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.
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.
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.
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 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).
ADVERTISEMENT
When a potential customer asks you the price of a picture, go for it.
What do you have to do yourself?
What can you do, despite it being very time-consuming?
What are the best things to pay for?
What I can help you with?
Things like search engine submission, etc. will be possible in the future, so please have some patience because I am working on it.
Read more about SEO
Read also