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I got an email today that seems to be representative of a common thread
I'm seeing. I included excerpts from the original sender and my
responses:
In Chapter 7 you note that in 2000
you increased your image library, and had a big spike in traffic (2000
visitors/month). If you don't mind me asking, approximately how many
images did you have online entering 2000?
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I have no idea. And though I appreciate the motivation for your question,
the milestone comparisons are inapplicable. The major reason my success
back in 2000 was that there was virtually no appreciable photo content
online. Anyone that put photos online did well. Most pro photographers
were still shooting film, and the time and cost of getting that media
scanned and online was a major barrier for photo imaging growth. While
digital cameras were around, their resolution and image quality were too
low to have much commercial value till 2003 (Canon's EOS 1Ds was the first
camera that could produce an acceptable professional image quality for
commercial production.)
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So, whatever size my archive was, or photo quality, it was easier to
succeed. So, don't look at my past as having any relevancy to today's
market.
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I tried to advise pro photographers to do this back then, but most were
adamant that it would cause more harm to have images "stolen", and that
film-based stock photo agencies were still the only viable distribution
channel. It was this heated argument that propagated my postings (and my
website) to other websites, which resulted in my getting so many links,
which translated into traffic, which helped elevate my site rankings,
which translated into sales.
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(Ok, I'll admit it: I probably also had a lot of worthwhile photos to
buy.)
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A big part of my strategy is blogging on my image creation
and some of the places I have visited where images were taken. I'm trying
to be as search engine friendly and optimized as I possibly can, per your
suggestions.
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My suggestion is not to be "search-engine friendly", per se. It's to
rank highly in search results. The
two are not the same, and you don't achieve high rankings by having search
engines merely find you and index you accurately. (That's being
"friendly".)
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Ranking highly in search engines requires other sites to link to your
site. The value of those links are assessed by the ranking of those sites,
which affect your ranking. Search engines are aware of people attempting
to game the system through "link exchanges". Accordingly, you can reduce
your own rankings if you try to agree with other sites to link to each
other as a way of increasing each of your link counts. Those sites rank
poorly, and so will yours, if you do link exchanges.
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So the question is, who do you want to link to you?
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Writing articles on "image creation" and "the places you've been" will
attract mostly other photographers. And they don't buy photos. While it
is certainly desirable to have highly-ranked photo-centric websites link
to you, this is a very narrow market, and not one that will boost your
overall rankings that ultimately attract image buyers.
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If you're going to invest time into blogging, you want NON-PHOTOGRAPHY
sites to link to you. How do you do that? By blogging about subjects that
probably have less to do with photography as the other subject.
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My advice has always been to be an expert in something other than
photography. Write about that and cross-post your articles to discussion
forums or other formats to attract new and different audiences. If they
regard your knowledge and opinions as valuable, they will link to you,
talk about you, and regard you as credible. This is what will raise your
site's ranking.
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Do I follow my own advice? Well, not as much as I should. Yes, my site
has a lot content about photography (business and techniques), and yes, I
rank highly for that. But again, I did this back in the 1990s and early
2000s, when such things mattered. It doesn't matter that much anymore. I
would not be successful today by repeating the same steps I did back then,
so don't emulate me just because I capitalized on what was at one time a
successful technique.
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More recently, I have a great deal of non-photography content as well—mostly in the form of photos, of course. But here's where I've dropped the
ball. I don't spend nearly the kind of time talking about non-photo
subjects as I should. I am in the fortunate position where I don't really
have to. And that's the part that doesn't translate to other, emerging
photographers.
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This leads to another point I've made often in the past: don't emulate
other pros. What they do NOW, or have done IN THE PAST, often has no
bearing on their current success, or yours. Most of them are unaware of
this, and erroneously believe they have advice that emerging photographers
should adopt.
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See this blog post about asking pros for advice. Though it's
about pricing, the concept is the same: pro photographers' opinions or
experiences are not universal and cannot necessarily be expected to apply
to anyone else—especially those still trying to build their careers or a
presence.
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There's also this related post: this one is about the perils of being a
photographer's assistant, or having existing pros be "mentors." Most pros
today were successful at a time where their experiences no longer apply
today. Having their advice can be fraught with as much poor advice as
useful, and emerging photographers cannot discern between the two.
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My best advice for emerging photographers in this day and age is not to
look at photographers at all—look at general online business
development. There are many texts and periodicals that deal with building
business models that are more universal, and can better translate to a
photography business than what narrowly-experienced pros can offer. Labels: busines
s model, car
eer development, dan
heller, photo
business, p
hotography business
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