Keep it simple and stupid! (KISS).
To best promote your photography,
you need to work both offline and online.
Some things you just have to do yourself; some you can do yourself. However, it takes a lot of time, and there are things that should be best left to professionals.
This website aims to do those things for you that you cannot do without huge time or investment, plus with the same quality as the big companies with huge budgets do.
There are many websites in which you can buy SEO services for a ridiculously low price; they promise a lot and too many are too good to be true. Do not waste your money with them, as they are all automated spam robots, which will damage your business. They make you believe that they can deceive Google and Bing.
Remember: Google and the other search engines are much smarter.
Read the articles that I have inherited from Hubspot and SEOmoz, two very good SEO companies that work great, but are far too expensive for the individual photographer like you and me.
What is the basis of a good marketing plan?
- Keep it simple and stupid! (KISS).
It is better to do less; you really need to do this than plan what you cannot do, because there is no time or expertise. Always keep in mind that your business is photography, not computer science.
Keep everything as simple as possible for your customers. You know how to navigate and buy something on your own site. However, a visitor doesn't know that. I'm visiting a lot of photography sites; the most hidden item on 95% of the websites, I think, is the “contact” button. Are you affraid that a customer wants to contact you? I see a lot of websites with great layouts; however, the most essential thing to do in business is hidden somewhere in the footer - very small and surrounded by a lot of meaningless text.
- Think as a customer!
A potential client (the one who pays for your images) doesn't know you. Do not think he will love your picture just for fun. He wants to have a benefit when he buys something; show your benefits. Show why your images are better for his business. Take a distance from your own picture, and think why you would buy your own picture and how much you would pay for it yourself.
When these two questions are answered, you are ready to sell.
Dare to sell!
When somebody contacts you with a question concerning buying a picture, react!
This seems obvious; however, I see that a lot of our collegues are asking questions about this on the Photoshelter forums - questions like what price..., licenses, can I trust this guy... and so on. Sometimes they are legitimate questions; however, most are just an excuse.
Here is an anecdote that happened to me: I was designing a book for a well-known professor here in Belgium. He asked me to also put a picture of his house in Venice in the book. He doesn’t have a good picture of it, but he saw a picture in a book where his house was also on it. So, I looked up the photographer and made contact (he has a website to sell pictures). He is from Greece (so he didn't know the professor) and asked me when and why I wanted to buy a license to use the picture (my budget to obtain the license was 400 Euros, the price Photoquote recommends).
I answered all his questions and proposed for him to set his price...never heard from him again. The strange thing is that when I visit photographer websites, I see a lot of these kinds of guys.
When a potential customer asks you the price of a picture, go for it.
Things to do:
What do you have to do yourself?
- Show your work to the real world (exhibitions, fairs, competitions).
- Make an email list of your contacts to inform when you have new things (friends, clients, social contacts).
- Create a social page, such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc.
- Maintain your Photo Shelter website; PS explains everything so just do it. They know what they are talking about.
What can you do, despite it being very time-consuming?
- Register your site on directories.
- Set up a blog connected to your Photo Shelter website and create content about your work.
- Write articles about your work and publish them on other blogs that deal with your niche market.
What are the best things to pay for?
- Press articles to publish.
- Search engine submission.
What I can help you with?
- The things that take a lot of time, but have no real input or only a small amount from you, are needed.
- I cannot write your articles, but I can create Q&A lists (search engines like this very much) so that writing a text is a piece of cake.
- You can use this site to let the world know about you and your work, projects and ideas.
- I will publish them here, and they will automatically be sent to various social sites aswell.
- If you wish, you can also subscribe to a service that places your articles on other related business blogs so that you can put highly related links to your website. This can now be done through a network of blogs that I can reach because I have deals with two major SEO companies. Normally, it is not affordable for an individual photographer. However, you pay only a fraction of the price because we do it with a group. This very affordable service creates a lot of new backlinks, thus bringing new visitors to your site.
Things like search engine submission, etc. will be possible in the future, so please have some patience because I am working on it.
Remember:
if you do not promote yourself every day, your competitor will do it, and in the end he will win.
Read more about SEO
- SEO Explained
- How Search Engines Work
- What it takes to rank
- Long-Tail Concept and Theory
- Keywords
- Content is King
- How to approach your SEO strategy (1)
- How to approach your SEO strategy (2)
- Measuring overal traffic
- What To Do (SEO)
- Glossary
Read also