How do I get my photography business noticed online?
I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve been asked that question.
I wish I had a “one size fits all” answer for all of those people. But I don’t.
No one does.
There are many strategies that work together to help you get noticed as a photographer online. What works for one photographer in a specific niche in a particular section of their world may not work so well for another.
That’s just how it is. But that doesn’t mean you just throw you hands in the air or go back to your World of Warcraft!
Here are some easy to implement strategies every photographer can do to get noticed more in the online world.
1. Have a website
I suppose this should go without saying but we’ll delve into it just a bit because it’s the most important thing.
Your website is your home online. It’s your hub. It’s where you, ultimately, would like to drive the bulk of your traffic. You control how it looks, you control what it says about you, and you only have yourself to blame if it starts playing Enya on my speakers so freakin’ loud with a tiny mute button that’s impossible to find and all I want to do is punch my computer monitor when I visit your website.
Try Livebooks or SmugMug or something similar. They know what they’re doing.
2. Have a blog
This is the heart of your website. The soul. It’s where you give personality to your photography. You talk about the process, or the joy, or the whatever you think will get you more clients, or whatever. Just keep it on topic and keep it updated regularly. It doesn’t have to be every day or every week but it needs to be consistent. People like consistency. Again, keep it on topic! No one who’s going to buy your $4500 wedding package wants to hear your thoughts on the latest controversy surrounding whatever reality TV show you waste your time watching! Or maybe they do. What do I know?
Bonus tip: When you start blogging don’t publish your posts in the middle of the night. No one will read them and everyone will think you’re a sociopath for not sleeping when everyone else is watching infomercials.
3. Have a Facebook page
Start a facebook page dedicated to your photography business and invite all 45 of your friends to “like” the page. Then tell them to tell their 45 friends to like the page. Link your blog to the facebook page and post specials and other tidbits of info pertaining to your photographic awesomeness to that facebook page.
Then tell them to “like” our facebook page.
4. Have a Twitter account
This one may, or may not, actually drive much traffic to your website but if you learn to use Twitter properly it can become one of the biggest tools you can use to help you get noticed online as a photographer. You can become virtual best friends with people half way across the world who you’ll likely never meet but still feel a closeness to that is unsurpassed in any realm of reality.
I mean, that’s how I became BFFs with @photojack. No really.
5. Localize your photography services online
Use localized search engines that specialize in getting you business like SkillSlate.com. You can sign up here. It’s a good place to start, especially if you’re in a big city. Google won’t index your website right off the bat and it will take a while before you get top ranking when someone searches for a photographer in New York (if ever). However, if someone on SkillSlate goes to the photographers in New York City section, and you happen to garner a few good reviews, you’re more likely to get some business out of it. Think of these types of services as a virtual phone book. Sign up for as many as you find. It doesn’t take that much work and it’s worth the effort in the beginning.
6. Link build like crazy
There are tons of strategies to link building. You can pay someone. That’s easy enough but probably expensive and who knows how well that actually works. I’ve never tried it even though I get contacted about it almost every day. Seriously people…I’m not gonna pay you for your “magic”.
I prefer the more organic approach.
You can write some really awesome content on your blog, that nobody is reading yet, and hopefully, if a fairy flies over a rainbow and a leprechaun shoots it with cupid’s arrow while riding a unicorn, someone like Chase Jarvis will make a video about how awesome you are and Frederick Van will invite you on This Week in Photography where you will instantly become a photography expert and the skies will rain golden photography contracts!
OR…you could write some really awesome content, then submit it to a photography blog (like this one) as a guest post, that some people are actually reading and that Google already indexes, and you’ll get good Google juice while building a solid reputation as a knowledgeable person qualified to take someone’s pictures.
Links are like golden recommendations buttered with awesomeness and joy that tells Google, and all the other search engines, how awesome you are. Oh, and they drive traffic to your website. You know…your hub.
7. Be original
I cannot help you with this. Sorry.
Oh there’s more…
You just have to get creative and think of where the people who you think should notice you hang out online. Then stalk them like crazy until they visit your website and buy your photographic services.
What did I forget?
So if you’ve got a pretty solid “rep” online as a photographer why not share some of your tips and ideas in the comments below? Pay it forward!
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