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Thinking of Updating Your Website? Ask These 3 Questions First

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What’s on your to-do list this year for your business? Have you decided to update your current website and give it a fresh new look?

Before you take any action, keep these three things in mind.

1. Who visits your website?

How did you design your current website? Chances are you found a designer ( or did it yourself), used a template or theme that was suggested to you, added your colors and style, and put information in much like everyone else does. In other words, your site probably looks like everyone else’s with little thought as to why it ended up that way.

Its an easy trap to fall into. And while it may seem logical to fill a website with information about you and conform with the industry standard, that may not be the best thing for your business.

Businesses have different goals and different clientele. They have different demographics and different ways of connecting with visitors. And without taking that into consideration when you design, you’re leaving out a lot of opportunity. [Read more...]

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Are You Building Trust Through Your Website?

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I love marketing. I love seeing how other people put together campaigns. And because of it I follow a lot of people online to see what they will do next.

About a year ago I was introduced (through an online newsletter) to a woman who has a huge following online. So I started following her. And I really like her style. I love how she has set up her website, how she communicates with her fan base, and how she makes her offers.

But there is something else. I don’t like her as a person. At all. We don’t have the same beliefs or the same ethics. Some of the things she talks about actually gets me riled up in the mornings.

And yet she is busier today than when I first started following her a year ago. Why? Because she is true to herself and isn’t afraid to communicate heart and soul to her followers.

When you head over and read her site and blog posts, she is an authentic person, meaning she tells you exactly what she believes. She mixes personal ideals with her business strategies all the time. You not only get to know her business, but you also really get to know her as well. And I know if you have the same beliefs as her, you end up feeling connected almost immediately.

“That’s me.”

“She’s speaking directly to me.”

“She so gets what I’m feeling.”

Yep, she’s heard all of that and more. (She posts testimonials so I know what people are saying.)

Both online and off, being true to yourself means you’ll resonate with others as well. Think about your hot buttons and the things you love and support. If I say “National Rifle Association” or “Greenpeace” I’m sure your mind automatically begins churning things over. You may be passionate one way or the other on these topics. And if we get into politics, I’m sure the opinions would really fly.

Yet when you’re with a group of people that you “gel” with, you let your guard down. You know you can speak freely because they have the same opinions as you. And even if they vary in small degrees, there is still enough common ground that you can remain great friends.

And no matter what beliefs you have, wouldn’t you rather work with “friends” than with people you really don’t agree with?

So why not show your true colors? Yes, you have to draw your line in the sand and only talk about online what you truly want other people to know about. But if you create content, develop your marketing and your services around what you do and love, others will pick up on it. If you show your true personality in all that you do, your prospects and clients will love you all the more.

They want to work with a friend, not a business owner.

They want to feel like you truly get them, and aren’t just handing them something so you can make money.

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A Guide To Optimizing Your Website For Mobile Use

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How are your potential customers finding you online? Are they sitting down at their desktops, searching sites like Google? Or are they sitting in a coffee shop, searching from their mobile devices?

As the amount of mobile devices continues to grow, so does the need for mobile friendly websites. You can’t expect your graphically enhanced site to appear the same way on an iPhone or Android, and Flash sites simple don’t work. The last thing you want is your potential customer looking for you, and all that comes up is a “non-compatible” sign. That’s like saying, “I don’t want your business.”

Dig Deeper: Love Your iPod iPhone or iPad? Not with a Flash Website

But simply taking your existing website, and converting it into a mobile friendly site may not get you the results you are looking for. Searching on mobile devices is continuing to grow as technology improves, yet people aren’t searching in the same ways they do for conventional sites. Therefore its essential to think SEO for both your traditional sites, and for your mobile sites in slightly different ways.

Shorter Keywords

When a person sits down at a desktop computer, they have a full sized keyboard, and are usually dedicating a fair amount of time to find what they are looking for. They are willing to type out keyword searches again and again until they find what they are looking for, lengthening what they are searching for each time. Since mobile devices are used for more on-the-go functions, people aren’t as patient with their searching. With the smaller keyboards and smaller screens, people want to find what they are looking for in the quickest way possible. [Read more...]

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How Google Analytics Can Help You Grow Your Business

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Want to know how your site is doing? Don’t guess at it. Instead, use one of the best free tools available today.

Google Analytics is a simple plug and play program that you can attach to your site or your blog, and will instantly give you information about how well your site is doing. It is simple enough that even the most novice of business owners can gain important information about their sites, and complex enough to give you sophisticated insight into how you can improve and grow your business even more.

You can find out where people are coming from, what they are doing once they get onto your site, and what was the outcome of people being on your site. You can build customized reports to gain the exact information you are looking for. You can track campaigns and keywords, and find out exactly what is motivating people to take action on your site. And so much more. There really are ways of tracking just about everything using this free tool.

Can you operate a website without Google Analytics? Of course. But with just a little insight into how efficiently your website is running, you can make changes and additions that will make it that much more effective.

Everyone knows that in order to succeed online, you have to gain traffic to your site. Analytics can help you track the type of traffic coming into your site and how effective it is. Let me give you some examples.

Quality versus Quantity

Are you getting thousands of hits per day on your site? Is that good?

If you sell 100 percent natural beef steaks and you have 100,000 hits per day, that sounds like great traffic. Unless all 100,000 of those visitors are vegan. With Analytics, you can see what your referring sites are, and track the number of people coming from each site. You can see how many people come in on a page, and how many leave without visiting any other place on your site. You can find out how many pages people click to after they enter your site, and the general direction they take – which pages have the highest view rates and which have the highest leaving rates. While this doesn’t provide exact information on a persons thought patterns, it can be insightful as to what material means the most. When patterns develop, you can quickly see what is missing and where you can fill in the blanks. [Read more...]

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Building an Awe-Inspiring Online Portfolio in 5 Easy Steps

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Building a portfolio is easy. There are hundreds of free tools available that allow you to throw together a few photographs, and use that to show your work to potential customers.

The hard part is making it good.

A great portfolio does more than just showcase your work. It converts visitors from lookers into paying clients. It allows them to not only see what you do, but become so motivated by it that they can’t help but take the next step.

And best of all, to be a truly spectacular online portfolio, it must also help you put everything together quickly and efficiently, giving you more time to do what you love.

How do you know where to start? Lets walk through 5 steps that will help you put the whole thing together

Start With A Question

Let me ask you a question. How would you define the word “portfolio”?

In many cases, a photographer will say their portfolio is a gallery of their best images, ready to showcase the work they’ve completed for other customers.

And I would agree – that’s the starting definition. But it’s truly more than that. A portfolio is a collection of creative works that are used to showcase your skills, and hopefully motivate the viewer with enough information they agree to buy.

Using that definition, your portfolio becomes more than just your gallery of images. It becomes the entire presentation you use within your online presence to motivate and showcase who you are, in hopes they move to the next step.

So in order to build a truly awe-inspiring portfolio, you have to ask yourself:

What do people truly need from my portfolio in order to move from looker to client? [Read more...]

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18 Reasons Why They Leave Your Site In Under 10 Seconds

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Have you ever entered a site and you can’t hit the back button fast enough? Something about the page is an instant turnoff, and you back out or get out of the browser window as fast as possible.

I did that this morning when I entered a new page from an email I received. And it got me to thinking about all the reasons a site doesn’t work. And by understanding what doesn’t work, you can reassess your own site, and determine what you can do to make it work – to make it more attractive to the people that are coming there for the very first time.

1. Autosound. This is what got me this morning. I entered a page and started looking around, and a voice started to talk with music in the background. The only problem was I couldn’t find where it was coming from – no audio or video button was noticeable on the page, so I had no way of turning it off. I backed out of the page as fast as I could. I work from a home office, so sound doesn’t really matter. But imagine if I would have been in a busy office. That sound – whether its voice of music – would have made me hit “delete” even faster.

2. Popups. Popups are a dying breed, but they are still around and visible on some sites. I don’t mind an occasional popup asking me to sign up for a free report – once. What really bugs me (and a lot of other people too) is when the popup appears again and again, every time I click to a new page. I get it – you want me to sign up. But that’s not a way to motivate me to the next step.

3. Slow load times. Everyone online has what I call online-ADD. If something doesn’t happen FAST, we move away. We won’t wait 15 seconds for a photograph to load – it’s either there now or I move on. If you load more than thumbnails, or have a slow server, you risk losing your best customers.

4. No purpose. What do you want people to do when they visit your site? That should be obvious from every page on your site. Don’t make a potential customer search for your contact information, block them from sending you an email, or making it difficult to find what city you work in. Think of your ultimate goal, and make every page lead directly to that conclusion.
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Why Every Photographer Needs More Than One Web Site

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How many websites do you have?

Nope, that’s not a trick question.

For many photographers, the thought of having to operate, add to and change more than one website may seem like a daunting task. But in reality, it may be the best thing to do.

You probably have more than one specialty you cater to. Babies. Families. Seniors. Weddings.

And if a new mother is completely consumed with the idea of being a new mom, she wants to focus on everything around being a new mom. She wants to see photographs of babies, and learn from others around her. She wants you to cater to her – a new mom. She doesn’t care about high school seniors – that’s years away. And she’s done with her wedding. So everything about her life is filled with being a mom.

So why not have a website completely filled with your baby business, all for her?

Likewise, a newly engaged couple is enamored with the idea of weddings. She buys magazine after magazine. She signs up for every bridal festival in town. She visits boutique after boutique to try on dresses; not just to find the perfect gown, but for the experience of trying on as many beautiful dresses as she can. Its her day, and she wants the most magical experience possible.

So why would you have a website filled with family photographs, babies and children? She wants to click from page to page and see nothing but weddings.

1. Buy a unique domain name for every piece of your business.
Domain names are cheap – you can buy a unique domain name for $10 a year. If you specialize in family portraiture, high school seniors and weddings, you’ll need four: one for your overall business, and one for each of your specialties. That’s four domains – $40 a year.

2.Put up a blog for each.
Blogs are the easiest thing to put up and manage, and they give you complete control over all of your content. They can be as sophisticated as you like – you can’t tell the difference between a blog and a website anymore. Then cater to fans of your specialty, and give them what they want – photographs. You can put up a ton of images to show off your latest work, and showcase your talents for future clients.

Why Every Photographer Needs More Than One Web Site

3. Use each to market your business in a unique way.
If you have one site, and you market yourself as a photographer, you have to compete with every other photographer out there – in a general way. But if you are a wedding photographer, you can now use your wedding site as a way to niche yourself into places you wouldn’t get to otherwise. Your domain name, keywords and content will help you rank higher for your niche. And you’ll be more impressive to your audience.

4. It will help you focus on the needs of your clients.
Have you ever had the phone ring, and a potential client say, “Do you photograph ___?” As a general photographer, your first reaction is to say yes. You’re willing to try anything, especially if it brings in a little money today. But if you have a site dedicated to one specialty, anyone visiting your site will know instantly what you do. They won’t have to ask. You’ll raise the bar on your talents. And people will expect more because you focus all of your energy in one area. You’re the expert. The more you show it, the more you believe it, and the more you can sell your talents at a higher level, and for a higher price.

Website templates for photographers

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Love Your iPod, iPhone or iPad? Not With A Flash Website

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A few weeks ago I raised quite the controversy with my blog post What’s Wrong With A Flash Website For A Photographer’s Business?

While I covered a lot of topics in that post, and added even more in the comment section, it seems there is now one more reason to think twice before you develop a Flash website. Well actually it may be three reasons: iPod, iPhone and iPad. ipad impacts flash websites for photographers

As a part of Apple’s technology, they decided to move forward with HTML5 instead of Adobe Flash. Many of the online video sources like YouTube and Vimeo are also banking on this newer, faster loading programming because it doesn’t require as much memory, and doesn’t crash near as often. And with Apple always being on top of easy-to-use and the most user-friendly way possible, this technology seems to fit the bill.

Now let’s look at the stats.

  • 89% of all people have a cell phone
  • 38% have stopped their landline service since owning a cell phone
  • 55% of adults have connected up to the Internet via their cell/smart phone

Yes, these stats are for all cell phones, and iPhone only makes up a small portion of it. But its clear the direction things are heading.

It’s been estimated that almost all Internet access will be via mobile devices by the year 2020. It’s quick. It’s flexible. And it’s instantaneous. If you’re sitting in a restaurant and an idea comes to mind, you can do your research right then and there.

Let’s say your prospect is sitting at a reception site talking with a wedding coordinator. They refer two photographers, one with a Flash site and one without. If this prospect is really excited, pulls out their iPad to check out their sites, they’ll be able to pull the one, and not the other. They may make an instantaneous decision to call the one, and not the other, especially if they are using an iPad, Netbook and iPhone as their main source of Internet connection.

Think of your customer first, and how you can make it easy for them to find you. What can you do to reach out to the general population? It’s not about you, it’s about them. It’s not about the coolest site ever, it’s about the best marketing ever. It’s about being there for your clients, ready to make contact when they are ready.

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What’s Wrong With A Flash Website For A Photographer’s Business?

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I have a question for you.

Why are photographers so obsessed with having a Flash driven website?

This isn’t a new question. In fact, I’ve been asking it for years. I’ve even given classes on why Flash websites are the worst thing a photographer could ever have for their web presence.

But today I was referred to a site, and the question was brought up to me once again.

The site I visited was amazing. This photographer had a gorgeous intro video – probably one of the best I’ve seen.

Then I clicked into his site, and the headache began.

As I entered, it asked me to install a new plugin to make the site more effective. No. Never. So it brought me into the site without the plugin. Every click opened up a new browser window. The music started playing, and with that many windows open, it took me several minutes to figure out how to turn it off. Every gallery opened up a new window. The content (words) weren’t on the site – they were graphics, meaning none of the content had any effect on search engine rankings. Every gallery took seconds to load.
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Take Them By The Hand And Lead Them Through Your Website

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Websites in general are a very simple concept. You build a page, fill it with copy, and ask your readers to do something.

If they are on your home page, maybe you ask them to sign up for your newsletter or a free report.

If they are on your blog, maybe you invite them to learn more about your upcoming holiday promotion.

If they are on your contact form, maybe your goal is to get a variety of information from them about what type of services they are interested in.

No matter what the goal of each page, what’s the next step?

Sell your photography by using your website

With a website, pages are easy to produce, and use as lead-in’s to what comes next.

For example, if someone fills out a contact us form and submits it, instead of having a page that says thank you, create a thank you page that takes selling to the next level. If you are primarily a wedding photographer, fill the thank you page with wedding related links. “Now that we have your information, why not visit our photo gallery? We have over 10,000 images from 100 of our favorites clients – and we’d love to add you to our gallery in the future!” Hyper link it over to your photo gallery, and let people start surfing.
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