Giveaway Offers Aspiring Photographers a Once-in-a-Lifetime Portfolio Building Opportunity The Believe in What You’re Building Photo Trip Giveaway Includes Tools and Mentorship to Help Photographers Advance Their Careers. BELLEVUE, WA – October 11, 2022 – To help photographers build their portfolios, Identity Digital™, a leader in connecting the online world with domain names and related technologies, creative agency CP Collectives, and leading photography magazine PetaPixel, have teamed up to present the ‘Believe in What You’re Building Photo Trip Giveaway.’ Through November 18, 2022, photographers can enter to win the grand prize of the portfolio-building trip of a lifetime while getting expert guidance. Photographers who already have a .photography domain name can gain ten bonus entries for more chances to win.  The grand prize is a five-day, four-night photo trip in the spring of 2023 to the winning photographer’s destination of choice: New York, London, Iceland, or Jamaica. The winner will also receive a one-year free subscription to Zenfolio’s ProSuite plan. Besides the grand prize, the winner’s photographs will be featured on CP Collectives’ Instagram page and select entrants and their portfolios will be profiled on @cpcollectives and in PetaPixel articles this upcoming December, January, and February. (Selection for these features doesn’t affect the odds of winning the grand prize.) “As more and more professional photographers choose a .photography domain, it’s becoming the differentiator among aspiring pros who want to clearly establish who they are and what they do,” says Trang Nguyen, Identity Digital’s VP, Vertical Growth. “Our goal is to provide photographers with the most authentic and relevant domain names to express their digital identities. We can empower them to make every word count and express who they are from the very first impression – before and after the dot.” Michael Zhang, publisher of PetaPixel, comments, “A digital presence is essential for aspiring photographers working to elevate their brands and showcase their art. A .photography domain is a great way to increase visibility online and reaffirm commitment to their craft. We’re excited to partner with Identity Digital and CP Collectives on this great opportunity for them to grow their skills, portfolio, and business.” “It’s great to partner with Identify Digital to give one lucky photographer this amazing opportunity to build an impressive portfolio and learn new skills that can help launch a professional career,” Ian Harper, director at CP Collectives, adds. Photographers can enter the ‘Believe in What You’re Building Giveaway’ by Nov. 18, 2022, with their existing portfolios at buildyour.photography. There is no purchase or payment necessary to enter or win. Entry is open to legal residents of 50 United States and Washington D.C. who are at least age 18 upon entry. To enter: (i) submit a completed entry using the online form provided at buildyour.photography and (ii) agree to these Official Rules. The winner will be announced on November 30, 2022. About PetaPixel Established in May of 2009, PetaPixel is a leading publication covering the wonderful world of photography. PetaPixel’s mission is to inform, educate, and inspire in all things photography-related. For more information, please visit PetaPixel. About CP Collectives CP Collectives is the community behind the creative agency CP Creatives. CP Creatives started in 2016 and produces work for hotels, brands, and destinations around the world. For more information, please visit cpcreatives.com. About Identity Digital Identity Digital Inc. simplifies and connects the online world with domain names and related technologies to empower people to build, market, and own their authentic digital identities. With the world’s largest portfolio of nearly 300 TLDs such as .live, .technology, and .restaurant, Identity Digital operates around 25 million domains on its innovative registry services platform. In addition, they enable customers to discover, register, support and use high-quality domain names with its registrar, Name.com. Headquartered in Bellevue, WA, Identity Digital is a global company with approximately 250 employees. For more information, please visit identity.digital.

Kickstart Domain Visibility with the Right Domain Name Kimberly Michener, Sr. Director, Brand and Marketing Communications, Identity Digital “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” You can ask a similar question about your website. “If you choose a beautiful theme and fill it with all types of content and no one ever finds it, does it impact your business or organization?” Several factors work together to determine the impact a website has. Identifying and tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) can help search engine optimization (SEO) specialists find the balance that leads to the right people finding the site and interacting with it. Looking at a single metric, like web traffic, can provide some insight, but it takes more to understand how effective the website is overall. Tracking SEO domain visibility can help. What Is SEO Domain Visibility? SEO domain visibility represents how effective your website content is at building organic traffic. Basically, the score acknowledges that for people to find a website organically, it has to rank for the keywords they type into a search field. Then, the content descriptions, snippets, or other previews that appear in the search results must be compelling enough to get people to click.  There are different methods for calculating a visibility score. Searchmetrics, for example, uses the search volume of the keywords a site ranks for, the ranking position the site achieves, how often the site’s URLs are in organic search results, and CTR (click through rate). Similarly, Moz factors in all rankings of a site’s keywords and applies an estimated CTR with weightings based on keyword rankings. The Impact of the Domain Itself While you won’t see a number representing domain name effectiveness factored into a domain visibility calculation, it does affect the result. Long URLs that look more like lines of source code than a brand name can discourage people from clicking. Furthermore, if a competitor is the next result on the list, its domain name reflects what its business does, and the URL for the search result is clear and concise, that’s probably the one the web user will click. Short, to-the-point domain names with the top-level domain (TLD) .com are hard to come by, as most have been registered by businesses or speculators. Fortunately, descriptive TLDs, such as .catering, .hospital, and .live (and hundreds more), can help create domain names that help you build an authentic digital identity by using both sides of the dot to express exactly what your business does. They’re easier for web users to read, understand, and remember, which can increase domain visibility, website traffic and engagement with your site. For instance, Amna Suleiman, digital marketing specialist at OneStream, wanted two clear, meaningful and effective words for the company’s domain. Research showed that ‘onestream’ and ‘live’ were high-volume search keywords for live streaming, so the company chose onestream.live, which gave them the desired SEO results. SEO Consultant, Fili Weis, adds, “seo.consulting is the best domain name available for our niche. Our website’s purpose is clear to potential visitors who see us in Google search results and across the web. More importantly, our name helps search engines understand the purpose of our website. Using a new top-level domain is a superb strategy to build our brand, increase relevant site traffic, and ultimately drive conversions.” In addition to choosing the right domain name, there are other steps you can take to improve visibility: ●      Strengthen content quality: Ensure your site features a variety of content types, such as videos, infographics, and downloadable assets, as well as text. All content should be optimized for search, but it should also be insightful, informative, and valuable to your audience. The nuts and bolts of SEO can put your content on a search results page, but its quality will get people to click. ●      New keywords: Look at keywords related to your core focus to see if your audience is searching for different terms, and make sure you rank for them as well. ●      Optimize content for the answer box: People often type questions instead of just keywords, so Google responded a few years ago with the “answer box” or featured snippets to respond to questions right on the search results page. Answers and snippets give you the advantage of putting your content at the top of the search engine results page. To be chosen for this feature, research the “People also ask” section to see if you can provide a better answer than what’s available or include a bullet list in your content that answers questions. If you consistently produce quality content, you may find Google chooses your content in some cases without any extra strategy on your part. ●      Run a site audit and address findings: Errors such as duplicate content, site loading time, and the status of your site map can impact search rankings. Correcting the technical side of SEO can contribute to better search rankings and, therefore, better visibility. Monitor SEO Domain Visibility It’s important to remember that if you achieve a good domain visibility score today, it may not be good tomorrow. Your competition may step up their game, or an algorithm change may create search engine ranking reordering. By monitoring this metric, you can stay informed of changes and adapt to maintain visibility in front of your audience. However, stay focused on the basics: a domain name that reflects your brand and your business, content optimized for search engines, and a focus on the keywords your audience uses in searches. It will keep you well-positioned to make your website visible online. Kim joined Identity Digital in 2021. She heads up brand and marketing communications and was instrumental in spearheading the successful Identity Digital rebrand and consumer campaign launch. Kim brings two decades of marketing experience from both agencies and enterprises in tech and various other industries. Before Identity Digital, she managed the advertising program at Epson America.