Expert: Wedding Photographics - 12/8/2007

Question
Hi John,
I'm a photographer in Kentucky with a studio in my home.  I've been in business about 2 years. Just wondering if you can provide me with tips to make my website and general marketing more effective?

Answer
Hi Mark,

Thanks for your photography questions. I don't know what your specific marketing efforts currently consist of, but this is what works for me.

As far as the website is concerned, I have made my website at http://www.weddingphotographics.net very search engine friendly by my use of meta tags and through the development of effective key words.

A few website owners and/or blog owners sometimes brag on their sites and/or blogs about receiving some "large" numbers of hits.  But getting a lot of hits which are USELESS doesn't accomplish anything.  In fact, it can cost you money out of your own pocket in terms of certain hosting packages and certain premium online site statistic services which charge more after a certain number of hits.

I personally enjoy SiteMeter at www.sitemeter.com for the great balance of price and features. To keep competitors from benefiting from my SiteMeter reports, I keep the sitemeter invisible in my webpages and reports private.  (The sitemeter code can be viewed in the source code making it possible for internet savvy surfers to try to view my sitemeter reports).

In order to make hits to your site more targeted and useful to wedding photographers, it is my opinion to simply make your website search engine friendly.  If you have money to spend on advertising, then pay for advertising on large bridal websites like www.theknot.com and others which also publish national or regional hard print magazines and promote their websites effectively.  This can result in very targeted hits to your site as well as possibly hits from higher end brides.  Of course, you won't benefit from visits by higher end brides unless those brides perceive you as a high end photographer.

As far as networking with other wedding vendors in your area.  It has been my experience over 25 years that this works very little.  I don't know how many times I've had florists, caterers and others ask me for FREE photographs.  They will promise to put your pictures on display with a credit line and send brides your way.  NOT!  Now when another professional vendor offers to pay some reasonable fee for your services, then that is probably someone worth talking with!  First, its simply professional courtesy.  That's the kind of people I like to be around anyway.  Second, they know it is a business tax right-off.  With other professionals like this, I LOVE to develop cross-promotions.  I know they are serious about business, they know I'm serious about business, together we can offer cross-promotions to get us new business that each of us could not have acquired alone.

Well, hope there is some useful information here. I provide website design, search engine optimization and a other internet marketing services. Call or email me to discuss details if you would be interested. Thanks again for your photography questions.  Let me know if any ideas here worked for you.  Best regards,

John Wilson
Wedding Photographer
http://www.weddingphotographics.net
423-468-9621