- 📸 ForegroundWeb Newsletter by Alex Vita
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- 📸 Five ways to make your online presence unique
📸 Five ways to make your online presence unique
Plus an SEO tip, industry news and a potpourri of interesting articles.
Alex Vita
October 03, 2023 • Estimated reading time: 12 minutes
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To the most astute of you, I missed last week’s email because I was focused a lot on my presentation for the Hair of the Dog Pet Photography Summit, which was a blast! Replays are still available if you are interested.
Back to the normal weekly schedule here:
IN TODAY’S EMAIL:
⚡️ Five ways to make your online presence unique
🔍 SEO: "photography" vs "photographer" search queries
🖥️ Website examples: a cool logo
🔗 Links & Resources: a few interesting articles and AI news.
📰 Industry news: Flothemes (and Pixieset) apparently did a complete rug.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Let’s begin:
DEEP DIVE
Five ways to make your online presence unique
Besides positioning (which has been the topic of my previous deep dives), here are other ways in which you can set yourself apart from the “crowd”:
1. Speak your audience’s language by paying attention to copywriting
No sense in niching or specializing if you don’t also adjust the copywriting on your website. That’s where the power truly lies.
The benefit of niching down is that you can start to learn the struggles and wishes of your target clients, and write effective copy that convinces them you’re the one they should hire.
Through good copywriting, leads SELF-SELECT without you having to do a lot of convincing.
If your website does a good job of pre-answering all their questions and explaining the benefits of working with you, clients will come to you asking not “What are your prices?” but instead “When are you available?”
Marketing through quality content is a dare-I-say magical sales tool. The text you write on your homepage and your services pages (FAQ and About pages too), along with the strong set of portfolio images, together will help position you as an expert in your niche and will make people trust you, BEFORE ever getting in touch with you.
Images matter most, sure, but with so many great photographers covering your existing niche already, content becomes an untapped differentiation opportunity.
Start by reading these 10 tips on improving your photo website copywriting.
“Most photography websites I’ve browsed are too image heavy in my opinion. They’re an electronic photo album. Not many buyers look through photo albums anymore (in my niche).
So I changed tack and decided not to do that. Instead focus on what matters most to Google, WORDS, and lots of them. Each main page needs 500-1500 of them. Long form articles get results. I reckon only google reads them, most people who browse just check you out to see if you know enough about the niche to trust you, my assumption.”
“I feel that marketing and messaging can be what really sets a person apart from a very copycat industry. The ability to tell a story with an image, accompanying words and the right platforms will catch attention.”
2. Invest in a top-notch website design
Shameless plug here: check out my site’s Web-design page, it lists out all the services I offer (exclusively for photographers).
In fact, I encourage you to explore all those pages and learn more about the custom photography websites that I build, my web-design process & work ethic, and to view examples & testimonials from past work.
3. Raise your blogging game with consistently interesting content
Let me rephrase that: “Raise your CONTENT MARKETING game…”
Content marketing is writing content that serves both you and your audience equally.
Photographers often complain they don’t have time to write, and also that their business is struggling. Yet, writing more is a critical component of supporting and growing your business.
It does require a considerable time investment, yes, but the long-term benefits far outweigh the efforts:
your work gets increased exposure; it helps you reach a larger audience
it strengthens the trust of your existing audience
it’s the bedrock of any good SEO strategy
and in time, it can drive more revenue for your photography business
My complete blogging course for photographers is your next action.
4. “Infuse” more personality into your site
You want to humanize your website. People don’t trust the website directly, they trust the person behind the website.
Consider adding funny images and a sense of humor in your writing, blogging about your experiences, curating your portfolios very tightly.
“Become a brand in and of yourself. Quality photography alone isn’t enough. People want to connect with and relate to a person. We need to become vulnerable and share our own stories.
Stop telling visitors how much you love photography! Show more product! Keep users top of mind all the time: the website isn’t a platform for showing off. It needs to be useful, valuable.”
[Photography websites should be] “More branded on the photographer rather than only the work (often photog’s even omit a portrait of themselves).”
5. Do positioning experiments on the side
Doing a complete overhaul of your photography business might be scary. And it's genuinely risky if you don’t plan well; you could be running out of clients/money for a while.
The solution is to leave your existing website and social media presence intact and start something new on the side in your spare time.
That means creating a separate newly-positioned website, or at least a new page on your existing site, to which you can point new clients.
Think of it as a way to beta-test your new positioning to see what feedback you get.
Once you validate the new website or business direction, you just slowly start letting the old generalist brand run its course (and, one day, you shut it down).
“Moving images are strong and will continue to increase in importance. interactive imaging including immersive 360 degree moving images will gain importance, image-driven advertising in general will also increase.”
“Different is better than better. Shoot on large format, get a drone license, collaborate with others! It’s silly that photography traditionally is such a lone wolf industry. I see a lot of creative collaborations prosper lately. Networking is also key. I personally don’t sell images, I sell an EXPERIENCE.”
🤖 AI’s perspective on this topic:
Your emphasis on quality copywriting is especially noteworthy; it's an often overlooked element that can indeed help photographers articulate their unique value propositions. While you mention the importance of speaking the audience's language, it might be beneficial to stress the importance of using customer testimonials or showcasing past work in a manner that directly speaks to the needs and desires of the target audience.
Your point on "content marketing" vs "blogging" is also crucial. However, it may be worth emphasizing that not all content needs to be written. With the rise of video content and podcasts, diversifying the types of content can also be a potent differentiator. Visual storytelling through short videos or behind-the-scenes looks can go beyond the capabilities of text to engage potential clients, and podcasts could help photographers establish thought leadership in their niche. Given that photographers are naturally visual thinkers, these platforms could offer a more natural way for them to express their uniqueness.
- ChatGPT 4
SEO TIP
Understanding searcher intent
It all comes down to who is doing the search and, implicitly, their intentions":
In the first scenario with xyz photography, I can imagine a lot of people simply looking for images on a particular topic. Maybe that's for putting together a slide deck or a presentation, or for a research project, or simply out of curiosity.
Many people use Google images for inspiration.
Whereas the photographer queries are likely coming from people actually interested in hiring photographers or at least doing some type of research about them. Searchers are not looking for the images; they're looking for a photographer who shoots those types of images.
Learn more in this video:
LINKS & RESOURCES
And a few AI news for those of you living under a rock:
FEATURED
I love this sticky logo integrated into the homepage hero image, automatically changing colors as you scroll down.
INDUSTRY NEWS
For anyone using Flothemes, put your life vest on and head to the nearest lifeboat. 🦺
Flothemes (a popular WordPress template company) was acquired by Pixietset two years ago, and they’ve now decided to pull the plug completely. Flothemes users were just told to use and update their existing sites until 30 September 2024, after which all support will end.
Official announcement here:
A couple of industry reactions:
QUOTE
“Tell me, and I will listen;
Teach me, and I’ll remember;
Involve me, and I will learn.”
QUESTION
If there’s one thing you’d change about this newsletter, what would it be?
Hit reply and let me know. Any feedback is welcome (“More of this… Less of this…
See you next week!
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