I'm not the first person on earth to do a vanity search. I've been getting more email lately for another photographer named Forrest Croce, who isn't me. The first one was a little strange, then I got used to it. Anyway, I did a search on my name hoping I'm not pushing this other guy out of the first page all together ... I've been forwarding the emails on and letting the person who sent them know I'm the wrong guy.

On the other hand, I'm the world's greatest living photographer, and the point of my site is to be recognized as such. I don't actually sell prints through my site ... there's a lot of overhead, and I don't carry ads. I just run the site to raise my profile, get more people familiar with my photos so I can jump from IT to travel to pay the bills.

I also write software from 9 to 5, and occasionally to help with my photography and running a web site. I've been releasing it as freeware for linkbait, but recently decided to move all the software to a separate site, keep the left brain / right brain stuff apart so I can also do IT consulting if need be.

So, this comes up when I search my name: http://www.wakoopa.nl/developers/forrest-croce It's the first I've heard of this site. The software I got added because of is still hosted on my photo site, but I'm working on moving the content and will use 301s to move people to the right page on the new software site. There don't seem to be any actual links to my site for their readers to get the software they're talking about, but on the other hand, Hollywood people say all publicity is good publicity.

Should I look at this as a good thing, people talking about me, join the site, and list the other software? Or should I look at them as competition ranking for my name? I'm leaning toward the first option, especially since anyone Googling my name is a special case and already showing a lot of interest, but a friend of mine said he would be upset on general principal, an also because it outranks my portrait site ... which is for profit. So I'm asking for a second opinion.

It's not bad, but it could be better. First why it's not bad.

Ultimately you don't really care where someone finds you as long as they find you. This page is another way to brand your name. It's also keeping one mention of another Forrest Croce from showing up in the first page of results.

Even though people look at social media as a way to get traffic and links one of it's great strengths is the ability to get your name out in more places than you otherwise could.

It could be better though for a couple of reasons. One this specific site never links to you so while you're name is there it's not really connecting your name to you. It could be any Forrest Croce. Also this particular page features your software and I think you'd prefer to be known for your photography. If you want people to know you for software too (which I think you do) then the second point isn't as big a deal.

You would still want your portrait site to show up above this. It doesn't now because the portrait site isn't very well optimized for your name. I see your name in the footer of each page, but that's it. Add your name to the contact page (you should be providing a physical address and email anyway - most people will use contact forms as a last resort), add a bio page that mentions your name. Add your name to the title of the page

Personal, Affordable Portrait Service | Forrest Croce
Forrest Croce's Portrait Photo Gallery
Contact Forrest Croce For Your Portrait

Also add your name and contact information somewhere towards the top. With the current layout I'd add it above the Latest News in the sidebar.

Do the above and two of the pages from the site will likely rank #3 and #4. Then your photo sites will be ranking #1-#4. You're two profiles will rank #5 and #6 and the page in the link will rank #7. You'll dominate page one results in Google for your name.

Yeah, I'd much rather be known far and wide for my photography than software, although my hope in distributing the stuff is that people will ultimately get from my software to my photos. I'm starting to build a button into the Windows apps to visit my photos site, for example. And I do work in IT in the meantime, which is part of why I'm in the process of moving another app over from the photo site to the new software one.

I guess I'm more just wondering about this unknown I just discovered. I hadn't really optimized my portrait site - which needs lots of work anyway - for my name, thinking I'd be better off targeting more generic phrases about what I do. I'm more likely to get customers through that site searching for "digital portrait" or something like that; if a person already knows me, I don't need to worry about them finding me in Google.

That said, you're probably right about providing a physical and email address on every page. I don't have a studio, actually I don't do posed, I meet people at their house, their favorite neighborhood park, or somewhere they feel comfortable, and shoot candidly. My home address would make sense, but I'm not sure it's wise to make that known in general? Not that the site gets more than 10 visitors on an average day, but when I finish splitting out the software from the photos with my new site, I plan to come back and fix that.

I think you can optimize for your name on the portrait site and still optimize for the other phrases as well. You wouldn't necessarily need to optimize every page of the site in order to have a page or two rank for your name.

If you create a bio page and optimize it for Forrest Croce that will probably rank well. You could do the same for the contact page and those are your two pages.

Even if you don't want to provide the physical address you could still provide the email and phone #, assuming calls are ok.

I look at it like this...any one-way traffic is potentially useful traffic.

If they're finding you and looking for him, and they're looking for photography, explain that you're not him but you're a photographer with a distinct style as well, and to visit a few of your favourite images and if interested, contact you for more information.

Why send business away? Keep it to yourself. You deserve it.