David Jay 0 has been shooting fashion and beauty professionally for over 10 years. His rich, sensuous images have appeared in numerous international magazines and advertising campaigns including:

British Vogue, British Elle, Cosmopolitan, Self, GQ, Black and White, Sunday Times Magazine, Fashion Magazine, The Vision, Tiger Lily, Get Used

…you’ll love the strikingly beautiful portraiture by UK photographer Jay Mawson  …“Completely self taught, I’ve been shooting since early 2007. I love perfect aesthetics and am an absolute perfectionist. Or at least that’s the aim. I’m currently in that no mans land called ‘Semi Pro’ - I shoot for money but not nearly often enough to support my family. Yet. I shoot Nikon for no other reason than the first camera I bought was a D80. I now use a D700, Bowens lighting and (mostly) prime lenses.”

SEO doesn’t happen overnight. If you think the following information will get you a top ranking in less than 7 days, you can stop reading now. SEO and growing your search engine rankings doesn’t happen over night. However, there are methods you can use to dramatically cut down on the time it takes to get your site noticed.

Defining your target audience. When I first started this blog, my main interest was creating quality content on photo blogs and photography so I could grow an audience of repeat visitors. While I understood that linked to top rated blogs helps greatly for SEO tactics, I also knew from experience that there are many great blogs were lower rating created by people very passionate about photo blogs. By reaching out to this community, I hoped together, we could spread the word about this site. So this is the market I targeted…passionate photographers, regardless of rank, who loved talking about their work and sharing it with others.

Defining your target keywords. We all read a lot about keywords. Without going too far down this dry topic, defining your target keywords is one of the most important things you will need to do to expect any results! What are keywords? Simply put, these are the words your potential audience uses to search topics related to any subject matter. In my case, some of my selected keywords include photo blog reviews, photo blog review, awesome photography blogs, and photography blogs. Listed below are snapshots of just a few of the search engine results I currently experience:

There are many more examples I could provide, but you get the idea. Spending the time to focus on YOUR specific keywords can help tremendously in driving traffic to your site. Linking to other sites or stories is very useful, but search engine traffic is key.

You must ask yourself, what keywords or keyword phrases best define my niche? …and then write them down and start to research how competitive each of your entries are in the marketplace. I admit to being a spreadsheet junkie, but also had a hard time keeping up with all the data. I hated to throw up my hands and acknowledge I needed help…but this is exactly the point which changed my success.

Professional SEO help is very affordable. Over the course of the past few years, I had used several free programs, enjoyed a little success, but hated dealing with trial offers and a limited array of features. As a programmer and web developer, I wanted to think I could create something on my own to keep from spending any money on blogging. This stubbornness held me back for longer than I would like to admit. I finally broke down and realized that I was wasting valuable time on tasks others have already figured out.  Why reinvent the wheel? For less than the cost a SEO would charge for one hour of time, I was able to purchase a full feature SEO program  . Looking back (which I hate to do), I wish I had spent the $47 for this program, long before I purchased the stacks of book while looking for the silver bullet to SEO gains.

Conclusion. I love the product, and yet, have only been using it for 5 months on this site. The results speak for themselves. While my results have not reached the levels obtained by others using this program, I understand my niche and can easily state this is the best and only investment I’ve made for blogging SEO software. As stated previously, my rankings did not pop overnight….in my case, it took roughly 2 months to see real results. If you are trully interested in monetizing your site, focus on getting traffic first. The program is a great step in that direction!