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7 Ways To Make Your Studio’s Website More Sellable

“I put up my website a few months ago,
and I’m still not at the top of the search engines.”

“Why isn’t my website working?
I’m still not making money online.”

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard these phrases! Unfortunately many people still believe putting up a website will be the answer to their marketing problems. If you’re having trouble getting people in to your business using traditional marketing methods, chances are you’re problems will carry through to your online marketing methods as well.

Thousands of websites are being added to the Internet everyday. By doing a recent search on Google I discovered:

66,900,000 pages exist with the word “photography”
9,270,000 pages exist with the words “photography studio”
1,450,000 pages exist with the words “wedding photography studio”
991,000 pages exist with the words “professional wedding photography studio”
196,000 pages exist with the words “California professional wedding photography studio”
And if you’re beyond the top 20-30 pages, chances are you’re never getting in front of your potential customer. So where do you go from here? How do you use your website to get in front of a good, qualifying potential customer?

A successful website is not something you build over night. It is a work in progress, something that you should work on week after week. To start you off, here are 7 ideas to help grow your website and the potential it has to market your business.

Create a professional site. This is probably the first thing you see in any list talking about how to build up an Internet presence. Yet it’s amazing how many sites are out there that still have a homemade appearance.Your website is an extension of your business. Not only should it be informative, it should be entertaining, and provide people with exactly what they are looking for. You are a photographer. Show people your work. Make them feel the emotion of your photography, and the service you provide to your customers. A gallery of a dozen images that each take seconds to load is not emotional. Professionalism comes from knowing what your customers want, and giving them more than they expect.
If you can’t create a professional website by yourself, hire it done. Because you earn your money through photography, don’t expect yourself to be good at all forms of creative graphics. Websites are a marketing tool, not a creative extension of your business. Foremost, your website is a sales tool that can bring in unimaginable profits to your business – but only if you use it as such.

Pricing on your website. The biggest debate on the Internet for photographers is whether to list pricing information. On one hand, listing your pricing will guarantee only truly motivated people will contact your studio. On the other hand, every customer you have will be calling you solely based on your pricing.I myself prefer to not list pricing, or do it in a very discreet way. I want my customers calling me because they love my work. I want them to feel the passion of my art, and call me because they can see themselves in my photographs. Price is secondary.
If you still feel pricing is something you have to list on your website, list it only once on your services page. After you describe what services you offer your customers, list a phrase like “starting from $3900”. This gives your potential customer a basis for your services, yet doesn’t make the main goal of your website price.

Creating a purpose. What is the overall purpose of your website? Is it to get a potential customer to contact you? Is it to drive your existing customers to a place to purchase your photographs? Before your website can be successful, you have to discover your number one purpose. Then use every page to motivate people towards your purpose.Again, your website is more than a brochure. It is a member of your sales team that ‘talks’ to your potential customer. When you talk with a person in person, or on the phone, your ultimate goal is to get them to make some type of commitment. Your website should have the same goal.

Showcase your work. You’re a photographer. Showing a dozen images doesn’t show a potential client what you do. Pull your customer in by providing them with a wealth of information on your website. Clients come to you for photographs; show them photographs! Photography is one of those rare industries in which you can’t have too many graphics on your website, providing they are small files that load quickly.

Use motivating text. Are you writing to your customer in a professional manner? Does your website use the same language you use when meeting with a person face to face? Your website is your sales tool. Treat it as if it were a 24/7 sales person, and let your website do the talking for you.On the Internet, the one thing you can’t do is hide. Depending on how a person searches, every website is a potential find. Because someone from New York, or California, or even India may pull up your site, how are you talking to him or her? Instead of writing your text from your perspective, write as if you are a person in a far away country that knows nothing about your industry. Her sole purpose is to find out more information on wedding photography. Are you educating her? Are you telling her what she wants to know AND what she cares about? (Most people don’t care what type of cameras you use; they only want to know how they benefit.)
Create links to other sites. Is your site a useful resource? Think of yourself as a mini-wedding coordinator or parent advisor. Depending on the type of photography you specialize in, provide your customer useful information to go beyond just hiring your services.A wedding photographer can provide links to caterers, florists, and reception halls. A family or children’s photographer can provide links to schools, clothing and sports stores, and community events.
Tip: When you’re linking to other websites, have them link back to you as well. This boosts up your ratings in the search engines!

Get your site listed on other sites. There are hundreds of ways of getting your site listed on other websites. Linking is one of the easiest methods. But beyond linking, you may try other means.Purchase banner ads. Many sites offer paid advertising, usually at very reasonable prices.
Purchase classified advertising. Many newspapers and magazines offer a deal where you purchase an ad in their print edition, and you get a website listing for free. For example, we have a Colorado Parent magazine in our community. By purchasing an ad in the classified section, you also get a listing on the website.

Find community directories to list your services in. Larger communities have at least one directory online that makes it easy to find resources within your area. Join at least one, and always be on the lookout for others that may benefit your business.

Keep your eyes open for opportunities to advertise your website, both online and in traditional marketing methods.

When was the last time you renewed your domain name?

It’s easy to forget to renew your domain name, but the consequences can be harsh. Maybe you’re too busy to take action on the email at the moment. Or maybe you’ve changed email addresses, and no longer receive the notifications.

But what will you do when your entire site shuts down? Or what if you lose all of your email because it has no place to go? It’s like losing your phone number - how will your prospects and clients contact you?

Keep a log of your domain names and the details including the expirations dates. It will help you maintain a good internal system, and ensure you never lose touch with your clients.

Are you using your blog to your full potential?

As a photographer, use your blog to communicate with your audience. Give them what they want, and write for them frequently.

Add an RSS feed to keep them on top of your information the minute you release it.

Write as if you are speaking one to one with your audience. Use it as a conversation piece.

Personalize your blog, and customize it to look and feel like your site.

Add photographs from each event you shoot. Give people an idea of what you are taking, and what type of work you do. With blogs, its easy to share your information  - just do it!

Time passes quickly and what was new is now aged and dated. How is your photography business website? Keeping your site updated is an important process in running your photography studio. While it is nice to have a photography site up showing off your work, if not updated, this site becomes stale. Website face-lifts are a great way to provide an easy update. If you want a rapid way to modernize without a huge expenditure, photography business template websites and photography studio template websites are quick to modify and very inexpensive.

Helping your photography business, how to start a digital wedding photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.

Having a well designed website is important to attract potential clients but is it well linked? Links into your site are vital to ensure that search engines like google, yahoo and msn display your site under search criteria. By increasing quality link to a photography website, your ranks will increase and the site will list higher and higher in the results. Why is this important? Well, think about it in very simple terms. If your site is popular (many quality link pointed into your site) then search engines look at the website as a valid informational portal and present within the results. If you photography website has little to no linkage, search engines see no reason to display it.

Quality links are from reliable sources of similar content. If you are selling wedding photography then you would want links from other studios, wedding reception sites, wedding coordinators and wedding services.

VirtualPhotographyStudio.com allows studios to add their photography businesses to a directory of other studios. This in turn will add another quality link into your site.

The goal is to have your site show more when potential clients access searches. By working with a strategy that will enhance linkage of your studio’s site on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, you will start to see increase in how your photography website displays in the search engine results.

Have you ever clicked onto a site and found that the address bar in the browser has a cool image next to the website address? This icon is named a favicon and your site can have too.

We found a great resource for you that will make these cool icons for you. Use this online tool to easily create a favicon (favorites icon) for your site. A favicon is a small, 16×16 image that is shown inside the browser’s location bar and bookmark menu when your site is called up. It is a good way to brand your photography website and increase it’s prominence in your visitor’s bookmark menu.

Photography business website icon

Helping your photography business, how to start a digital wedding photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.

5 Things To Do To Get Better Rankings In The Search Engines Getting to the top of the search engines is a daunting task. Just when you move up the ranks, the search engines change their algorithms to stay ahead of the people trying to trick their way to the top. This can cause your site to plummet – even if you are a legitimate company. What can you do today to help increase the odds of your site staying in the top rankings?

1. Linking is king.

Linking your site up with other relevant sites gains you higher positioning. Don’t just link up with friends and acquaintances. Find quality sites within your section of the photography industry that will link to you. Search engines concentrate on text. If your site is primarily selling wedding photography, linking up with a florist or a bridal consultant would be a very relevant link.

2. Create new wedding photography website pages.

A website should grow and change over time. Add articles to your website. Add relevant information that will provide a better quality website to your viewers. Be sure each page, and all information, adds relevance to your overall business plan.

3. Placement of your photography studio’s keywords.

 What words best describe your business? Use those words liberally throughout your website. Place them in your meta description and your meta tags. Is your keyword a part of your URL? All the better. Anywhere you can legitimately use your keywords, use them to add relevance to your website. One word of caution. Use your keywords throughout good copy. Just repeating your keyword over and over again may actually penalize you from a search engine’s database. Search engines look for good quality information that will provide searchers with value each time they conduct a search.

4. Get listed.

Are you in all of the search engines? While Google and Yahoo make up about 70% of the total search engine databases used, there are still many other engines out there to list your URL. Also list your site in major directories, like DMOZ.org, About.com, and DirectoryGuide.com.

5. Keep building your photography website.

When you have one site up and running, consider adding more sites to break out your product lines. Breaking out your product lines give you more control over who you’re marketing each line to, and provide you with an automatic linking mechanism. The more specific you can make the text on each site, the higher you will rank overall. So, if you specialize in weddings and family portraiture, consider making a website for each, catering to those specific parts of your business.

Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.

I look at dozens of photographers sites every week.

Most are static sites - meaning the photographer puts them together once, and makes very few additions over the course of the year. They usually have a lot of movement - a lot of Flash - and just a simple portfolio.

They may have up to 50 images, scattered across several portfolio galleries: weddings, commercial, portraits, business, etc.

In my opinion - and with what I have had success with - skip the Flash and go with small file sized images. And fill up your site with hundreds of photographs.

People want to see images. They want to see the work you’ve done, and put themselves in the place of your past customers.

If they see themselves in your images, you’ll get the phone call.

What’s you opinion?

Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.

Does winning an award make you a better photographer? Maybe.

Does having a stack of awards make you look better to your prospects and clients? Maybe.

So why should you concentrate of getting awards?

Because awards make you feel better about yourself, and ultimately impact the way you do business.

First, lets look at how an award can make you a better photographer.

Image judging contests can occur in one of two ways: either at a seminar/expo, where you can sit in on the judging, or at the business without contact with the image takers.

The best is where you can sit in on the judging, and learn what the top photographers are looking for in a photograph. There you can learn a wealth of information on how the elite photographers look at images, and how they judge. While judging is always subjective (it depends on what the judges like), they also look for certain qualities over and over again. That’s the information you can use to change your photography.

Judges will show you how they judge, what they are looking for, and how to make a photograph better. They teach things like composition, lighting, and structure. They help you understand why a photograph is award winning quality, and how to improve an image in the future.

One of the things I discovered early on is judges often like photographs that your clients will never buy. It’s just a difference of opinion. Make sure you photograph for both perspectives if you feel you have an award winning location and subject.

Second, does being an award winning photographer help you get more clients?

An award is a starting point. It adds to the checklist in a clients mind, and can possibly be a deciding factor for certain clients. But usually it isn’t a sole reason for someone choosing a photographer.

People like choosing photographers for a variety of reasons. They usually fall in love with one of your images, and want a duplicate image for their wall. They like the way you display your artwork, and are looking for something similar.

Being an award winning photography simply adds another reason for choosing you. Also understand that winning multiple awards over time will also look better for you then winning one or two.

If they see you are constantly entering contests, and winning various prizes, they will know you are working at becoming an expert in the field of photography. Which looks better to you?

• Winner of the 2002 Photographer of the Year Award

• Winner of the 1999 Photographer of the Year Award
• Winner of the 2001 Best Album Award
• Winner of the 2002 Photography Studio of the Year Award
• Winner of the 2003 Best Family Portrait Award
• Winner of the 2004 Best Children’s Photographer Award
• Winner of the 2005 Best Photography Website Award

Obviously the second. It shows consistency. It shows this photographer is concentrating on his passion, and wants to show his ability. He’s developing his own expertise within the industry, and sharing his love of photography with the world.

Which is what your ultimate goal is with winning awards. Your goal is to WOW your customer, and showcase your talents in many ways. When a prospect enters your website, or receives an information kit in the mail from you, being able to WOW them will set you apart from your competition.

As an example, I know of one speaker who has spoken at hundreds of seminars and expos over the years. When someone asks for information on his speaking, he doesn’t mail a brochure. Instead, he mails them a box of thank you letters – the kind of box 500 sheets of paper comes in. You can imagine the impact on an event producer when they start reading 500 thank you testimonials! Needless to say, he usually gets the speaking gig.

You can do the same with your photography. Imagine the impact of mailing a customer an information kit filled with testimonies, press releases, articles about you from leading magazines, and award sheets. Wouldn’t this set you apart from your competition?

Who do you think they will choose as their photographer?

Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.

Finally, A Step By Step Plan That Will Make Marketing Your Business Super Easy
By Providing You With A Whole Collection Of Marketing Ideas, Campaigns And Sample Wordings In Easy To Follow Detail!

All That’s Left Is The Photography!

For years, I’ve listened to you asking for a step-by-step plan on how to market your photography business.

You asked for ideas on campaigns that will bring in clients and profits.

You asked for tips on what makes a good marketing piece, and how you should design brochures, stationery, business cards and advertisements to get people calling (or emailing).

You asked for the best places to advertise online, and how to write up advertisements that will get noticed.

You asked for ways to create newsletters that are easy for you to send AND will get read and passed around by your clientele.

Guess what? It’s finally here.

Complete Photography Step-By-Step Marketing Plans To Help You Market Your Business

Instead of sitting around wondering how to bring people into your studio, have a complete plan in place, ready for you to put into action any idea at any time.

In these guides you’ll find complete campaigns you can steal and use as your own.

You’ll find word-for-word headlines and text to use in your advertisements.

You’ll find sample letters to send to your clients.

And you’ll find dozens of ideas, ready to get your started on building a profitable business.

An Entire Year Of Marketing

Here is a list of marketing plans for many types of photography:

• Advertising Photography 
• Aerial Photography 
• Baby Portrait Studio 
• Business Portrait Photography 
• Children Photography 
• Commercial Photography 
• Corporate Photography (annual report, business, editorial, industrial) 
• Editorial Photography
• Event Photography 
• Family Portraits 
• Fine Art Photography 
• Grandparent Photography 
• High School Seniors Photography
• Landscape Photography 
• Modeling/Fashion Photography 
• Nature Photography 
• Panoramic Photography 
• Pet Photography 
• Real Estate Photography 
• School Photography 
• Sports Photography 
• Stock Photography 
• Travel Photography 
• Underwater Photography 
• Wedding Photography 
• Wildlife Photography 

Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.

1. Increase the content on your website
You can never have too much content on your site - or on the Internet that is linked to your site. Take a look at other high profile sites, and see what they are adding. Don’t stay within your industry; instead, watch what others in non-competing industries are doing. For instance, in one of my December magazines I noticed the magazine company released a new website to start the New Year off right. They added a variety of things to get their customers more involved. I’ll be using a lot of their ideas myself over the coming months.

2. Build an online community with a blog
If you don’t have a blog yet, there’s no better time than right now. It offers so many benefits: an easy way to communicate, a way to involve your clients and prospects, and the search engines love the content.

3. Track the life cycle of the people visiting your site
Do you know where people enter your site? Do you know where they leave? How much time do they spend on your site? If you can’t answer these questions (and more) make 2007 the year you start getting answers.

4. Ask your visitors to take action
Is your site a brochure site, or can your clients make contact with you? Involve your prospects and clients, and give them a reason to get in touch.

5. Optimize your site to begin to capture new clients
Optimizing your site isn’t a do-it-once option. It takes work month after month. Imagine handing out a brochure in January, and expecting it to work for you all year. It would never happen, right? The same is true for optimization. If you’ve had someone optimize your site once when you created it, how long has it been? The rest of the sites in your niche have continued to add and build. It’s time to grow your website, and become known in your niche.

Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.

8 Reasons Why 8 Pages Aren’t Enough

Did you know the standard website has 8 pages of content, and will never grow beyond those 8 pages? Yet the number one way to reach your prospects and potential buyers is through content.
 
A standard 8 page website is a great place to start, but don’t stop there. It’s time to build, and create a site that attracts clients to you. Consider these 8 reasons to continue building on to your website.
 
1. Depth. People like investigating, and being able to discover more resources. Multiple pages allow people to drill in deeper to your site.
 
2. Resource. What makes your site valuable? People bookmark sites that have a variety of benefits and solutions. Add pages to your site to keep people better informed.
 
3. Power. A powerful site lets people take action. What can you do to direct people to your pages that allow people to take action?
 
4. Selection. When you head to the mall, do you buy the first thing you see, or do you look through a variety of stores to find the best deal? A variety of pages on your site allow a visitor to sort through your material, and confirm they are getting a great deal.
 
5. Value. Can a visitor on your site learn something new? Can they see themselves in your message, and have you provide the solution? The more value you portray, the better your chance of creating the sale.
 
6. Influence. Sometimes you can persuade people to take action by your stories, graphics and messages. The more personal your site becomes, the more people will look up to you as the expert.
 
7. Copy. Sometimes it isn’t the amount of pages that has influence; it’s the copy. Does your copy speak to your audience? Does it motivate them to take action? Don’t be afraid of the long sales letter pages if it’s appropriate for your business.
 
8. Professional. Is your site a sales team? Look at the message your site construes. Would you buy from you?

Building links to your site becomes important in today’s crowded internet arena. We have created an easy way to add your studio and contact information. Each studio is listed by state for quick reference. View our listing of wedding photographers and portrait photography studio listings on our site and add your studio today.

Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.

On Sunday mornings, I love to spend some time going through the ads and the coupons. Though I don’t use many of the coupons, I love to see what new things they are promoting. Some things are amazing.This past week, Sears Portrait Studios advertised an amazing product called the Portrait Study. They sell a frame with 9 square images in it, and photograph the child’s features photojournalistic style.

In their ad, it was of a small child, maybe 12 months old. They had close ups of her eyes, her hands and her feet. Only one photo was a full face image.

What is this going to do to the portrait industry? How can you separate yourself from the discount studios that are now offering an even more exclusive service?

Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com

25 Ways To Generate Leads For Your Photography Business Today

1. Submit your stock images to one of the many online stock agencies such as IStockPhoto. Stock companies allow you to build a bio page, and list links to other sites and information. Use this to selectively promote yourself to people that enjoy your work.

2. Send a press release to your local paper submitting a story idea. Newspapers, television, and radio shows are always on the lookout for a good storyline. Provide them with a story that’s relevant to the season, and makes for good news.

3. Visit a local networking group and offer to photograph the group for the website. Many of today’s networking groups have a website to promote their services. Adding photographs provide a personal touch, and will allow you to capture attention as a photographer.

4. Send out letters to your past clients with a new promotion. Your best client is a past client. Make them an offer they can’t refuse.

5. Visit a local chamber of commerce and sign up for the next networking group. Your chamber of commerce offers a variety of groups for you to network with. Choose a few groups and visit them to make a handful of new connections.

6. Find a complementary business willing to hang samples in their offices. Provide them several framed images at no cost. Because these images will potentially hand in the office for many months, make sure you use your best work, and provide top quality in both mounting and framing.

7. Post a comment on an online message board. Make sure you provide a link back to your website, yet don’t blatantly sell your services. Provide good quality content, and show you know your industry well.

8. Call three prospects and promote your business. Think back over the past couple of weeks to the connections you’ve made. Choose the three that have the best possibility of becoming a client, and connect with them over the phone.

9. Create flyers and hand them out at a networking event. Make your flyer short and to the point. The purpose should be to make them connect with you, either by brining in a coupon, or visiting your website for more information.

10. Write an article for one of your association newsletters. Most trade publications have a shortage of quality material. Offer an article to use, and use it to educate your association members.

Click here for the additional 15 Ways To Generate Leads For Your Photography Business Today

Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com

How much time do you spend on getting new clients?

How much time do you spend keeping your existing clients happy?

Most small businesses spend a great deal of their marketing efforts getting new clients. But that is the one area that takes the most effort. To get someone brand new to accept your company, and decide to purchase from you takes a huge amount of effort, both financially and physically.

But creating a referral source out of someone whom already has a relationship with you is a far easier way of using your marketing dollars.

They love you. They’re happy with your service. They know how you work and what type of service you provide. And they have friends.

Spend you marketing dollars wisely, and have your existing customers work for you.

Send newsletters.
Send customer appreciation promotions.
Ask for a referral.
Provide thank you gifts.
Network with them.

Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com

Photography Business - Relying on Email

I was talking with a friend today, who was very angry that she hadn’t received a response from a company she emailed two days ago. She went on and on about how rude it was not to resond in a timely manner, and she would never do that to any of her clients. She was considering breaking off a relationship with this company, and moving on to another, though she was very happy with their product.I asked her one question that stopped her. “Are you sure they received your email?”

Everyone assumes email’s get through to whom they’re supposed to. Yet its been proven that up to 45% of all email never makes it to where its supposed to.

My solution: Don’t give up after one email. Email someone two or three times. I usually copy my first message, paste it into a new email, and start the new email with a new sentence: “I tried emailing you a couple of days ago, and wasn’t sure if it made it to you. Please respond if you get this one.”

9 times out of 10, I get an email stating they had not received the first email.

Better yet, follow up with a phone call. It gives you a reason to call!

Keep up to date on your photography business and wedding photography business from virtualphotographystudio.com

How many times have you thought of an idea, and wanted to get a quick message out to your clients about a promotion you’re running?

A great way to do that is with postcards. Many postcard companies have an option where you can upload an image for the back, type in your copy for the front, upload your mailing list, and they take care of the printing AND mailing.

You literally can have a promotion in to the mail in one day!

It’s a great way to get business when you need it!

Check out:

http://amazingmail.com/
http://modernpostcard.com/

Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com

Google changed everything.

They built Google on the concept of good, quality information, not just loading up your keywords, and other optimization techniques.

Instead of trying to capture every word you can think of, try focusing on a select few.

If you do in-studio portraits in the Denver area, why would you want to use “baby portraits” as your key word, and get hits from all over the world?

By becoming more focused, your site will actually begin to rank higher, and will be more targeted for the people that are actually looking for you.

*Use your keyword multiple times on one page of your website. So if you are wanting to do baby portraits in Denver, concentrate on that phrase, and use it multiple times on a page. Then in your html coding, list the phrase “baby portraits in Denver”. Working together, this will drive up your ranking.

*Remember your website has multiple pages. You don’t have to use the same keywords on each page. Design 10 different pages targeting 10 different niches. Search engine spiders look at every page separately. That’s the beauty of having a large website.

*Multiple domain names can also help. Buying BabyPortraitsInDenver.com and pointing it to the page on your website that is loaded with keywords will also help you in your ranking.

*Content is king. Don’t fill your pages with the same phrase over and over. It should make sense to the reader. Just write naturally, and create about 250 words minimum for each website page. Fit your keywords in naturally.

Most people go into business, and hide all of their ideas from their competition. They may join industry related groups, but they keep their core ideas and concepts hidden and well protected.After you’ve been in business a while, you soon discover that there is more business out there than is humanly possible to cover with one business. Instead, it’s much more exciting to join up with other businesses, and combine efforts to create a truly exciting business.Competition holds you down. Collaboration lets you fly higher than the stars.

Just today I spoke with what some may consider to be my competitor. However, he is focusing his efforts in a completely different direction. But he offers some side products that would combine with mine, and offer incredible tools to our clients. Instead of looking at him as competition, I’m now piecing part of his products with mine, and providing us both with increased sales potential.

Win/win for both businesses.

How can you link up with your competition, and provide incredible services for your clients?

Lori

I’m hearing similar comments from photographers all over, sales are slow.

First of all, what type of photography are you in? Have you ever thought of expanding in to another type to fill in the holes?

We photograph weddings. In Colorado, wedding season is May-October. If we remained slow from November-April, times would definitely be tight. Instead we have found other sources of income to fill in those wholes.

One way was to link up with a studio in Arizona. We both have connections in each other’s state, and love to travel back and forth. Arizona’s busy season is November-April. By connecting and booking for each other, we have potential to remain busy year round.

Another solution? How do you feel about corporate or commercial work? Catalogs and advertisements are produced year round. Approach a few ad agencies or companies and find out how you can help produce their photographs.

As a wedding photographer, our clients are from a broad spectrum of industries. Just by talking and staying in touch, we gained a major corporate account with a floral business, producing all of their images for their advertisements. The best thing is it’s easy work, and it comes in every month.

Open up your mind to other types of business you can get into. And put out the word for what you’re looking for.

Lori

What keywords do you focus on within your website?There used to be a time when people thought the more keywords the better. So they would list dozens, or even hundreds of keywords in their coding.Now we know that less is better. Let each page have different keywords, and focus each page, both in your text and your coding, on one or two specific keywords.

Each page, and ultimately your whole site will rank higher in the search engines!

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