Tag Archives: website maker

How hard is your floor?

Mentally grooming your clients begins before they enter your door, but let’s focus on that moment.

The door opens, their foot hits the carpet/wood/tile/marble and they take in their surroundings. The old saying is that the harder the floor, the more the client expects to pay, but this happens in the subconscious level.

When you walk into Kohl’s, you see lots of clothes piled into too few of shelf space. This is done on purpose because clutter says “deals” in our subconscious. There are always discounts and you expect a bargain. In contrast, if you walk into a Lacoste store, their products are much more scarce, and MUCH higher priced, but that’s OK for the buyer, because it is expected because of the presentation.

What is your client’s first impression? Do they see your best images displayed in different ways throughout the studio? Are they experiencing something cool they will want to tell their friends about?

You don’t (necessarily) have to tear out your carpet and instal a marble floor, lets get real. You do have to get people excited when they walk in. Let them know right away they are going to love the experience. Good luck!

SEO keywords for photographers, make a list and check it twice

When it comes to SEO keywords or phrases for photographers, don’t just use every SEO phrase you can think of. This will result in a bunch of mediocrity when what you need is a dash of domination.

We advise our photographers to make a list of 3-5 search terms where they want their site to show up in the first page. You can do a little research to see how many people are fighting to appear under the same terms by doing the search yourself or calling us up if you are a MorePhotos client. This is important because you don’t want to go for “Dallas Photography” if you don’t have a large budget and lots of time. (Edgy senior portraits in (Dallas suburb)) will get you much further.

When you do a blog post or write the “About Us” page on your site or add new images, or make any changes at all, insert your phrases where you can. Just remember that readability to the end user is always first priority.

Outdoors Child Portraits
Outdoor Child Portraits Traverse City

While it might be tempting to tag this photo with “Ella by the woodpile”, “Outdoor Child Portraits Traverse City” will get you much further because that is what someone might enter into Google or Yahoo or Bing.

Bringing your site to page 1 for 3 SEO Keywords or phrases is WAY more effective than bringing your site to page 6 for 100 different keywords or phrases for your photography site. Write them down and focus in like your aperture is at 1.2. You will do really well with the chosen phrases.

Photographing in a DIY society

With a little help from Google, there are not many projects that can’t be tackled by yourself with a little time, like powering your skateboard with a cordless drill.

Well, photography isn’t much different for some. Many people are willing to study the basics themselves and and take a simple family shot, and some may be happy with that. That’s fine, because you are willing to do what they are not.

What is the DIY person not willing to do? This is what you have to do. What are you not willing to do? You just might have to push yourself to do that as well.

Natural light is awesome, but you can’t get a photo like this with just natural light:

shot with outside flash
                                                                 Shot with outside flash.                  -Image provided by ShirkPhotography.com

The average Do it Yourselfer won’t carry around portable Lumedyne flashes or put a couch in the back of their truck and haul it to a river to nail the perfect family portrait shot for an adventurous family. They’re not willing to study the nuances of lighting techniques relentlessly and how to compose a shot for a 20×30 vs a 20×10 vs a 5×7. The list goes on and on, but I think you’re getting the point.

Do the easy and fun stuff because it is easy and fun, but also dig into the challenging stuff because it will make you better, more valuable, and more creative. The tough stuff today will be the fun stuff tomorrow, creating more separation between you and the competition.