Fast Food Friday...for Professional Photographers

Four years ago I ran a series of posts that were quick tips on building a stronger presence on your website, blog, and marketing. It's time to bring them back!

We're halfway through February and the slow season for most of you. It's the perfect time to work on components of your business that need a lift. Welcome to Fast Food Friday! 

Today your Internet presence is the equivalent of a bricks and mortar business just a few years ago. It's your storefront and important to make a visit to your cyberspace real estate a memorable experience. Just like those stores, you like to shop at most; you have a choice.

Take the time over the weekend and let's start cleaning up those dusty corners of your business ignored for far too long. Let's do everything we can NOW to help make 2018 the best year yet.

​The difference between "survive" and "thrive" is just a few letters combined with some well-placed energy!

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Cleaning Up the Images on Your Website

• NEVER put up an image that's less than your best! Every photograph needs to be a "wow" image, meaning it's so strong it's the only one you'd have to show to get hired.
• You don't need more than ten images in a category to demonstrate your skill set.

• Wedding photographers - you don't need to break out a wedding in multiple categories. Everybody knows how a wedding unfolds.

• Show images that as a group tell a story.

• Demonstrate your skill set by showing different techniques.

• If you're going to show an entire wedding, then do it by showing actual album pages. This demonstrates your ability to tell a story.

• In most cases, if an image is over two years old get it off your site. Keep your images fresh.

• Keep your galleries in themes - for example: showing landscape shots because it's your passion together with children's portraits will only confuse your clients.
• Don't "biggy-size" your images - this isn't Burger King. Keeping images at an equivalent of 5x7 is plenty. Now and then somebody wants to give me images that fill my screen. It's distracting and most of the time won't show your work the way it deserves to be seen.
• Pay attention to where the fold hits your images.
• Give people click-on thumbnails, allowing them to see all the work your presenting in one category rather than just one image at a time.
• Don't repeat shots of the same people over and over again in non-wedding galleries. If you want people to consider you for seniors for example, you need to demonstrate your skills with more than just one model. 

• ALWAYS make sure you have the rights to post each image - That means it's in your contract with the client or you have a signed model release.
• Test your site a few times a week on different browsers to make sure it's loading properly and looking the way it should.