SEO for photographers – questions
Thanks to a few friends and well placed posts, I’ve had a lot of questions this month and last from photographers wondering about my new SEO for photographers business, PhotoSEO (thanks Flem, Todd, and all!)
It’s true – I’ve begun working on several sites for photographers to push their sites higher in the Google ranks. I wrote a page explaining most of my SEO business here.
How will this help you? If you don’t have a website, it won’t. If you’re a microstock submitter who simply shoots, keys and uploads, I can’t …
Restaurants, approaching businesses
The next step in my process is to start approaching businesses locally and trying to work on some commercial projects while also shooting some micro. Has anyone done this? How did you approach them? (Flyer, in person, both, phone, email?)
Ultimately, I would really like to start shooting food for restaurants – they prep, I shoot. Win-win for both of us.
Restaurant/commercial food photography seems like it would be a very interesting occupation as I keep shooting my own personal food photography. I just need to figure out how I’m going to …
Do you feel the changes?
I feel microstock is changing right under our feet. Gone are the days everyone rushed to post their earnings at midnight on the 1st of the month. Gone are the days when there were 2-3 micro blogs. Now everyone has one but we are all saying basically the same noise. This site said this, that one did that. Nothing about how bloggers are striving to improve their own situation, nothing about the daily struggle or the mission.
I’m going to get back to core here – I’ll still be posting the …
Preparing Our Next Shoot
I wanted to document a bit of how we prepare for a new stock shoot.? Unfortunately I’m not shooting hot models a la Chase Jarvis so I’m not going to be live demo’ing anytime soon!
Our thought process on a new photo shoot works something like this:
Overall concept/theme/ingredient
Specific recipe
Lighting/angles/technicals
Shop
Shoot Day
1. Overall concept/theme/ingredient
We shoot two days a week – Friday and Sunday. If we shoot more that’s fantastic.? If not, oh well.? We plan those two days to have one breakfast or lunch type shoot (Friday) and one dinner/dessert (Sunday).? It’s easier …
Really great start!
I’ve started to push images and get reviews.? I was pending this morning but a lot of batches were reviewed and now I’m starting to go live everywhere.? I can’t wait to see how the food images sell!
Our shooting has started off very well too – I want to get ahead a little. We have now completed 6 food shoots in the last 9 days – about 200 new photos to submit now.
We need to plan our dishes for this week – we’ve done a lot of desserts so I …
So how is it going?
I know a lot of readers were concerned when I said I was going into food photography. Why the change? I told you then and I will say it again – I’m OBSESSED with food now!
Be a ________.
During the last few months one of my major goals has been to shoot more food photography.? I am really interested in the subject, I enjoy all aspects of it, and I think I can do it well (eventually).
So my past few months have been focused on learning – studying food photos, “becoming” a foodie, learning styling techniques – I never wanted to jump straight into food but rather be a food person who knew how to photograph.? I’ve been studying food, food photos, collecting recipes, deciding on what I …
Halfway back and rolling
Images are going up now – mostly stuff I’ve shot in the past because we’re moving and my photo stuff is packed.? I am working on submitting older images.? I know they won’t sell quite the way I want but honestly I need to start getting momentum back and start submitting, get into all the right habits and patterns, etc.
Once we get moved a lot of our work is going to be focused on fixing up the house, prepping the new studio locations, shooting some new images, and so on.? …
Directing my energy
Let me quote myself.
I am not going to stick around and pretend to be something I?m not.? Too many people set goals and fail to reach them, yet still continue the journey unfazed.? I often share my experiences and ideas in hopes of helping you.? If I can?t help myself first, I can?t help you.
If I fail to reach both goals (10k images, $25k for the year) by 12/31/09, NiltoMil.com will close for good whether I continue to shoot microstock or not.
At this point in the year it is obvious …
September 2009 Earnings
Total Earnings: $440.55
That’s a number I can live with.? Granted it doesn’t get me a lot closer to the “mil” portion of this goal but it also represents an increase over August of $13 and an increase over last Sept of $31.? I upload no new photos, keyworded nothing and submitted not a dang thing.? So an increase in my earnings with no new work is definitely motivating and exciting.
As always my fully detailed results are in my Google Spreadsheet here.
Well, the summer is almost over and I’m almost back …
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