Smart Tags
Smart tags are a way of you creating dynamic image collections to display a set of images that match a pre-determined tag. For example, if you are an events photographer specialising in motor racing and car clubs and owner rallies, you could tag all of your photos with the name of the rally, the car manufacturer and model, the year and place of the event and any other relevant or searchable keywords.
This enables you to provide a quick search for smart tags to prospective clients. So if a prospective client phones and asks to see a portfolio of glass ornaments the tag of your domain name/tag/glass-ornaments will show them an instant portfolio.
A couple of things you set up to make sure you will get the most from smart tags. Go to “My Images Search settings” (Already logged in? click here to access now) and scroll down to the “Public Search Settings”. Here you can control the layout, display order and tagging options. Experiment with the sort order and layout options but for now, select the “tag” option.
So what’s the difference between keywords and tags?
They are both awesome but serve different needs. Tags can be groups of words and phrases, and keywords are… well… words. Keywords you can just type and every word is essentially a stand-alone search term, but with tags, you can really refine the results that visitors see by including phrases or multi-word search terms.
Both keywords and tags are entered into the keyword text area within the edit file page, or they can be imported if entered into your favourite photo editor EXIF data.
As an example, let’s say you are a wedding photographer and a preferred photographer at a number of beautiful venues in your area. If you add the name of the venue followed by a comma, in your keywords you can make a smart tag link to display in your website, add to social media, use in emails when responding to inquiries, add to your autoresponder from your advanced contact page all showing the visitor a collection that exactly matches your selected tag.
You can create a smart tag by using your custom domain name followed by a slash followed by the word tag followed by another slash, followed by the smart tag for example:
Tips:
Tags should be a broader term rather than super-specific. Very few people are searching for “Wedding Photography at St Marys Church Taunton Somerset”, but using the tag “Weddings in Somerset” would be a far broader reaching search and gain more traffic. Be concise.
Be careful not to generate multiple versions of the same tag. “Weddings in Somerset” and “Somerset weddings” are essentially going to bring up duplicate results. Choose one option and stick to it. Be consistent.
Don’t go making smart tags for everything. The beauty of it is that you can generate portfolios very easily. Making smart tags for everything is not smart and will not generate the focused traffic that you are looking for that generates enquiries. Be specific.
