This is the first video in my series on creating a wedding photography Web site that sells. In this post, we address search-engine optimization and generating free offers to capture email addresses and other information from your site’s visitors.
- Stop Running Your Photography Business Like a Hobby
- Get Local Publicity for Your Wedding Photography Business
- Wedding Photographers: Be Yourself to Be a Bride Magnet
- Too Much Work? Stop Complaining and Start Growing Your Photography Business
- Wedding Photographers, Go Beyond Facebook and Twitter in Your Social Media Strategy
February 1st, 2011 at 12:33 am
While I agree that you want people to find you (SEO) I'm not sure the best idea is to always move away from the best presentation technology (Flash) - especially given we are such a image-driven industry. But, of course, it's going to depend on what your particular niche is. Looking forward to future videos...
February 3rd, 2011 at 3:52 pm
It's not just image-driven. The brides also must be able to find you, which does mean SEO. And, you must be able to capture their information and market to them over and over again. Plus, you need to be able to educate brides on what you can do for them in terms that they want.
Html sites offer images that are still beautiful, but you get the bonus of the SEO side that is so ultra-competitive.
Hope this helps!
February 6th, 2011 at 11:29 am
Joe,
Being in ultra competitive Fashion/beauty I can tell you that relaunching my website on 1/1/11 as HTML instead of flash has moved it from #74,876 out of 301,000 results to #27 (third page of Google) for "Miami Fashion Photographer"& similar searches, and into the top 100 for "Fashion Photographer" (6,200,000 results). Hard to argue results like those!
February 9th, 2011 at 11:25 am
I think it's a mistake to think that Flash can't be optimized for SEO. In today's age it's not very difficult to make a totally flash that allows Search Engine to index the keywords and images on every clickable page of a website. I love Flash for it's presentation and I've gotten more bookings for higher rates since I switched back. Another interesting thing is that potential customers stay on my site on average for 4 minutes. When I had a totally blog based or HTML site I only averages about 1 1/2 minutes. I also built a couple of blogs for content relevant for what I do but not necessarily the style I won't to promote.
I show up on page 1 or 2 for all the keywords I target.
In fact almost all my competitors that show up on Page 1 have well optimized Flash sites as well.
March 16th, 2011 at 9:59 pm
This episode would work much better if you were taller.
April 16th, 2011 at 2:43 pm
how about using flash and html codes together.that dont seem to hard to do
March 12th, 2012 at 8:51 pm
I completely agree with Ernest. If you're struggling to make the switch, consider a hybrid approach. You can use flash or custom scripts to design the exact image presentation you want, but place it inside a powerfully optimized HTML site so you can take advantage of search engine visibility.
This way, you get the best of both worlds. You get a gallery or slider that knocks your brides socks off, while also getting some Google love. Win, win
March 1st, 2013 at 8:00 pm
Even though wedding photography doesn't make up the bulk of our business. We do sell packages that target brides looking for a Louisiana Plantation as a backdrop. It seems like rustic and vintage are what more and more brides in my area are requesting.