Plan B…and in some cases a Plan C, D, and maybe even an E if you’re creative enough.

Find something that you are good at,  and sell it to them.

In order to build credibility for whatever it is you are selling, you must give away some of it for free.  A sampling, or a teaser for example.  Of course you also have to make sure that what you are wanting to sell them isn’t already available in a much easier to obtain manner, i.e. free.  Furthermore has to be worth it and most importantly, the price has to be right. In order to maximize profitability, minimize the overhead. So who is “them?” That’s for you to figure out.

The secret is digital distribution.

Photoshop Actions, tutorials, DVD’s, and web design are just a few examples of great ways of providing additional income over the internet in digital form.  The more time that’s involved in creating it, and the more unique your product (s) are, the more you can charge for it.  Knowledge is power, but knowledge is also a tool you can use to provide additional income (think education).

Do YOU have something THEY want?  Sell it to them.

In this post our fictitious character Billy will explain how got moved up in the rankings.  His story will not put you on page 1.  His story may not even put you on page 2, 3, or even page 4 for that matter.  What hist story WILL do is educate you on the topic of SEO, and will teach you some things that you can do to your site to make it optimized for search engines.  No matter how much you do to your site to make it optimized for search engines, if you are not linked to enough high ranking websites then you will not do well. There will of course be exceptions that will contradict what Billy is going to share with you, but for the most part this post deals with the majority. Ready to get learned? Here we go!

Billy Buff is an awesome photographer located in Houston, TX. Billy started his photography business about two years ago, and since that time has done fairly well considering the current economic situation. He’s posted ad’s on Craigslist, networked with other photographers, gotten referrals from past clients, and picked the brains of the top photographers in Houston. However he still feels that he is not getting enough business or inquiries, so Billy decides to search for his business online through Google to see if that’s the reason. He Googles search terms like “wedding photographers in houston,” “photographers in houston,” and “houston wedding photographers.” He finds that his site is no where to be found! WTH?  Well, technically his site is on page 12 but folks rarely look that far.  He knows he has to do something fast so he starts google searching “seo tips” and reads up on on the blog posts coming straight from the horses mouth; Google Webmasters Blog. He figures if something changes with Google then he’ll know about it first!  He goes onto read all kinds of stuff and compiles everything he finds into a list of “to do’s.” Billy says it’s time to take evasive action in order to move his site up in the rankings.  There are a lot of things that Billy can add to this list but we’re going to keep things simple and focus on what Billy CAN do.  Bill’s list looks like this:

• Pick 3-5 keyphrases
• Change my site title
• Change my site description
• Decide on www.billybuff.com OR billybuff.com
• Renew my domain name
  

Pick 3-5 key phrases – I’ll make it simple for you if you are a wedding photographer and tell you the most searched terms. These things aren’t going to change any time soon unless a city is renamed. These three do the best, and of course replace your city with…your city.  “wedding photographers in your city“  “photographers in your city” and  “your city wedding photographers”

Site title – This is one of the most important factors. If you want to be high in the rankings you’ll have to fore-go cosmetic looks on this one. The site title that does best is “wedding photographers in your city – your name photographers”  That site title remains under Googles golden rule limit of 70 characters including spaces, and it stuffs all variations of your business’ name in the title. It’s important to leave the “s” at the end of photographers even though it’s just you.  When people search they search in plural terms.

Site description – Keep it simple!  I’ve found that Google doesn’t like long drawn out descriptions. I have found “your name is a wedding photographer located in your city, state” works the best. It stuffs your keyphrases into the description and tells the search engines and your visitors what your site is and who you are.

WWW or NO WWW – That’s a personal choice you’ll need to make right off the bat. No WWW is shorter, fits better on business cards, and looks better while WWW seems 1990′s. Either way pick one and create a 301 redirect to the other.  If you can visit your site through www.site.com AND site.com that’s bad. Google sees them as 2 different sites,thus viewing them as duplicate content, thus penalizing you just a bit.  If you have access to your hosting account you should have access to your .htaccess file which sits in root. From here you will create a 301 redirect (permanent redirect) from one to the other. You can also make this move in your Google Webmasters account without having to do the above.

Renew you domain – Believe it or not the length of time until your domain expires does play a role in the rankings of your site.  If its set to expire in less than a year then renew it for 5 years.

Billy of course goes through the entire list and completes every task and waits. A few weeks later he already notices an increase and is happy with his results but continues to improve on it. He decides that he’ll concentrate on link building and let Google do the rest for the time being and can finally rest now that his site is optimized for search engines.

From our short story we can gather a few things; Billy’s site went up in the rankings for his chosen key words, Billy is getting more traffic to his site, and Billy is buff. However Billy is still sad because although he’s getting more traffic to his site, his inquiries are still down. Now Billy worries that his website itself may be the problem. He’s using a template that was good for when he started hist business but now he has outgrown it and needs an upgrade.

Billy will tell you what he’s going to do about it on the next post.

We’re totally in a digital era now, and signing the wedding and portrait contracts should be digital too.  It reduces stress on the photographer by getting an instant signature, it reduces paper work, it reduces cost, and it reduces the amount of time it will take for the couple or parents to sign that contract!

I’ve been trying out Signatureconfirm and so far I am very impressed by it!  You can VERY easy create and send digital contracts to any email address, and have them signed online!  Here’s how it works; copy and paste the text from your contract into the text box in your new agreement.  You only have to do this once, as you can re-use the same contract over and over again.  Plug in the name, and email of the client, and click send!  You can preview it before you send it, and wholla!  The client will recieve an email with a special link, username, and password.  They can login, review the contract, and sign by typing their name.  You immediately recieve an email saying that the agreement has been signed, and it gives a timestamp and ip address to prove it was that person.

The best part of all…it’s completely free….so you really have no excuse not to start getting those contracts signed digitally with SignatureConfirm!

The reports that StudioCloud produces are quick, simple, and are exported as a pdf and printed if you choose.  It’s SO nice knowing how much we owe Uncle Sam wihtin a few clicks, or figuring out what time of year our studio is the busiest, or even how many enagegements, weddings, or lifestyle sessions you’ve booked so far.

Bottom line…..highly recommended. 

Don’t forget to recieve $5 off your first month use this promo code:

haskins101

There are literally 100′s of places who offer website templates nowadays and the problem we’re running into now is, there is no way to stand out and be unique.  Website templates are in no way wrong.  They are a low cost, ultra effective way of establishing a presence quickly. Put quite simply, they are fantastic for photographers who are just starting out.  Amongst the most inexpensive, and most impressive is Portfoliositez. They burst onto the website template scene in 2006 and since that time have rapidly become a favorite amongst photographers in the wedding and portrait industry.

However, there will come a time when your ready to have something completely custom, and personalized to fit you. With templates though, everyone who buys the template can only change the same things. All begin to look “the same,” but the colors are different. Templates won’t allow you to add your own graphics, or add your own personalized mini client sites, or completely change the way the photos are displayed.

Until now.

Enter David Jay and Showit Sites.

Showit Sites is a rich website building application, which allows users to build and deploy a Flash based website with zero knowledge of coding or html. You may remember the short review that was given a couple months ago when the app was still in beta.  Well, since coming out of beta the app has grown by leaps and bounds and continues to impress with every update that is put out.

Being a Style Group Designer, I’ve spent 100′s of hours working with the application.  All I can say is that I am glad that I have a tool that is now capped only by my imagination.  For years we have been limited by the software to produce vision, and now the software is no longer the bottleneck!

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Coming Up Next:  Your Last Stop for a Custom Blog – Flosites

There needs to be a professional organization created that you have to apply for and get accepted.  Something broader and much simpler than PPA, WPJA, or WPPI.  Something that would be considered, the “baseline.”  The organization would have “safe photographers” that are “cheap” but are still producing “safe” work.  This protects the industry from being under-valued and under-paid, while protecting brides from getting ripped off.

Hmmm….I smell another project brewin.

However, after reading a few nice words from fellow colleagues about the book, I decided to give it a go. Once I started reading I didn’t stop, and read the entire book in one sitting.

All I can say, is that I can breathe again.  The book will not tell you how to operate your flash in manual, nor will it tell you how to market to “high-end brides.”  What it will do is cause you to open your eyes a bit, and instill a bit of self-discovery. Combined with the pDNA self-assessment test, it will give you a clear and concise definition of who YOU are as a person.  After all, the most unique thing about your business is YOU.

If you have lost your way for what ever reason, I implore you to pick up the book and read it.  If you are just starting out in the photography business, this book is just as important as getting a D.B.A.  I really wish he would have written this book when I started 1.5 years ago.  I would have fine tuned the tasks that I excel at, and would have outsourced everything else.

Fast Track Photographer has caused me to re-define every aspect of my business, and certainly has caused me to re-define my target market.

How has it worked so far?

I’ll let you know.

Check it out here.