Saturday Schedule
Speedlite Demonstration from 10-12 with a model
Presentation on Exploring the Light from 1 - 4 showcasing his best photographs and tips from around the world.
$97.50 for the saturday (inc hst)
Sunday Schedule
10-1 hands on shooting workshop with maximum of 30 attendees at MacLeans Junk Yard
2-4 is back in the classroom for an editing workshop with Rick learning HDR processing.
$112.50 for the sunday (inc hst)
$157.50 for both days (inc hst)
Much more details, the venue and payment methods announced here by the end of February.
Some have already confirmed attendance and we appreciate your interest, your space has been reserved.
For others that want to confirm attendance please contact me through www.kpepphotography.com
Friday, 17 February 2012
Wednesday, 15 February 2012
Connect With Your Customers On Facebook and Grow Your Business Socially
You should continually strive to ensure that your customers know, like and trust you. How do you do that though? It usually doesn’t happen during the sale, it’s what you do after that makes all the difference. That’s where Facebook comes in handy, and the fact that over half of all the people in Canada are on facebook, half of your customers will have one as well, and what that really means is that you have a way to become part of your customers online social graph. Below you will learn a simple, yet powerful way to connect with your customers on Facebook and at the same time, through the Law of Reciprocation, earn a testimonial and a recommendation.
1. First, take a picture of yourself, next to your customer. Ask your customer if it’s okay if you tag them in it on Facebook. You’re playing the odds here and the odds are pretty good that they have a Facebook page and the odds are even better that they will say yes to tagging them. This photo will then link to your customers profile page and place the picture on their wall (their profile page).
2. If you can, connect with your customer with their help, that way you can ensure that you have found their profile and not somebody else with the same name.
3. Tag them in the picture.
4. Go to the picture sitting on their wall that you placed and say something along the lines of, “It was really great working with you. I really enjoyed the time we spent together at my workshop (or at your wedding), you are the reason why I enjoy what I do. Thank you for being one of my favorites!”
Because of the Law Of Reciprocation, which states that we, as human beings, feel an obligation to repay an action with a like action, your customer will return the favor and say something like, “It was great working with you as well! We’ve never had such a positive buying experience in our entire lives!”
Now take a look at what you have. There is a picture of you and your customer sitting on their Facebook wall for all of their friends to see. On top of their friends asking them questions about it they see the kind words that the said about you. Think about how powerful that is and the fact that one peer testimonial is worth two hundred traditional media impressions… that’s one awesome testimonial!
5. Don’t stop there. Go back to their page a few days later, thank them and say something along the lines of, “As you know it’s important to me that my customers feel comfortable enough with the way I treated them to send referrals my way. Let me ask you, do you feel comfortable enough, should the need ever arise, to refer somebody you know to come see me?”
Of course their going to say yes and now you have both a testimonial and a recommendation AND all of their Facebook connections can see it!
That’s powerful stuff and 80% of the time it works just like that.
Kev
1. First, take a picture of yourself, next to your customer. Ask your customer if it’s okay if you tag them in it on Facebook. You’re playing the odds here and the odds are pretty good that they have a Facebook page and the odds are even better that they will say yes to tagging them. This photo will then link to your customers profile page and place the picture on their wall (their profile page).
2. If you can, connect with your customer with their help, that way you can ensure that you have found their profile and not somebody else with the same name.
3. Tag them in the picture.
4. Go to the picture sitting on their wall that you placed and say something along the lines of, “It was really great working with you. I really enjoyed the time we spent together at my workshop (or at your wedding), you are the reason why I enjoy what I do. Thank you for being one of my favorites!”
Because of the Law Of Reciprocation, which states that we, as human beings, feel an obligation to repay an action with a like action, your customer will return the favor and say something like, “It was great working with you as well! We’ve never had such a positive buying experience in our entire lives!”
Now take a look at what you have. There is a picture of you and your customer sitting on their Facebook wall for all of their friends to see. On top of their friends asking them questions about it they see the kind words that the said about you. Think about how powerful that is and the fact that one peer testimonial is worth two hundred traditional media impressions… that’s one awesome testimonial!
5. Don’t stop there. Go back to their page a few days later, thank them and say something along the lines of, “As you know it’s important to me that my customers feel comfortable enough with the way I treated them to send referrals my way. Let me ask you, do you feel comfortable enough, should the need ever arise, to refer somebody you know to come see me?”
Of course their going to say yes and now you have both a testimonial and a recommendation AND all of their Facebook connections can see it!
That’s powerful stuff and 80% of the time it works just like that.
Kev
Saturday, 28 January 2012
My TOP 20 Reasons to use Google Analytics
Further to my recent post on ANALYTICS!, the following are the TOP 20 reasons you should install Google Analytics
1. Setting Goals – If you don’t set goals, Google Analytics will not really help you grow your business. If your photography business has you shooting events, your goal is probably to find newly weds. If your business is teaching and mentoring, your goal is a registration to your newsletter and booking new students.
Once you have your business goals setup in Analytics, you are able to unleash a huge amount of data about what’s working and what’s not in your marketing efforts.
2. Comparing Date Ranges – In the old Analytics, there was no easy way to compare how your site is doing relative to a different point in time. In the current version, Google analytics allows you to compare two different time periods and chart them. This will allow you to identify growth or decline in your web traffic.
3. Deep Geographic Data – You can also see how your site is performing in a variety of ways by city or country. For example, users on my site in my geographical area spent 39.25% more time on my site last month, while the number of new visitors from the United Kingdom decreased by 24%.
4. Local Conversion Data – If you setup “conversion goals”, you can also see how well your site is converting in different locations. For a photographer, this means you can adjust your offers based on how they are performing geographically, much like photographers that had store fronts have done for years.
You can also buy geographically targeted AdWords for regions that seem to be producing sales for you more than others.
5. Bouncing visitors – This is a fancy way of saying “where do users bail out of your website?” By knowing this information, you can attempt to fix the parts that seem to be scaring users away.
6. Navigation Summary – This report shows how users maneuver through your site. For example, you can see where users go from the first page they land on, or how most of them get to your contact page. If people aren’t following your desired navigation, it means you need to re-arrange some things on your website to force users click the right spots.
7. Complete AdWords Integration – If you advertise through AdWords, Analytics will provide you data on each campaign, group, and keyword. More specifically, you can look at each of these areas and see the number of displays, clicks, the cost, conversion, and if it results in a transaction or another defined goal. You will then be able to calculate your ROI.
8. Customize Your Dashboard – The old “Executive Summary” has been replaced with a totally customizable Dashboard where any report can be added and arranged via drag and drop functionality. For example, if you want to see how a particular goal is converting each time you login, you can move this report to the Dashboard for quick access by clicking the “Add to Dashboard” link.
9. Email Reports – If you focused on marketing, chances are you prefer to receive reports in email rather than login and track things down in your analytics program. One of the key features of Analytics is the ability to setup reports, and schedule when and to whom they will automatically be sent.
10. Keyword Source – Knowing how customers find you are one of the most important questions in sales and marketing. Google Analytics tells you what search keywords people are using to find your site. If certain keywords are proving hot, you might want to consider catering keyword buys, content, and offers to them. This feature can also alert you to news and trends; for example, the #2 keyword phrase searched on my site last month was “500px vs smugmug”.
11. Referring Sites – This is a feature of any basic analytics program, but with Google Analytics you can not only see traffic, but goal conversion on the sites sending you traffic. Thus, you can get a read not only on the number of visitors a link partner is sending, but the quality of the traffic.
12. Browser Capabilities – Does your site not support Safari? Do your photos get skewed in the latest version of Firefox? Better make sure you’re not alienating a bunch of your users. Analytic’s Browser Capabilities feature let’s you see what browsers people use to view your site, and again, let’s you drill down to see how well users of different browsers convert against your goals. If those 0.57% of remaining Netscape users are converting like teenager girls at a Justin Bieber concert, better make sure your site supports them!
13. Connection Speeds Data – Connection speed data helps you determine how to prioritize your site’s design. If you still have a fair amount of people on dialup in your area, you may want to make your site a little less load heavy than if your site is all broadband users. For photographers, that means compressing the size of your images to allow for faster upload times.
14. Exclude Internal Traffic – Chances are you spend more time on your site than anyone else, which can skew your data if it’s not excluded. To make sure it’s not counted, Google lets you filter out traffic from IP addresses that you specify.
15. Visitor Loyalty – How often to your visitors come back? Reducing the percentage of people that only visit once should be one of your constant priorities, and Analytics let’s you track this piece of information over a specified date range.
The more a person comes to look at your images and services, chances are you have a better chance on converting them to a buying client.
16. Visitor Type Contribution – This dynamic pie chart tells you the contribution your returning visitors are making versus new ones. My testing showed that my return visitors load more pages and spend more time on my site and they bounce less than new visitors.
17. Search Engine Traffic – Knowing which search engines are sending the most traffic and how well its converting can help you optimize your spend and SEO efforts or purchase keywords on specific search engines. While Google will likely provide you the most traffic, if Yahoo or BING converts better, you might want to see how you can get more visitors from them.
18. Top Content – For each page on your site, Google Analytics will tell you how many times it has been viewed how much time the average visitor stays there, and how many people leave your site after visiting. If you have a popular page that everyone leaves after viewing, you should think about adding something attention grabbing on it.
19. Top Exit Pages – Knowing your trouble spots tells you where you need to improve, and Analytics lets you see your top exit points over a specified date range.
20. Export to PDF – For a nice clean file with Analytics data, you are now able to export reports into Adobe PDF format.
There are my top20 reasons to ad Google analytics to your website and help you grow your business. If you have any more to add, please feel free to comment below and add to this list.
1. Setting Goals – If you don’t set goals, Google Analytics will not really help you grow your business. If your photography business has you shooting events, your goal is probably to find newly weds. If your business is teaching and mentoring, your goal is a registration to your newsletter and booking new students.
Once you have your business goals setup in Analytics, you are able to unleash a huge amount of data about what’s working and what’s not in your marketing efforts.
2. Comparing Date Ranges – In the old Analytics, there was no easy way to compare how your site is doing relative to a different point in time. In the current version, Google analytics allows you to compare two different time periods and chart them. This will allow you to identify growth or decline in your web traffic.
3. Deep Geographic Data – You can also see how your site is performing in a variety of ways by city or country. For example, users on my site in my geographical area spent 39.25% more time on my site last month, while the number of new visitors from the United Kingdom decreased by 24%.
4. Local Conversion Data – If you setup “conversion goals”, you can also see how well your site is converting in different locations. For a photographer, this means you can adjust your offers based on how they are performing geographically, much like photographers that had store fronts have done for years.
You can also buy geographically targeted AdWords for regions that seem to be producing sales for you more than others.
5. Bouncing visitors – This is a fancy way of saying “where do users bail out of your website?” By knowing this information, you can attempt to fix the parts that seem to be scaring users away.
6. Navigation Summary – This report shows how users maneuver through your site. For example, you can see where users go from the first page they land on, or how most of them get to your contact page. If people aren’t following your desired navigation, it means you need to re-arrange some things on your website to force users click the right spots.
7. Complete AdWords Integration – If you advertise through AdWords, Analytics will provide you data on each campaign, group, and keyword. More specifically, you can look at each of these areas and see the number of displays, clicks, the cost, conversion, and if it results in a transaction or another defined goal. You will then be able to calculate your ROI.
8. Customize Your Dashboard – The old “Executive Summary” has been replaced with a totally customizable Dashboard where any report can be added and arranged via drag and drop functionality. For example, if you want to see how a particular goal is converting each time you login, you can move this report to the Dashboard for quick access by clicking the “Add to Dashboard” link.
9. Email Reports – If you focused on marketing, chances are you prefer to receive reports in email rather than login and track things down in your analytics program. One of the key features of Analytics is the ability to setup reports, and schedule when and to whom they will automatically be sent.
10. Keyword Source – Knowing how customers find you are one of the most important questions in sales and marketing. Google Analytics tells you what search keywords people are using to find your site. If certain keywords are proving hot, you might want to consider catering keyword buys, content, and offers to them. This feature can also alert you to news and trends; for example, the #2 keyword phrase searched on my site last month was “500px vs smugmug”.
11. Referring Sites – This is a feature of any basic analytics program, but with Google Analytics you can not only see traffic, but goal conversion on the sites sending you traffic. Thus, you can get a read not only on the number of visitors a link partner is sending, but the quality of the traffic.
12. Browser Capabilities – Does your site not support Safari? Do your photos get skewed in the latest version of Firefox? Better make sure you’re not alienating a bunch of your users. Analytic’s Browser Capabilities feature let’s you see what browsers people use to view your site, and again, let’s you drill down to see how well users of different browsers convert against your goals. If those 0.57% of remaining Netscape users are converting like teenager girls at a Justin Bieber concert, better make sure your site supports them!
13. Connection Speeds Data – Connection speed data helps you determine how to prioritize your site’s design. If you still have a fair amount of people on dialup in your area, you may want to make your site a little less load heavy than if your site is all broadband users. For photographers, that means compressing the size of your images to allow for faster upload times.
14. Exclude Internal Traffic – Chances are you spend more time on your site than anyone else, which can skew your data if it’s not excluded. To make sure it’s not counted, Google lets you filter out traffic from IP addresses that you specify.
15. Visitor Loyalty – How often to your visitors come back? Reducing the percentage of people that only visit once should be one of your constant priorities, and Analytics let’s you track this piece of information over a specified date range.
The more a person comes to look at your images and services, chances are you have a better chance on converting them to a buying client.
16. Visitor Type Contribution – This dynamic pie chart tells you the contribution your returning visitors are making versus new ones. My testing showed that my return visitors load more pages and spend more time on my site and they bounce less than new visitors.
17. Search Engine Traffic – Knowing which search engines are sending the most traffic and how well its converting can help you optimize your spend and SEO efforts or purchase keywords on specific search engines. While Google will likely provide you the most traffic, if Yahoo or BING converts better, you might want to see how you can get more visitors from them.
18. Top Content – For each page on your site, Google Analytics will tell you how many times it has been viewed how much time the average visitor stays there, and how many people leave your site after visiting. If you have a popular page that everyone leaves after viewing, you should think about adding something attention grabbing on it.
19. Top Exit Pages – Knowing your trouble spots tells you where you need to improve, and Analytics lets you see your top exit points over a specified date range.
20. Export to PDF – For a nice clean file with Analytics data, you are now able to export reports into Adobe PDF format.
There are my top20 reasons to ad Google analytics to your website and help you grow your business. If you have any more to add, please feel free to comment below and add to this list.
Friday, 27 January 2012
The importance of an analytical tool for a photographers website
Analytics… without a measurement “yard stick” how are you ever going to know what is working on your website and what is not working? Are you ever going to know who is looking at your photos? Do you know what visitors do when they look at your content on your website? Where are your website visitors coming from? Have you ever wondered why people are looking at my photos or services, but not buying anything from you? Are you posting the proper size of photos online to fill up a user’s entire screen? What programs are your users using to access the internet with, and is your site optimized for various web browsers?
If you would like to know the answers to these questions, you should consider an analytics tool to help you get those answers.
Let’s think of it this way… You take a photo and are proud of it. You blast out a photo to your Twitter followers, you then post that same photo on your Facebook profile for all your friends to see, and maybe you have a Google+ account that you want to share your photo on… OK, done, you did all that… now what?
If you are serious about photography as a business, you should know exactly how many people clicked on that link you put out on those three websites, what these people did on your site when there, and ultimately did they contact you to buy something.
Of course, the above paragraph is simplified, but basically, that’s what you want to be doing. I know that every time I post a blog entry on Twitter I get 8% to 9% of my followers coming to my website to read my BLOG. I know how long they spent reading, I know if they looked at anything else, and I monitor the questions or comments that come from this online traffic.
I also know that every time I post a link on Linkedin of a new BLOG post that I get on average of 30 views within the first day of posting it on LinkedIn. I then track the residual visits over the next 30 days. I see that every time I post on LinkedIn I average 100 people coming to read that blog post. Plus, I track what else they did.
Without going into a longer dissertation about all the places I post and what traffic I get to my website; let’s just say that I have it down to a science. I know, within a small margin of error how many website visitors I will get by throwing website content out into the internet on various places.
To add to this, every time I sell something, a photo, get a client for a workshop or a mentor program; I ask one simple question, “How did you find me?”
By asking that question I put the final piece of the puzzle together, my conversion ratio. By doing that I know what social media and what mass marketing initiative is working. It then becomes a numbers game. The more I focus on what’s working, the more money I make, the more camera gear I can buy, the closer I get to achieve my goal.
So how the heck can you get that kind of measurement on your website?
Google Analytics provides you, the photographer, a powerful tracking for monitoring your web presence. It's one of the most effective and free, web analytics solutions on the market today.
Google Analytics shows you how people found your site, how they explored it, where they came from and where they went after they visited your website. Through this information you will spot trends and you will be able to adjust how your content is displayed and inevitably enhance their visitor experience, ultimately improving your return on investment, increase conversion ratios, and make more money on the web.
As a business owner you will be able to understand (1) which marketing initiatives are being most effective, (2) what are the traffic patterns on your website and (3) which customer segments are most valuable to you for generating revenue. Throw on your marketing hat and you will be able to see where your visitors are coming from and what they do while they are on your website, help you understand how to convert more visitors to customers and which marketing spend is most effective in sending people to your website.
To sign up for Google Analytics, you should ensure you have an account with Google and visit this page, GOOGLE ANALYTICS SET-UP
Once you begin to register your website for Google analytics you must first ensure that you place your Google Analytics tracking code on your web pages. Between Google and you’re your website provider, they will help you. Google Analytics code is a small JavaScript snippet that needs to be added to each page of your site, either manually or through the use of plugins or tool.
For the more advanced web user, you want to install this code manually into your pages, copy and paste the code segment into the bottom of your content, immediately before the body tag of each page that you wish to track.
For a person that just read this previous sentence and didn’t understand what I just said; get your webmaster involved. However, sites like smugmug have a simple interface where you can just grab your analytics code from Google and paste it into a place on your smugmug account. It will not be immediate, but in a day or so, your account will be live and you will be tracking visitors to your site in a much more advanced and effective way.
To conclude, measurement is key to success. It helps you obtain goals, it aids you in creating a better user experience, and it will ultimately help you generate more income.
I hope this helps give you some direction with analytics and puts you on a better path for success. If you would like to hear more, please contact me on twitter @kpepphotography or email me on my Contact Me! page of my website.
If you would like to know the answers to these questions, you should consider an analytics tool to help you get those answers.
Let’s think of it this way… You take a photo and are proud of it. You blast out a photo to your Twitter followers, you then post that same photo on your Facebook profile for all your friends to see, and maybe you have a Google+ account that you want to share your photo on… OK, done, you did all that… now what?
If you are serious about photography as a business, you should know exactly how many people clicked on that link you put out on those three websites, what these people did on your site when there, and ultimately did they contact you to buy something.
Of course, the above paragraph is simplified, but basically, that’s what you want to be doing. I know that every time I post a blog entry on Twitter I get 8% to 9% of my followers coming to my website to read my BLOG. I know how long they spent reading, I know if they looked at anything else, and I monitor the questions or comments that come from this online traffic.
I also know that every time I post a link on Linkedin of a new BLOG post that I get on average of 30 views within the first day of posting it on LinkedIn. I then track the residual visits over the next 30 days. I see that every time I post on LinkedIn I average 100 people coming to read that blog post. Plus, I track what else they did.
Without going into a longer dissertation about all the places I post and what traffic I get to my website; let’s just say that I have it down to a science. I know, within a small margin of error how many website visitors I will get by throwing website content out into the internet on various places.
To add to this, every time I sell something, a photo, get a client for a workshop or a mentor program; I ask one simple question, “How did you find me?”
By asking that question I put the final piece of the puzzle together, my conversion ratio. By doing that I know what social media and what mass marketing initiative is working. It then becomes a numbers game. The more I focus on what’s working, the more money I make, the more camera gear I can buy, the closer I get to achieve my goal.
So how the heck can you get that kind of measurement on your website?
Google Analytics provides you, the photographer, a powerful tracking for monitoring your web presence. It's one of the most effective and free, web analytics solutions on the market today.
Google Analytics shows you how people found your site, how they explored it, where they came from and where they went after they visited your website. Through this information you will spot trends and you will be able to adjust how your content is displayed and inevitably enhance their visitor experience, ultimately improving your return on investment, increase conversion ratios, and make more money on the web.
As a business owner you will be able to understand (1) which marketing initiatives are being most effective, (2) what are the traffic patterns on your website and (3) which customer segments are most valuable to you for generating revenue. Throw on your marketing hat and you will be able to see where your visitors are coming from and what they do while they are on your website, help you understand how to convert more visitors to customers and which marketing spend is most effective in sending people to your website.
To sign up for Google Analytics, you should ensure you have an account with Google and visit this page, GOOGLE ANALYTICS SET-UP
Once you begin to register your website for Google analytics you must first ensure that you place your Google Analytics tracking code on your web pages. Between Google and you’re your website provider, they will help you. Google Analytics code is a small JavaScript snippet that needs to be added to each page of your site, either manually or through the use of plugins or tool.
For the more advanced web user, you want to install this code manually into your pages, copy and paste the code segment into the bottom of your content, immediately before the body tag of each page that you wish to track.
For a person that just read this previous sentence and didn’t understand what I just said; get your webmaster involved. However, sites like smugmug have a simple interface where you can just grab your analytics code from Google and paste it into a place on your smugmug account. It will not be immediate, but in a day or so, your account will be live and you will be tracking visitors to your site in a much more advanced and effective way.
To conclude, measurement is key to success. It helps you obtain goals, it aids you in creating a better user experience, and it will ultimately help you generate more income.
I hope this helps give you some direction with analytics and puts you on a better path for success. If you would like to hear more, please contact me on twitter @kpepphotography or email me on my Contact Me! page of my website.
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
How do you handle a "Negative Online Review"
So you are doing what I call, "Reputation Management". You are doing searches online for your name and company name. You want to find out what people are saying you and your company on all your social media websites, Google Place Page, blogs or forums that you might belong to.
In the process of doing this search you find a negative review posted somewhere online. Someone has posted a negative experience about dealing with your company… it’s out there for everyone to see and you are faced with what to do.
You have three decisions… (1) Ignore it and hope that no one sees the post online. (2) Try and get it deleted from the site it is on. (3) Address the negative review with a response as the owner of the business.
If you choose to ignore the post online you run the risk of it going viral and costing you business.
If you choose to get it deleted the person that wrote the negative review has not been dealt with. You run the risk of irritating them and posting negative reviews in even more locations.
But, if you choose to address the negative comment online in a straight forward and honest way, addressing their concerns, point by point, offering a refund or a discount you may just win over a client that was spreading negativity. Plus, others that see the original post and your response. They will see that you care about your clients concerns and want to make good to anyone that feels an injustice has been done.
I have seen examples of this all the time… addressing the concern head on and leaving it online is always the best policy.
Of course, you can choose to deal with a negative review online however you want. But based on my 10 years of experience, mentoring and teaching businesses to be successful online, point #3 is my suggestion.
In the process of doing this search you find a negative review posted somewhere online. Someone has posted a negative experience about dealing with your company… it’s out there for everyone to see and you are faced with what to do.
You have three decisions… (1) Ignore it and hope that no one sees the post online. (2) Try and get it deleted from the site it is on. (3) Address the negative review with a response as the owner of the business.
If you choose to ignore the post online you run the risk of it going viral and costing you business.
If you choose to get it deleted the person that wrote the negative review has not been dealt with. You run the risk of irritating them and posting negative reviews in even more locations.
But, if you choose to address the negative comment online in a straight forward and honest way, addressing their concerns, point by point, offering a refund or a discount you may just win over a client that was spreading negativity. Plus, others that see the original post and your response. They will see that you care about your clients concerns and want to make good to anyone that feels an injustice has been done.
I have seen examples of this all the time… addressing the concern head on and leaving it online is always the best policy.
Of course, you can choose to deal with a negative review online however you want. But based on my 10 years of experience, mentoring and teaching businesses to be successful online, point #3 is my suggestion.
Drive More Traffic to Your Website
I am here to tell you that it is possible for a small photography business to generate traffic to your website with a few simple initiatives.
The following are ten simple strategies to boost your visibility online.
1. Add a blog. Blogging isn’t just another task on your To-Do list; it’s a very effective way to attract more traffic to your website. When you update your blog on a regular basis (ideally once or twice a week), your site becomes more relevant with the search engines because you are updating the content often.
Each blog post gives the search engines another reason to find your site. Using photography as an example, if you were to write a blog post about how to find a location to shoot or a tutorial on style, the next time someone searched for that phrase, it is much more likely that the post would come up in Google. Not convinced? Try blogging regularly for 30 days, twice a week and then search Google for key phrases from your blog entries or website!
2. Share your blog posts via your other online initiatives. If you’re still wondering what the heck to share on your Facebook and Twitter, Google+ etc, your blog holds the answers. After writing a new post, share the title—along with a link back to your website—on your social media networks and watch the traffic rise! As your social media audience grows, so will the number of visitors to your site.
3. Feature other people on your blog. Consider adding guest blogs or interviews with people from your industry. Not only will you easily increase your blog content, your subjects will also share the news with their social media networks, thereby increasing your reach.
4. Comment on other people’s blogs. Adding a comment to a blog (like this one!) has many advantages. First, most blogs allow you to include a link back to your website, which readers can click to view your site. Believe it or not, you gain exposure with other readers of the blog.
It also increases your own website’s relevance in Google since Google gives favoritism to sites that have more incoming links, especially from high traffic websites.
5. Ratchet up your keywords on your web content. With each and every page on your website you have a chance to lure in visitors simply by using the right keywords. The goal here is to determine what keywords your prospects would use to find your site, and then incorporate them into your pages Meta tags and content.
For each Web page, add a key phrase (series of keywords) to the page title, page description, and page URL. Also repeat the phrase two or three times within the text on the page. Trust me; this will make a huge difference.
For your images, go into the properties of the photo and ensure that every image is labeled with keywords that you want to be discovered under. Here is an example. You put up a photo of a “Bald Eagle”. Your keywords that you label this image with are as follows, (Bald eagle, British Columbia, Fraser river, autumn, kevin pepper, kpep photography, olympus e30, 50-200 Zuiko lens, Canadian landscape photographer, nature photographer, professional olympus photographer, bird of prey in flight, Haliaeetus leucocephalus) What I have done here is made sure that I labeled the image with location, subject, photographer and gear used to ensure I have covered all the bases.
6. Increase the number of web pages within your site. Since each page on your website can include a keyword phrase, adding more pages can help capture more visitors. For example, if you’re a wedding photographer that offers services in different cities, create a page for each city and include a phrase like “Wedding photographer in Denver.” You could take this a step further and create additional pages for “Hire a wedding photographer in Denver” and “What Can you expect to pay for a Wedding Photographer in Denver.”
7. Update your website with new information often. Have an event coming up or going on a trip of a lifetime? Announce it on your website. New workshop launched? Feature it on your home page. New phooto taken? Get it online. Your site should be updated often to give visitors a reason to return again and again. Repeat visits are just as important as unique visitors to generate more revenue through your website.
8. Find a partner and co-promote. One great way to generate new visitors is to leverage traffic from other sites. Find a partner who reaches a similar target audience and collaborate on a campaign. You could swap coupons and promote to your respective audiences. You might host a contest together or even a big event—one that requires registration on your website! The possibilities are endless once you make time to brainstorm and create a win-win situation for all parties involved.
9. Monitor what people are saying out there about you. It would serve you well to do some proactive research on what people are saying about you out there in the internet. Every month I Google my name and my business to see what is being said about me. I go on Twitter and search for comments made with my name in them and i also check who is following me and what is being favored.
You can never be too careful with reputation management. I actually recently found out some people I assumed were friends for the past three years, people who I believed to be trusted and went on photographic outings with, have been publicly discussing the validity of my claims of where I say I have been published. After talking to a lawyer, and showing him samples of my published work, I asked about my options. I learned it can be construed to be slander. It’s a slippery slope and a legal discussion you should have with a lawyer before pursuing, so think of the costs and ramifications before proceeding.
Personally I decided to post it on here. That way when they read this post, they know I am aware. It is far less expensive than hiring a lawyer to send a cease and desist letter and it leaves me open to launch a lawsuit at a later date if it hinders my ability to generate income.
I mean seriously, did they these people not think I would hear? Did they really think I would lie about where I was published? Especially on my website that I use to promote a business that I want to create a future with?
In my opinioin, its petty jealousy from people that wish they could put themselves out there, but lack the self confidence to do so. But I do wish them all luck in their own future endeavors, whatever they may be.
So my point here, you can never be too careful online. Even people you think you know may say things that could have long lasting negative effects on your ability to generate an income.
10. Social Media. It’s a common theme throughout the TOP 10 here. But it’s worth a point on its own. Twitter, Facebook, DIGG, Google+, all are social media companies that can easily direct traffic back to your website.
I would ensure you are doing what is called “Deep Linking”. Make sure your links on your social media site go directly to the content you are referring to in your post. Taking them to your home page will do you a disservice because they will click away. Driving them to specific and relevant content will lessen your bounce rates.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me by contacting me through my CONTACT ME! page
The following are ten simple strategies to boost your visibility online.
1. Add a blog. Blogging isn’t just another task on your To-Do list; it’s a very effective way to attract more traffic to your website. When you update your blog on a regular basis (ideally once or twice a week), your site becomes more relevant with the search engines because you are updating the content often.
Each blog post gives the search engines another reason to find your site. Using photography as an example, if you were to write a blog post about how to find a location to shoot or a tutorial on style, the next time someone searched for that phrase, it is much more likely that the post would come up in Google. Not convinced? Try blogging regularly for 30 days, twice a week and then search Google for key phrases from your blog entries or website!
2. Share your blog posts via your other online initiatives. If you’re still wondering what the heck to share on your Facebook and Twitter, Google+ etc, your blog holds the answers. After writing a new post, share the title—along with a link back to your website—on your social media networks and watch the traffic rise! As your social media audience grows, so will the number of visitors to your site.
3. Feature other people on your blog. Consider adding guest blogs or interviews with people from your industry. Not only will you easily increase your blog content, your subjects will also share the news with their social media networks, thereby increasing your reach.
4. Comment on other people’s blogs. Adding a comment to a blog (like this one!) has many advantages. First, most blogs allow you to include a link back to your website, which readers can click to view your site. Believe it or not, you gain exposure with other readers of the blog.
It also increases your own website’s relevance in Google since Google gives favoritism to sites that have more incoming links, especially from high traffic websites.
5. Ratchet up your keywords on your web content. With each and every page on your website you have a chance to lure in visitors simply by using the right keywords. The goal here is to determine what keywords your prospects would use to find your site, and then incorporate them into your pages Meta tags and content.
For each Web page, add a key phrase (series of keywords) to the page title, page description, and page URL. Also repeat the phrase two or three times within the text on the page. Trust me; this will make a huge difference.
For your images, go into the properties of the photo and ensure that every image is labeled with keywords that you want to be discovered under. Here is an example. You put up a photo of a “Bald Eagle”. Your keywords that you label this image with are as follows, (Bald eagle, British Columbia, Fraser river, autumn, kevin pepper, kpep photography, olympus e30, 50-200 Zuiko lens, Canadian landscape photographer, nature photographer, professional olympus photographer, bird of prey in flight, Haliaeetus leucocephalus) What I have done here is made sure that I labeled the image with location, subject, photographer and gear used to ensure I have covered all the bases.
6. Increase the number of web pages within your site. Since each page on your website can include a keyword phrase, adding more pages can help capture more visitors. For example, if you’re a wedding photographer that offers services in different cities, create a page for each city and include a phrase like “Wedding photographer in Denver.” You could take this a step further and create additional pages for “Hire a wedding photographer in Denver” and “What Can you expect to pay for a Wedding Photographer in Denver.”
7. Update your website with new information often. Have an event coming up or going on a trip of a lifetime? Announce it on your website. New workshop launched? Feature it on your home page. New phooto taken? Get it online. Your site should be updated often to give visitors a reason to return again and again. Repeat visits are just as important as unique visitors to generate more revenue through your website.
8. Find a partner and co-promote. One great way to generate new visitors is to leverage traffic from other sites. Find a partner who reaches a similar target audience and collaborate on a campaign. You could swap coupons and promote to your respective audiences. You might host a contest together or even a big event—one that requires registration on your website! The possibilities are endless once you make time to brainstorm and create a win-win situation for all parties involved.
9. Monitor what people are saying out there about you. It would serve you well to do some proactive research on what people are saying about you out there in the internet. Every month I Google my name and my business to see what is being said about me. I go on Twitter and search for comments made with my name in them and i also check who is following me and what is being favored.
You can never be too careful with reputation management. I actually recently found out some people I assumed were friends for the past three years, people who I believed to be trusted and went on photographic outings with, have been publicly discussing the validity of my claims of where I say I have been published. After talking to a lawyer, and showing him samples of my published work, I asked about my options. I learned it can be construed to be slander. It’s a slippery slope and a legal discussion you should have with a lawyer before pursuing, so think of the costs and ramifications before proceeding.
Personally I decided to post it on here. That way when they read this post, they know I am aware. It is far less expensive than hiring a lawyer to send a cease and desist letter and it leaves me open to launch a lawsuit at a later date if it hinders my ability to generate income.
I mean seriously, did they these people not think I would hear? Did they really think I would lie about where I was published? Especially on my website that I use to promote a business that I want to create a future with?
In my opinioin, its petty jealousy from people that wish they could put themselves out there, but lack the self confidence to do so. But I do wish them all luck in their own future endeavors, whatever they may be.
So my point here, you can never be too careful online. Even people you think you know may say things that could have long lasting negative effects on your ability to generate an income.
10. Social Media. It’s a common theme throughout the TOP 10 here. But it’s worth a point on its own. Twitter, Facebook, DIGG, Google+, all are social media companies that can easily direct traffic back to your website.
I would ensure you are doing what is called “Deep Linking”. Make sure your links on your social media site go directly to the content you are referring to in your post. Taking them to your home page will do you a disservice because they will click away. Driving them to specific and relevant content will lessen your bounce rates.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me by contacting me through my CONTACT ME! page
Friday, 20 January 2012
How Important is the Internet and Social Media for a photographers business
Here are a few stats that I wanted to share with you...
36% of consumers depend on social media to make purchase decisions
49% of canadians use social media every day
1/4 of consumers prefer co's that use social media
50% of active facebook users login every day
More than 250 million photos uploaded on facebook every day
Mobile already generates 7 - 10% of your web traffic without a proactive mobile marketing initiative
36% of people doing mobile searches online take action immediately, 39% within the hour
Today, one in seven searches on Google are on Mobile. Is your website optimized for searches done on smart phones?
85% of people using search click on a Pay per click (PPC) ad less than once a mth
Your clients are 4x more likely to engage in the sales process if you respond to an email in under 5 minutes
36% of consumers depend on social media to make purchase decisions
49% of canadians use social media every day
1/4 of consumers prefer co's that use social media
50% of active facebook users login every day
More than 250 million photos uploaded on facebook every day
Mobile already generates 7 - 10% of your web traffic without a proactive mobile marketing initiative
36% of people doing mobile searches online take action immediately, 39% within the hour
Today, one in seven searches on Google are on Mobile. Is your website optimized for searches done on smart phones?
85% of people using search click on a Pay per click (PPC) ad less than once a mth
Your clients are 4x more likely to engage in the sales process if you respond to an email in under 5 minutes
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