If you are a photographer or an artist who using internet to promote your services than you must know about photography web optimization. Optimizing your website or blog is definitely different with become a web programmer so here you don’t need to know about binary code or HTML programming for sure.
Hi lovely people my name is Bima and thank you for stumble upon my blog, by the way I’m an online based wedding photographer here in Yogyakarta Indonesia but I’m focusing my services for destination wedding, pre wedding, and portrait for highly specific client who able to bring me fly thousand miles to such wonderful photo location. Generally I only owned one photography blog, the same page that you see right now and I bought the domain back in 2008.
Before I know at all about internet marketing I personally ask a programmer to design my website which is cost $400, including 1 year of domain, 1 year hosting and design fee. I was impressed about the design and my web’s feature BUT surprisingly this $400 website got 5 (five) weakness:
- Need 1,5 months to be online
- Can’t upload my photo portfolio easily
- Can’t put any banner or advertising content easily (I need to chat with my programmer if I had some promotional or offer)
- Always get a bug if uploading too many photos, and
- The worse thing is this website earn me NOTHING on photography services
Now let think about this!
FIRST, If you are just begin your business than what you need to do? You’re right, you must open your business as soon as possible cause you need to test the market and promoting your services as fast as you can, so getting online after 1,5 months will waste my time seriously.
SECOND, if you are a photographer than you can’t upload your portfolio easily than what is the benefit of this system, the only thing that you gonna sell is your artworks a.k.a your photos so you must be able to upload and share your photo easily.
THIRD, having a small business means you must be able to change your decision depend on the market as fast as you can, let say you got a best deal of your services than you must be able to communicate it with your future clients and the best way to do it is put some banner or advertising materials on your website. Can you imagine if you have an idea on your mind but you got to tell your programmer just to put a simple 300 x 250 pixel banner on your site? it doesn’t make sense at all cause all I want to get from this is being so fast!
FOURTH, I don’t know at all why it can be happen, it might be the system or any binary code on my site but whenever I upload my photos than there must be an error which I can afford to fixed with.
FIVE, this is the worse thing, since I got so modern website with great features, some flash mode or something like that but honestly my website can not getting index on Google, even though Google is the only way from several high end people to find a services or products. Surely they have some social media but if they gonna buy something than I sure that they gonna open the Google.
I’m Stuck With This Site and This is What I’m Gonna Do
I’m stuck with my site cause I sell nothing in a year but I still keep looking how to promote my services online, specifically I want to use website or simple blog that can earn me something. I remember that I joined a motivational seminar which attended with a Singaporean guy called Fabian Lim where he presented what he got on his business. This guy is impressed me so much cause he able to get a holiday for 3 months while his website working 24 hours a day and 365 days in a year to bring tons of dollar to his pocket.
It’s crazy and definitely it is, I just want to know how he did it so no matter how much his workshop cost than I will join it. When he almost finished his presentation on the stage I was so shock cause on that day I have to pay for $700 to join his 2 days workshop in Jakarta. Damn…I don’t have that much money so I make a phone call to my mom to borrow her money and what I’m so gratitude is my mom agree with me so I use the last $700 cash on my mom’s bank account and join this website.
2 Freakin’ Days $700 Internet Marketing Workshop is Coming
I’m coming to Jakarta with dirty economic class train, my body is getting sweat cause there is no AC on the train for 10 hours but I don’t care cause I spend my mom’s last money for this workshop that I never know before. My mentor said that “Just bring your laptop and credit card cause we gonna develop your own website within 30 minutes”
You know what? I’m stuck in this workshop too cause I don’t know AT ALL for all this presentation, all of them are seems to be difficult cause my mentor push me to know more about domain, hosting, wordpress or even filezilla or any other ridiculous platform. I’m so down cause I’m afraid I can’t be success after finishing this website but what make me get back up is when hearing what my mentor said…
It doesn’t matter if you just know 25% even 10% from the whole presentation but as long as you start to running your website and update it over and over again than your money will come!
Having HTML Website is truly hard for me so I’m choose to open my first godaddy and bluehost account than develop my first website and you know what it can be online within just 30 minutes. It’s way moreeeeeee better than my previous website which is need 1,5 months just to get online (and show off to all my friend).
But the most important thing about this workshop is, finally I know about photography web optimization cause this is the one that I want to learn more from Fabian
Everything Seems to be Easier When I Can Built My Own Blog with Less Than $90/year
It’s truly awesome, I just remember when spending $400 for my “zero earning” website till finally I can make my own blog with less than $90/year, it’s super cheap! If you want to do the same thing to me than you can sign up on bluehost cause you can buy domain compliment with hosting in a super cheap price package.
Starting your simple blog with bluehost and running it on a wordpress engine is as simple as typing on your personal blog but by using wordpress than you could expecting the most easiest platform to write a story and post your portfolio easily. Another best thing about using wordpress engine is they provide hundred to thousand of FREE blog theme that you can use at the first time you run your business, it means you don’t need to spend more money for wordpress theme.
I change my website system into blog that using wordpress since 2010 following my internet marketing course and nowadays I have an active blog that provide hundred of information both for photographer and for bride and groom, even more I can set up a special page to sell my digital products such as Photoshop tutorials on my shop page, it’s way better than my previous static website for sure!
By running this blog I just starting to get a client and invited by international photography exhibition to share my knowledge with 100% from internet in FREE. So what I did on my blog is creating a portfolio article that consist of keywords that already use by client to find something, this strategy called a Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If this gonna be your first time to hear about SEO than this is a strategy that we can do to optimize our keywords that commonly use by future client while browsing on Google. Once we find the right keyword by using keyword planner than we use that keyword to make a great content on our blog, if the future client read your content and get a nice information that they looking for than they will send you a message.
5 Photography Web Optimization Tips That Bring Me to Maldives Even I Never Been There Before
On this part I will share step by step that you can follow to use your blog as a money machine that will bring you thousand of dollar for every single couple that you serve. It ain’t easy but challenging and this how I promoting my photography services for over than a decade!
Please Remind!
Before you do these steps below make sure you own a photography blog but when you don’t have it one than buy and set up your blog on Bluehost for less than $90/year
1 – Research Your Keyword
When me and Nina is still being a partner we are going to the beach so often than till we got married on December 2009 than Nina still love beach so much. One day she told me that how about if someday you can take a pre wedding photo shoot in such beautiful island called Maldives, this statement is blown me away but make so confuse cause I NEVER BEEN TO MALDIVES BEFORE!
So this is what you can do on your site,
Go open your Google Keyword Planner, don’t worry it’s absolutely free for whole life as long as you got gmail account. Once you get in than set your location where you want to research and language that commonly use by your future clients. Here in my case I use “all location” and set the language in “english”. Research for worldwide market is harder than just research for local market like on your own country but become a destination wedding is my dream so this is what I did several years ago.
I try to browse “Maldives Wedding Photographer” as a keyword than I found that this keyword is use 10-100 times in a month so I think it small amount but there are someone who still use this keyword for searching something.
And this is the result,
Once your page is located on 1st page than everything will be change shortly cause I got this message from a lovely couple who stay in Hong Kong called Billy,
“Me and my fiancee would go to Maldives during sept 7 to 10, would like to ask if you have any package or special offer for pre wedding photo. we prefer 1-2 days and more stylish and creative if possible. let us know more detail. thanks a lot”
Life was changing cause this is gonna be my 1st pre wedding shots in Maldives even I never been there before but this is the result,
You can see Billy and Dickie’s Maldives pre wedding gallery to see more about their romantic photos
2 – Creating Great and Informative Content with These 8 Parameters
Your blog is gonna be like an information platform so you MUST write a good content, it doesn’t mean you must have a great grammar ability but as long as you can deliver the right information for your future clients than your potential couple will come shortly. There is no specific qualification to about how to write a great content but generally this is what I did:
- Getting more personal by saying “You” and “I” on your blog
- Write at least 300 to 500 words (Generally I wrote about 1000 to 2000 words blogpost cause I want deeper information)
- Insert some photos that related with your content
- Insert some links that connected to your other informative blog post
- Insert some links that belong to your references
- Do not copy and paste from your other blog, cause you must provide genuine article
- Share a problem on that post and give your future couple some solutions
- Insert your main keyword few times on your blog post
3 – Use Any Kind of SEO Plugin to Boost Your Work
There are a thousand of plugins that you can download and activated in so simple and free, using SEO plugin will help your article to get index on Google even it still need some days to come but generally it will boost your blog post for sure.
You may use “All in One SEO Pack” or “Yoast SEO”, these gonna be 2 SEO plugin that I highly recommend you to sue on your wordpress blog.
4 – Updating Your Blog Over and Over Again
One blogpost will not working on your business except you’re going to promote it with an ads but try to update your blog at least once a week, it seems to be simple but like get your weekly sport than once it comes than there will be so hard to do.
Here in my blog I post new article every single day to 3 times a week so it;s freaking hard work that you gonna and I will tell you the truth that not so many photographer able to do it consistently. I choose to do this cause organic blogging like what I did is helping more and more people who gonna be my clients some day. Lately my couple already know that I working together with my wife so once we get a deal in photo shoot that my couple already know that they must provide 2 tickets too both for me and my wife.
5 – Provide Them with Your Contact Page
Your business will not running if you’re not set up your contact page cause this is where you future client coming from. Make it as simple as you can but ask your couple to provide great information related to date, location, email, and phone number if necessary.
You can install any kind of contact form plugin on WordPress and it comes for FREE so don’t worry about it!
So What Do You Think?
Remember!
No matter what you do in your business than there is no shortcut to achieve your goals. I know that not so many photographers will share their photography web optimization tips but I know how hard is to get international wedding deals cause I’m stuck for over than 2 years to got my first overseas destination wedding. Even I share everything that I know but as long as you don’t do your work than you would not get even 1 sales at all.
So if you think that this article is helpful than you can share it to your partner or friends and if you want to ask something about it than simply write a comment below. Now is your turn to own a photography blog and start to promoting your services online.
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