakes and get sidetracked
• don’t underline words that are not links
• use descriptive links. Use “Check out our sale items“ rather than “Click here for our sale items”
• use your own content, it is illegal and sleazy to copy it from another site
• content is king! Spend time writing good copy for your site

A website that has good organization and great content makes everyone happy.

Writing Good Copy

Most people spend most of their time worrying about the design of the site and about the position on Google results.

The fact is that there needs to be much more time spent on the copy of your site. It is what will make or break a deal, your visitors will most likely stay on your site if your content is good. And if you are selling something, the copy might just convince them that you are the right choice from the hundreds of other sites that are screaming for their attention.

Of course images and the look of the site is important, but the beauty of good copy is that you will also get listed better on search engines when your copy is relevant and well written.

Here are some guidelines for better copy:

• use relevant content. Make sure you know what point you are trying to make, that way you won’t ramble.
• use your spell checker, and afterwards have someone proof-read your copy. Having typos makes you look unprofessional, focus on spelling and punctuation.
• use your own voice. Do not try to copy the way other people write, this will help you keep it lively and interesting.
• use common language and short sentences. Avoid using advanced and less-known words (unless, of course, your site calls for it). For example utilize and use mean the exact same thing but use is shorter and widely known.
• keep you paragraphs short to make reading easier, eliminate unnecessary words like very, really, extremely, actually…
• show your enthusiasm in your copy, if you are not passionate about the content of your site, nobody else will be.

Happy writing!

Great Pictures = Great First Impressions (part 2)

Yesterday I was telling you about images being an important part of your website’s first impressions (part 1). Here are more tips for taking great pictures with your digital camera:

To Zoom or not to Zoom

Stand closer instead of using zoom

Most cameras now have optical zoom and digital zoom, it is important that you understand that digital zoom is not recommended for good quality images. The camera electronics simulate a zoom to get closer detail, but the images produced are much lower in quality. Stay away from digital zoom, getting close to your object is better.

If you have optical zoom you can use it, but always keep in mind that zoom will:

• reduce the depth of field
• magnify camera movement so use your tripod
• lose sharpness on objects at different distances

Keep your Focus

Digital cameras come with auto-focus and that is great, but it isn’t perfect all the time. Most digital cameras will focus on what’s in the center of the picture, but if your main subject is not right on the center, the autofocus will not work. To get focus on your desired subject all you have to do is point your camera directly at the desired subject, half-press the shutter button, then re-compose to the desired scene, then finish pressing the shutter button all the way down. This will ensure that your main subject is perfectly sharp without it having to be dead center in your shot.

Practice Makes Perfect

You can take a great picture even with a cheap camera, it’s up to you to compose the shot carefully, to take lighting into account, and to use the right settings. Digital cameras are great for experimenting by taking as many test shots as you want and using various camera settings, or compositions. Having the instant feed back from the preview screen allows you to learn as you shoot. So feel free to experiment and remember the settings you used for the pictures you liked.

So, forget about boring stock photos and start using your digital camera. You will be pleasantly surprised with the results and you will even start noticing that your family pictures turn out better.