How passionate are you about your business as a professional photographer? I mean, really, how much do you love what you do? Does it feel like the only thing you could see yourself doing? I would guess that most professional photographers would tell their clients that they’re super-passionate about their work, but I wonder how well can they actually put their passion and their creative photography ideas into words?

I thought it would be an interesting experiment to try to find out the answer…

Passion For Photography - Our 1st blog writing contest for the professional photographer

So, are you up for a little challenge?

How about a blog writing contest with some cool prizes into the bargain?

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General photography blog, photography business, professional photographer, professional photography, writing contest

One of the questions I get asked most often, either by email, during my sessions as a photography coach, on twitter, or in the photography business and marketing LinkedIn group, is “How to start a photography business“, so I thought it would be useful to post a quick starting guide for those who would like to get started as a professional photographer.

Making the decision to become a professional photographer is the easy part – so easy in fact that there are no barriers whatsoever to stop anyone with a camera and at least one eye from doing so.

Indeed, the ease of entry is so simple that many people find themselves asking the question, “how to start a photography business” after they’ve already started and found that the reality wasn’t as straightforward as they thought it was going to be!

If you’re new to the photography business, or are thinking about becoming a professional photographer, here are a few thoughts on the subject to get you started…

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How To Be A Professional Photographer how to start a photography business, photography business, professional photographer, professional photography

I shared this quick photography sales tip with my email subscribers yesterday, but got so many replies that I thought I would also share it here on the photography business and marketing blog, together with some extra thoughts that I’ve had since then.

In the course of my work as a photography coach, I have the privilege of speaking to a lot of photographers each week, from all over the world, and one of the common themes I hear is:

I can’t get my prospects to say “yes” to hiring me…

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Sales & Marketing motivation, photography business, photography coach, photography sales

A quick tip from the photography coach for today, as a result of a very interesting conversation I had yesterday with a coaching client. Have you formulated your goals for 2012 yet? Did you actually commit those goals to paper, so that you can look at them in black & white and know that they are real aspirations for the future, not just pipe dreams? Are you doing what you love, and love what you’re doing?

When you look at that paper, with your desired achievement staring back at you, does it make you feel a little scared perhaps? Do you feel a small shiver of doubt that you might not realize your goal and that you might fail instead? How does that feeling sit with the idea that you love what you’re doing so much, that you couldn’t possibly bear to stop?

Of course, the answer very much depends on how realistic your goals are, but I’ll assume for the sake of this post that you did indeed set yourself the task of achieving something feasible. It doesn’t have to be easy – in fact, it’s much better if it requires a stretch out of your comfort zone, but not so much of a stretch that you can’t make it if you just try hard enough…

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Personal Zen motivation, photography business, photography coach, photography success

With professional photographers everywhere struggling to make their businesses work, and given the power of good search engine optimization (website SEO) to provide those same photographers with a steady stream of qualified clients, I have to ask the question, “Why doesn’t today’s informed photography professional become involved with SEO to take advantage of what is essentially free marketing for their business?“

Every day, I see photographers visiting this site from Google, having used search phrases such as these:

• “Help for a failing photography business…”
• “How to save a dying photography studio…”
• “Why is the professional photographer extinct…”
• “Should I quit the photography business?”

I’ve written many posts and articles on this subject, to try to help out these individuals and point them in the right direction, but there seems to be a never-ending stream of people who are desperately seeking guidance on how to be a professional photographer.

Photography SEO To The Rescue

I really believe that search engine optimization is the key to success for many professional photographers out there. To do what I can to help, I recently completed a great three-week live training event on SEO for the photographer, and congratulations to everyone who invested in the event and attended the three webinars:

• SEO Basics For The Professional Photographer
• On-Page and Off-Page SEO
• Social Media and SEO

Having been through the program, those professional photographers are now better equipped to tackle the SEO challenge for their websites and improve the ranking in their local search results, leading to more qualified clients and better sales.

Introducing the Photography SEO Academy online training and photography program

If you missed out at the time, either because you hesitated about signing up or simply didn’t know about it, then the good news is that I did record the webinars and they’re now available through a new online training program…

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Photography Website SEO photography seo, professional photography, SEO, SEO training, website seo

SEO for the professional photographer can be a challenge at the best of times, but (just to make life even more fun and exciting) we also have to contend with the constant flow of changes to “the rules“, or even upheavals to the basic landscape of the search environment. This is one reason why my Photography SEO Academy course includes time with a personal 1-on-1 photography coach – to make sure that the course doesn’t get out of date!

Could this be the new Twitter bird? Photography SEO could become more difficult with Google's latest changes

The other day, I posted an article on “Photographer SEO Challenges – Google Hiding Search Data“, which talked about the fact that Google is no longer communicating to us the keywords people use to search for our photography websites if they are signed in to their Google account via a secure connection.

Well, today, Google is in the news again after announcing some sweeping changes to the actual search interface itself, something they usually leave well alone (with the exception of their entertaining Google Doodles)…

… some, as you can see from the graphic above, are not too happy…

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Photography Website SEO photographer SEO, photography business, photography seo, photography website, professional photographer, professional photography

At the time of writing, I’m two thirds of the way through our exciting Photography SEO Webinar Series, with some great questions raised so far about many of the SEO challenges faced by today’s professional photographer.

Photography SEO - are you on target to rank higher in Google?

Today, I thought it would be fun to open up the Q&A to a wider audience, so this is your chance to ask the photography coach about your own photography website SEO obstacles.

Whether or not you’re taking part in the photography SEO course, this is a great opportunity for you to learn some more of the details that go into optimizing a photography website, or to clear up any blind spots you might have about the SEO process as a whole.

Having a solid SEO strategy for your photography business is critical to your success in 2012, so feel free to join me for this valuable and no-hassle Q&A session…

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Photography Website SEO photographer SEO, photography business, photography seo, photography website

Photography business cards are one of those creative accessories that many photographers consider essential, but when I paused to really think about it I could see no obvious business reason why we absolutely must have them. After all, with so many alternative ways for clients to find us, I asked myself if traditional photography business cards are truly effective these days, and what ways photographers have found to be more creative when it comes to photography business card ideas…

It certainly seems reasonable, in a world where it’s becoming ever more difficult to be noticed and to garner people’s attention, to imagine that there must be better alternatives to the standard  2 x 3 inch traditional business card for the professional photographer.

A 4 x 6 post-card sized photography business card (front and back)

This is an example of one of my 4 x 6 business post cards, which was quite effective for a while, that was able to carry a lot of information and persuasive copy with it. This got me wondering what other photographers are actually using…

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Sales & Marketing creativity, photography business cards, photography business ideas

For the professional photographer SEO and internet marketing can pose a big challenge, especially for those who don’t already have a background in the IT industry. Trying to keep up with a never-ending parade of changes in the search algorithms means that search engine optimization has been a battlefield from the day someone first coined the word “keyword“. Photographers have long faced the problems of placing their photography websites high enough in the search engine rankings to generate significant traffic, but now the task has been made even more difficult thanks to recent changes by Google…

As we all know, Google and the rest of the search engines are engaged in a constantly-changing war against spammers, as well as trying to provide their “customers” with the most relevant search results.

Balancing those two goals is obviously difficult, but Google has managed to do a good job of it so far, while maintaining a friendly environment for those of us who take photography SEO seriously.

Until now that is…

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Photography Website SEO google, photographer SEO, photography business, photography website

As we begin a new year, many professional photographers are contemplating the year ahead and wondering what’s in store for them and their businesses – hopefully, the professional photography industry will have a better year in 2012! One of the big issues on photographers’ minds right now is the idea of “creativity”, and how to bring a new perspective to their photography in order to stand out from the crowd and be a better professional photographer. This is where the idea of “The 365 Project” can come to the rescue…

Writers break their pencils in two because of it, poets try to write poems about it, painters suffer from it, and even photographers are not immune…

The challenge of the 365 project helped Photographer Suzie Mauro improve her creativity

Yes, I’m talking about creative block – the frustrating condition that interferes with our ability to create something new that we feel happy and creatively fulfilled with.

The 365 Project Can Combat Creative Block

Occasional bouts of creative drought are bad enough but, left unchecked, it can become serious and even threaten the photographer’s desire to remain in business.

But, hope is at hand in the form of a personal assignment – The 365 Project…

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Photography Business Interviews 365 project, creativity, photography business, professional photographer, professional photography