Flickr is a photo-sharing site owned by Yahoo. It has become very popular and offers some potential to generate traffic to your website and increase your search engine ranks. We look at Flickr and the traffic and seo possibilities in this article.
Let us start with words of caution, however. Flickr is a site for great photographs and a community for photographers. Upload only high quality pictures to the site. And do your promotion in an incidental manner rather through blatant sales pitches. Get respect from the Flickr community and let it carry to your business.
Flickr Basics
You join Flickr with your Yahoo account. You can do the following:
- Select a screen name that has not already been taken
- Create a profile that tells the Flickr community who you are
- Upload photos
- Add a description to the photos
- Tag the photos with relevant words
- Join Flickr groups that focus on particular interests
- Share your photos with the groups you join
- Participate in Flickr community discussions
We now look at how each of these can be used to promote your business and website.
Business Promotion using Flickr
The Terms of Service for using Flicks prohibits commercial use. However, so long as the commercial aspect is not blatant, you are not likely to be penalized. During your interactions, focus primarily on the photographs and only incidentally on the business promotion.
- The screen name can be your website URL and this URL will then be visible to all who come across your entries at Flickr. This makes your website known to the community.
- Create a profile that tells about your business as if you are introducing yourself to a stranger rather than trying to pitch a prospective customer
- Upload photos that has relevance to your business, such as your product or something else related to the business
- The description can include a live link. Include a link to your web page or blog post, and use keyword-rich text in that link
- Tag the photos with relevant keywords, as well your business URL
- Search out Flickr groups that are relevant to your business and join these. Share your photos with group members
- Comment on other photos and take part in the discussions without making it look like self-promotion. Become a friendly member of the community that other members like to deal with
Flickr Links
The links to your website at Flickr can add to your link popularity. However, it is better not to count on this. As spammers get into the picture, Flickr might decide to include a nofollow attribute to the links. (Whether that will stop the spammers or not is another matter.)
Flickr is indeed another option for your seo and business promotional efforts. Do it in a “respectable” manner by uploading relevant and high quality photos and becoming a friendly member of the Flickr community. Carry out your promotional efforts in ways that do not irritate other community members.
