Photography Minute » Marketing for Photographers

Photography Links for May 9 2010

Eric D. Brown — Sun, 09 May 2010 14:53:56 +0000

Survival Strategies for Photographers: Using Facebook | Black Star Rising
In this post in my video series on survival strategies for photographers, I offer a few tips for using Facebook as a low-cost marketing tool for your photography business.
How to Clean Your Digital SLR Camera and Lens – PictureCorrect
Quote: It is very important to maintain your digital SLR camera which involves cleaning it along with its related components. This article will assist you and provide some information on how to carefully clean the most important items. The cleaning process may sound simple but you really have to be careful. A clean camera is a happy camera. You’ll take better photos with a clean camera so plan to clean it regularly.
Tapping Into Your Creativity « Photofocus
Creativity is a way of thinking and a way of life. It requires loads of passion, motivation and dedication. Looking at something in a way that reflects your thoughts, ideas, and views is the start. The ability to express what you see and what you think takes patience and constant practice. Above all it’s using your imagination without bounds and having fun while doing it.
So You Want to Get Published?-Going Pro 2010
Quote: There’s no singular secret to getting published. It’s a combination of networking, quality, timing and patience.
How Hard Are You Working On Your Next Photo Project? « Photofocus
Quote: It’s fun being a photographer. But it’s also hard if you do it well.

Book Review: Inbound Marketing – How to get Found

Eric D. Brown — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:00:14 +0000

Rather than giving you more tips and hints for SEO and marketing your photography services on the web, I thought I’d take some time to point you toward a book that will answer all your questions and give you all the background you need to start properly marketing yourself.

The book? Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs (The New Rules of Social Media) by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah.

Halligan and Shah are the founders of Hubspot…an extremely successful company helping organizations and people marketing themselves on the web.

If you are wanting/needing to be found on the web, this book will help you understand how to ‘be found’. This book doesn’t provide any specific recipes (do x and y will happen) but it provides the basics for understanding why things will work.

Do the things listed in this book and, over time, you will be found.

This book is an excellent book….go buy it today.

SEO Tips for Photographers: On-page optimization

Eric D. Brown — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:17:08 +0000

In this installment of my Marketing for Photographers series, I’m going to follow up the last article, titled “Search Engine Optimization Tips for Photographers“, and talk (or more appropriately, write) a little bit about different methods of SEO.

When you read through SEO websites and “how-to’s”, you might see terms like “on-page SEO” and “off-page SEO”. Both of these SEO methods are extremely important for anyone wishing to be found on the web.

In this post, I’ll talk a bit about ‘On-page’ optimization…look for a future post about ‘Off-page’ optimization.

On-page Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

On-page SEO refers to the many different things you can do on your web page(s) to improve find-ability and search-ability. When looking at on-page SEO, you’ll be thinking about things like page titles, URL’s, keywords and the structure of your web-pages.

According to many SEO experts, the most powerful item on your web page is the page title. The page title receives the most ‘value’ from Google when the search engine indexes your web page, therefore you need to spend a considerable amount of time thinking about your page title.

So…with the page title being one of the most important pieces of your web page, you’ve got to be sure to include your keywords in the title. For more info on choosing keywords, jump back to my Search Engine Optimization Tips for Photographers article for more info.

You know your keywords. You know your audience too. Creating a valuable page title should be pretty easy right? Actually…it is!

Let’s look at an example:

Supposed you’re a wedding photographer in Dallas. Based on research you’ve performed, you know that you want to target the following keywords:

Dallas Wedding Photographer

Dallas Bridal Photographer

Dallas Engagement Photographer

With these targeted keywords in mind, when you’re building web pages and/or writing a post for your blog, you want to ensure you include these keywords on your web page and specifically within your page title if possible.

While creating each page, spend time crafting the title so that your keywords are included as early as possible in your title.

Let’s look at an example:

You want to create a web page about your wedding photography services. Which title would you use?

Wedding Photography Services

Dallas Wedding Photographer – Services

Services – Dallas Wedding Photographer

Based on the previous information, I hope you’d choose #2 – Dallas Wedding Photographer – Services. By selecting this title for your page, you’ve put your keywords at the beginning of the page title and given Google (and other search engines) an excellent idea of what your page is about.

Ok…you’ve got your page title…now what? Try to weave in your other keywords and keyword terms into your page. The more you use your keywords (in context), the more the search engines will understand what your web page is about. Note that i added “in context” to this. You’ve got to write your pages to be readable and easily understood by your visitors. If you try to just cram keywords into your web page, you’ll likely end up hurting yourself more than helping.

Back to our example:

You’ve got your title of Dallas Wedding Photographer – Services. Now, let’s create a few paragraphs of text (I’ve used my wife’s information as an example).

Page: Title: Dallas Wedding Photographer – Services

Subtitle: On-location wedding, bridal and engagement services

Body:

Tracie Brown, the owner of a moment to keep photography, is an on-location wedding, bridal and engagement photographer covering the Dallas and Fort Worth metroplex. Tracie captures your precious moments and creates ever-lasting memories.

Each client and session are different and special – Give us a call today to talk more about how we can help make your wedding memorable – Contact a moment to keep photography today for more information about our Wedding Photography services in the Dallas /Fort Worth Metroplex.

Notice that I didn’t overload the page with my keywords and I made the copy readable.

You’ll also notice that I use links within the text of the page. You’ll want to do the same on your web pages. Make sure to link to other pages on your website to increase the number of links as well as improve relevancy of those pages using the proper anchor text.

Now you’ve got your page built and your keywords on your page….now what? Wait for the traffic to roll in…right? Wrong.

While on-page SEO is extremely important, you’ve still got to get links back to your web page/site. Google uses pointers/links to your site to help determine relevancy and those links are what will drive traffic to your web page. Those links are also what you’ll want to spend a considerable amount of your time building.

How do you get those quality links back to your site? Check back next week for my article on ‘Off-page’ Search Engine Optimization article in my Marketing for Photographers series.

There’s much more to SEO than I have time (or space) to cover here….if you have questions about ‘On-page’ SEO, feel free to contact me with questions.

Inbound Marketing for Photographers

Eric D. Brown — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 02:10:09 +0000

You take great photographs but nobody ever sees them.

You’ve got tons of high-quality images ready for sale…but nobody ever buys them.

You could shoot a wedding 100 times better than your competition…but you get few calls from prospective clients.

Why is that?

Well….assuming that you’re actually pretty good (and not deluding yourself), the only explanation is that you aren’t marketing yourself well. People just aren’t finding you when they’re looking for a photographer.

If you’re a photographer today trying to sell your prints and/or your services, you have to be found online. How you go about getting found will determine your success or failure in your business.

How can you be found online? You need an inbound marketing strategy for your business.

What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing is best defined as marketing done in such a way that your potential customers come to you. Inbound marketing is permission based marketing…it isn’t interruption marketing.

Jump over to HubSpot (THE authority on inbound marketing) to read more on the topic of inbound marketing and keep your eye on this blog as I’ll be writing more about inbound marketing strategies and tactics for photographers.

Inbound marketing can provide a tremendous boost to your business.

When was the last time you acted on some offer sent to you via a postcard, cold call or spam email? Probably been a while. While postcards are still a good way for some photographers to reach their target market, they aren’t ideal…the cost / benefit ratio is extremely low. The last research I saw showed less than 1% response rate to postcard mailings…not good.

Now…imagine if you take the money you’d have spent on those postcards and put it to use on the web building your inbound marketing platform. The money you spend on postcards (or other outbound marketing technique) is a recurring expense…you’ve got to keep spending to get new business. Inbound marketing spending is an ongoing expense but you really don’t need to invest heavily multiple times – in fact your largest investment might be your time when using an inbound marketing strategy.

Why is Inbound Marketing important?

Why is any marketing important…it means your future as a photographer.

Being a great photographer means something too…but if nobody knows about you, you’ll starve.

Sure, networking and outbound marketing will still work. In fact, working your network is an absolute necessity still…networking your way into a new project or shoot still works well. Referrals are key in the world of photography.

But…if you are just getting started in the business and/or your marketing hasn’t been working for you, take a look at building an inbound marketing strategy for your business.

This article is the first in a series of articles focused on inbound marketing for photographers. In future articles, I’ll be providing hints and tips on topics such as:

Search Engine Optimization – why it’s important & why it’s really not that difficult (actually…it can be but I’ll show you some basics that make it easier)
Techniques for setting up a website & blog for optimal SEO & Marketing
Techniques for using free and inexpensive tools for setting up your own gallery/portfolio
Hints and Tips for using Social Media for spreading the word about yourself and your services
Why you want to use Flickr and other online photo tools
How you can market yourself while not marketing yourself
+ more!

Look for more of articles on inbound marketing for photographers in the near future.