Photography coach business breakthrough call-in day means you can stop and assess where you are before moving forward!

Do you have someone you can rely on to brainstorm ideas with to help solve the challenges and problems you face every day in your photography business?

Do you find yourself just wishing that you had a clear sense of direction and what you need to do to get there?

When I started out, I certainly wished I had a photography coach to call upon for help when I needed it, because we sometimes just need to STOP what we’re doing, and assess where we are, where we’re heading, and decide if we’re actually going in the right direction!

One of the major goals of this website, and my photography coaching business, is to try to help as many other professional photographers as possible.

The articles and interviews on this site are aimed at giving photographers material that can help them progress beyond the challenges they’re facing almost every day, but there is definitely more that I can do on a personal level.

Simply put, nothing beats personal 1-on-1 interaction with another human being who understands the challenges you’re facing, and that is precisely what I aim to provide…

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Photography Business Coaching photography business, photography coach, professional photography

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

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

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

In the pursuit of how to be a professional photographer, many people are heavily focused upon themselves, their photographic skills, artistic vision or Photoshop wizardry. However, one of the real keys to being successful is to focus more on the people we serve, but especially on the business persona we project into the world around us…

For example, we’re all familiar with the saying that “opposites attract“, especially as it applies to magnets and possibly to affairs of the heart, but it really doesn’t work that way when it comes to attracting the right kind of clients and being successful in the photography business!

After all, no amount of unhappy thinking is going to attract happy clients for us to photograph, regardless of how much faith you have in the idea of “opposites attract“.

In contrast, perhaps having the right attitude and a positive business “personality” will go a long way towards encouraging more success…

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How To Be A Professional Photographer client attraction, photography business ideas, photography marketing, professional photography

Before photographers can create even a single photograph for a client, before they can sell them so much as one portrait, the photographer first has to engage with their potential audience through the process of marketing their business and their brand. Traditionally, this was achieved by a one-way system of advertising, which has now been replaced by the two-way conversation happening through social media channels.

Many people in the photography business are confused about marketing, almost to the point of avoiding it altogether. This is understandable given the decades of abuse by big corporations seeking to disseminate their corporate “message” to the consumer masses by whatever means possible, irrespective of how disruptive it might be.

In the good old days of one-way advertising the consumer didn’t talk back.

But they do now – and their voice matters… more than you might imagine!

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Sales & Marketing photography business marketing, professional photographer, professional photography, social media marketing

During a recent photography business coaching call, the photographer asked a question, which I hear more often than any other: “What business tips can you give to help me develop a price list I can live with? When I set out to become a professional photographer, I had no idea that pricing would cause me so many headaches!“

It’s definitely fair to say that the subject of pricing our work is the source of many frustrations for professional photographers. Like trying to read in the dark, headaches are inevitable if we can’t really see where we’re going wrong when it comes to creating a workable price list.

Photography pricing causes more stress and frustration than anything else!

In answer to the photographer’s question, I thought it would useful to make a quick post with a few photography business tips on the subject of pricing…

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Photography Business Ideas photography business tips, photography price list, photography pricing, professional photography

Today’s post is a relatively short one for a change, but no less important for it. As you probably know if you read this blog regularly, I’m very passionate about one major idea:

In order to be competitively successful, the professional photographer in business today must understand the fundamental reasons WHY they do what they do…

Read on for a great example of this in practice, and for an opportunity for a specially chosen professional photographer (i.e. YOU) to be featured here on the photography business and marketing blog.

What's your motivation for being a professional photographer?

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How To Be A Professional Photographer creativity, motivation, professional photographer, professional photography

Pricing… you can’t run a business as a professional photographer for very long without becoming ensnared in the topic of how to price your work (well, you might, I suppose, but you would find it hard to make any money). Then there is the question of, not only what fees to charge, but also how to make your clients aware of your price list without them running away or thinking you are attempting to pressure-sell them. 

In the time that I have been working as a professional photographer, I have personally tried different ways of communicating my price lists to customers and potential customers, with varying amounts of success. These include the following…

• Printed price menus
• Combined price list and brochure
• Website price page
• By emailing price lists by email

However, the problem I found with these methods was that sales just were not where I wanted them to be. I would give out price lists to prospects who asked for them, count the hits to my price list website page, or email my price list to anyone who requested it – yet the prospects vanished as quickly as they appeared, like spirits.

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General photography business, photography marketing, professional photographer, professional photography