One of the biggest struggles I had when first starting my business was how to price my photography. And while there's no easy answer, there is a recipe for success that I've followed for the past few years. 1) Your Time + Your Costs There's more that goes into pricing your photography than just your time shooting. You have to remember preparation and setup, post-processing and client communication. Most clients don't like to see these items lined out on an invoice, but be sure to pack it into your overall hourly cost. In fact, the only item I … [Read more...] about Photography Marketing: The Value of a Professional Photographer
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Photography Marketing: The One Change I Made to Increase My Website Leads
When it comes to developing websites, there's one term that gets met with a lot of confusion — Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. Recently I decided to redesign my website, and instead of just uploading pretty pictures, I made sure that everything was optimized for search engines. The hope was that I would be better found as a corporate event photographer in my area. An Image-Driven Website Before my website redesign, I focused on my images and highlighting them as best as possible. For me, this meant having a five-image slideshow that would … [Read more...] about Photography Marketing: The One Change I Made to Increase My Website Leads
How Do You Add Text To A Photo In Lightroom?
A friend asked me this question the other day. His website host doesn't allow him to show a picture's filename on the website which makes it hard to communicate with his clients about which photos they like best. He just wanted to be able to post the pictures with the filename showing, and he wanted to do this with several pictures all at once. Lightroom is not a terrific tool for adding text to photos, but there is a way this can be accomplished and it may be the fastest way to get it done even if you have another tool that could do it. Use … [Read more...] about How Do You Add Text To A Photo In Lightroom?
Photography Marketing: Strategizing Your Business in the Fourth Quarter
This week, the rain and 50-degree temperatures hit West Michigan. While it was a nice change from the 80 and 90-degree temps we had in late September, it was a sign that a new stage of the year is under way. The fourth quarter. In years past, I've taken time in this three-month period to focus on some business and marketing strategy. Once November hits, I'm usually not as busy with photo shoots for corporate clients, so it's a time for me to reflect on the past year to see where and how I can improve. Make Communication with Your … [Read more...] about Photography Marketing: Strategizing Your Business in the Fourth Quarter
Photography Marketing: Less Is More With Website Content
With my website design background, I've occasionally helped other photographers with website critiques. It's important to cater your website to your client base, and write effective content that will complement your photos. And more often than not, I see a lot of text. There's nothing wrong with the text — it might be well-written, truthful and effective. But the fact of the matter is, by telling your prospective client everything on your website, you lessen the chance of that lead turning into a customer. Split Up Your Content Say you're … [Read more...] about Photography Marketing: Less Is More With Website Content
Photography Marketing: The Recipe for a Successful Photography Blog
Blogging can be an important part of any photographer's business. It's a marketing tool that, if updated regularly with relevant content, can make you more professional in your craft. But it's not for everyone, nor is it required to be a successful photographer. If you do choose to have a blog though, there's a few key points to make sure you follow. 1. Post Regularly Not only should you blog on a regular basis, you should be doing so on a regular schedule. Once you grow an audience, you don't want to wait a month to post something new, … [Read more...] about Photography Marketing: The Recipe for a Successful Photography Blog
Photography Marketing: Take Your Website to the People
I've talked about ways to design and develop a great online photography portfolio. Regardless of the platform you choose, one thing reigns true — your website should be catered to your clientele, not you. While you might have grand ideas and think having a large photo appear as the first thing people see is cool, your client might think otherwise. There's one easy way around this — and that is to ask for a website critique. Benefits of a Critique One of the biggest things you can learn from a critique is whether there's something that's … [Read more...] about Photography Marketing: Take Your Website to the People
Lightroom Live: Adobe Portfolio, Part Deux with Al Rossin
You gotta join us live for our next Lightroom Live, totally free of charge. Not only will you learn terrific techniques, but if you tune in live, you can be entered to win excellent prizes to help you in your work. (Note: MUST BE TUNED IN LIVE TO WIN). We'll be giving away a copy of Perfectly Clear from Athentech. Plus you never know what else. We kick off Monday, June 12th at 1:00 pm Eastern, 12:00 pm Central, 11:00 am Mountain, and 10:00 am Pacific. 2 pm in the Virgin Islands. Check out the YouTube event here and it'll show your … [Read more...] about Lightroom Live: Adobe Portfolio, Part Deux with Al Rossin
Lightroom Live: Adobe Portfolio, Part Deux with Al Rossin
You gotta join us live for our next Lightroom Live, totally free of charge. Not only will you learn terrific techniques, but if you tune in live, you can be entered to win excellent prizes to help you in your work. (Note: MUST BE TUNED IN LIVE TO WIN). We'll be giving away a copy of Perfectly Clear from Athentech. Plus you never know what else. We kick off Monday, June 12th at 1:00 pm Eastern, 12:00 pm Central, 11:00 am Mountain, and 10:00 am Pacific. 2 pm in the Virgin Islands. Check out the YouTube event here and it'll show your … [Read more...] about Lightroom Live: Adobe Portfolio, Part Deux with Al Rossin
Photography Marketing: Refresh Your Website
Having an attractive, up-to-date photography portfolio website is one of the most important things we can do for our marketing. I've already written about why you need to have an online portfolio — but you aren't done when you hit "publish" and put your work out there for the world to see. The Importance of Adding New Photos It's important to keep the photos in your portfolio fresh; your local grocery store keeps its produce fresh by rotating in a new product, and you should too. New photographs keep potential clients interested, and … [Read more...] about Photography Marketing: Refresh Your Website
Using a Custom Domain with Adobe Portfolio
Having a custom domain elevates your website to that next step in terms of professionalism. They're easier to remember, and it can help make you look legit to potential clients. With Adobe Portfolio, using a custom domain has never been easier. Purchase Your Domain Most dot-com domains range from $9.99 to $12.99 per year, depending where you buy from. The go-to place for domains is GoDaddy. While GoDaddy offers a plethora of other services like email hosting, website hosting, etc., they've always been known for their simple domain purchasing … [Read more...] about Using a Custom Domain with Adobe Portfolio
Why Every Photographer Should Have an Online Portfolio
I've long been a believer in the need to showcase your work. Showing your work will make you better as a photographer, whether you’re a professional or not. But what makes this different from sharing on social media? When I started to get into photography as a hobbyist, I posted everything I could on Flickr. I didn't have a website, a business Facebook page or any other means to showcase my work. But I soon learned that, while Flickr was great for showing off your work to the photography community, it wasn't great at showing your images past … [Read more...] about Why Every Photographer Should Have an Online Portfolio
Five Steps to a Successful Portfolio Website
Recently, I was asked to give a wedding photography referral. While I certainly found some great photographers, what amazed me was the lack of professionalism in terms of developing a website that showcased the photographer’s work in a way that clients could easily follow. Don’t get me wrong — some web portfolios were spot on. But about 75% of what I saw had major problems. Some were too slow to load. Some had a landing page where it wasn’t clear that you needed to click to see the full website. Some I couldn’t even find a wedding … [Read more...] about Five Steps to a Successful Portfolio Website
Adobe Portfolio: Initial Impressions
Adobe Portfolio, free with a Creative Cloud subscription, is a real gem. Even if you’re perfectly happy with your website, I recommend taking a look at it. For me, it’s a been a perfect tool to publish a broader selection of work while maintaining the narrow focus of my primary website—headshots. I’m of the opinion that you must be known for a specialization within photography. The website on your business card or in your Facebook Ads must make it very clear what you do. But marketing your speciality doesn’t mean you can’t publish other work … [Read more...] about Adobe Portfolio: Initial Impressions
Website Critiques
Want to know a really simple way to improve your website? Ask a stranger for a critique! I was at an event where we were asked to write our web & email addresses down on a piece of paper and then we shuffled them around the room. Whoever you got, you had to answer two questions: Where is this site the strongest? Where is this site the weakest? The big key to this is the stranger. Often times, we self edit what we’re going to say to our friends.. Also, our friends know us, know our businesses, and can therefore mentally fill in the … [Read more...] about Website Critiques
Basic SEO Guide for Photographers
If you have a website to highlight your work, certainly you've heard the dreaded term SEO before. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it's essentially the tactics to get your website noticed by Google and other search engines. The Essentials of SEO Now before we get started, I want to mention again that this is just a basic guide for SEO. There are thousands of techniques within SEO, and it would be impossible to go over everything in a single short guide. If you read this article and decide you want to know more about SEO, I highly … [Read more...] about Basic SEO Guide for Photographers
Building Photo Websites That Attract Photo Buyers & Editors
If your photo website isn't performing, it might be possible that you need to make some changes. The problems begin with the fact that most photographers are using the same templates, hosts and same ideas to populate their web sites. It's time to consider making changes to your website if you actually hope to make it work for you. Let's start with Flash. While this won't make me any friends at Adobe, Flash websites for photographers aren't always the best idea. According to Photoshelter's Feb, 2009 research on what photo buyers are looking … [Read more...] about Building Photo Websites That Attract Photo Buyers & Editors
