spotlight on search engine optimization

SPAA (sports) & PSPA (school) Photographers
Weigh in on Using the Web to Get More Business
by Kerry Raminiak

Last month I was given the honor of presenting to both sports and school photographers the advantages of using online tools to improve business. More than 200 people participated and asked a lot of great questions… So great, I thought I should make it a newsletter feature for all of our readers to take advantage of.

To start off, let me preface that you can download a copy of the PowerPoint presentations (in PDF format) by clicking the links to the right. The PSPA program allowed me to work with Jeanmarie Richardson of The Digital Architects whom develops custom intranet tools. (So when you look at that presentation, called 'Winning with the Web,' keep in mind there was about 15 minutes dedicated to intranet case studies that are similar to DARKROOM Assembly Edition at the very beginning. The rest of the presentation is all about online marketing tips that run the gamut from building a new website from scratch to improving your SEO.)

The PSPA program allowed me to work with Diane Murphy, a great friend of PhotoReflect and very successful sport event and team and individual photographer. Her company, Tintype, is the Chicago-land leader in this type of photography and her expertise was a great highlight to our presentation. Di’s tutorial session was the warm up to my online presentation and it is also available for download.

so without further ado, let’s talk online marketing basics
The first thing to understand is that a key part of your business marketing should include some online component. It’s just the state of the world that your future customers will want to learn about your work before even contacting you and online searches (via Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) are typically their first act of researching a photography provider.

The second thing to consider is that selling re-orders or special products online serves you in two ways: First, it is an additional means of revenue and secondly, the more photos you publish and the more clicks you get will improve your internet search results rankings.

Therefore, you should not only be online, you should do as much as you can to improve your search engine rankings. If you are a pro at knowing how to improve you search engine rankings you are in fantastic shape. Put it into practice and you should see new business steadily come in. If you're not a “pro,” keep reading.

so let's start by instantly improving your site’s credibility... Whether you are using PhotoReflect or your own website, you should always have some sort of photo rotation on your “home” page and those photo choices should be updated on a semi-regular basis. When I worked as a website consultant, I often told people to remember to update their homepage images to get business for tomorrow because the people you shot today are already impressed with your work. What this means is that if you are a sports photographer and it’s currently baseball season, the people you are trying to impress today are researching you for upcoming work when baseball season is over. The same goes for portrait photographers when I recommend that you update your site with family holiday portraits in September -- not December. TIP #1 is to update your portfolio pages with your best shots of the upcoming season not of the season you just shot.

with that quick tip in mind, we're ready to discuss search engine optimization (SEO)... While on your home page remember you are (automatically with a PhotoReflect site) publishing links to photos you shot recently. When you title those catalogs it is very important to be clear so your current online customers can find what they are looking for. It is also important to remember that the titles of these links can play a factor in improving your SEO. Consider how the school, team or event calls themselves on their websites. Do they use an acronym? Use that same acronym in your catalog title. Do they call their spring event something special like, for example a “Spring Swing”? Use “Spring Swing” in the catalog title as well! Why, you ask? TIP #2 is to remember that search engines are trying to connect your links with other links on the world wide web. If your link titles are similar to other links your customer’s use to describe the event, Google, for example, will recognize this and reward your search engine rankings whenever someone searches for that topic online. This brings me to mention that when other people link to your website, your search engine rankings will improve. It’s actually the single best thing you can do to not only improve your search engine rankings, but also improve business overall. Links promoting your online storefront or website from other, reliable sources, gives you instant credibility. It was actually Di Murphy’s idea that inspired my TIP #3: Negotiate pictures for links with your school, and event clients (and even other event vendors). If they have a website, tell them you will give them a certain number of great pictures in exchange for linking to your site and/or online storefront. Before you deliver the pictures, make sure they have everything set up for your approval or get this deal in writing within your contract. And finally, keep in mind that you can create your own links to your site, thus, improving your SEO. Blogger and WordPress are free blogging tools that are very easy to use and that will allow you to promote your most recent event or photo catalogs. So are Facebook Fan pages (these are different than regular Facebook pages, so look into the difference before starting) and Twitter. Just remember to watermark your photos in these arenas. Unlike PhotoReflect, blog sites will not protect your sites from right-clicking thieves. I like to watermark my photos with text that says “buy this photo and more at mysite.photoreflect.com.” TIP #4: Improve your SEO by linking those photos to your site, linking to your site within the body of your blog post, and using the event name and location (just as you did when defining how to title your event catalog for publishing) in the TITLE of the blog post. that all said... ... keep in mind that search engine optimization is the topic of countless books and consultancies. These four tips will allow search engines to connect the dots between the last event you shot and the school and event client catalogs you just created and published to PhotoReflect, thus, improving searches that relate to those topics.
		this is a slide of the "Selling Sports Photography Online" presentation that is available for download (PDF) above.
		this is a slide of the "Selling Sports Photography Online" presentation that is available for download (PDF) above.
		this is a slide of the "Selling Sports Photography Online" presentation that is available for download (PDF) above.

The more events you publish following these four rules, the more credibility you receive with the search engines. The impact is exponential. Today you can be the highest ranking for “wrestling photos Austin.” Next week you can be highest ranking for “baseball photos San Antonio highschool.” Over time, the search engines will make the connection that you are the “best sports photographer in Central Texas.” The same goes for wedding photographers that publish engagement portraits in Honolulu, then a wedding reception in Oahu, and so on, thus helping you ultimately become the highest ranked “wedding photographer in Hawaii.”

These four tips are free and easy to do if you put them into practice regularly. Everything you put online is a way to improve business simply by making it easier to find you and establishing credible references from everyone you do business with. Just remember, before you click “publish” you have a say in how you are found online tomorrow. Good luck!

* * * * * * * * * *