The bad news is 20% of photography businesses that start this year won’t make it to next year.

Half of all photography businesses will close shop by their fifth year and only 30% of photographers make it to their tenth year in business.

The single highest predictor of success in the photography business is a focus on smart marketing.

Here are five ways you can not only keep your business from becoming a statistic but thrive in 2018.

Take Image SEO Seriously

The thing that I keep hearing from most photographers is “I know I need to do SEO, but I just don’t have time.”

With Google acquiring startups like Moodstocks and Eyefluence (who were built to recognize elements in images and videos), we may see a vast improvement in the way Google looks at images.  This could prove to be huge for photographers who have put in the time to build up text and visual content on their website.

Even if you aren’t looking to rank for important keywords that will drive business for you, remember that every potential client is going to google you before they commit to working together.  Will you be proud of what they find?

Investing in SEO (how you show up in search engines) is going to put you way ahead in the future.

Get Comfortable with Video

Video has gone from something that photographers should consider adding to their repertoire to something photographers have no excuse for not using.  It’s too easy to create and distribution is easier than ever.  Plus, you’re holding a device that doubles as a video camera in your hand all day.  

Although anecdotal, I’d argue that the majority of your potential clients want to work with a photographer that they can see work via video.  Not only that, but you can leverage the video you have into YouTube content, Instagram content, and Facebook content (effectively covering all of your bases).

While you don’t need to become an expert wedding videographer, video will cover you as a sort of personal branding. Without ever meeting you, potential clients can see your personality and already think “wow, I’d love to work with her/him.”

Relationship marketing matters more than ever and using video builds relationships more quickly than any other medium.  Just turn the camera on yourself, talk one-on-one with your potential client and give them an idea of what it’s like to work with you.  For example, here’s one from Michael Williams:

Dominate SEO with Better (Not More) Content

Let’s swing back around to SEO for a second here.  Maybe you read the first section and mentally checked off the “SEO box” because you’ve been doing it.

But this year isn’t the year to take your foot off the gas pedal. It’s the year to put it down even further: content marketing is still trending upward.

Rather than come up with new blog posts and new strategies, refine the ones you already have.  Go to ahrefs.com and see your top articles and build them out even more: adding more relevant text, more images, better header tags, etc.

It’s not about more content anymore, but better content. Instead of writing five separate blog posts about the many times he’s photographed at the same location, photographer Vincent Van den Berg of Pixan Photography pulled all of his knowledge about one of his favorite venues into an ultimate guide for getting married at Azul Fives in Playa del Carmen, Mexico.

You’ll see more traffic, more conversions, and more sales when you properly execute this strategy.

Personalize Your Website’s Experience

For quite a while, websites have delivered custom experiences depending on who visits the site.  But previously, this was only available to extremely large companies (often e-commerce, travel, and financial services).

Recently, lower cost options like RightMessage have entered the market and who, although not cheap,  are allowing for photographers to personalize their website depending on who is visiting the site.

Whenever I’m advising a photographer on how to implement website personalization, I walk them through three specific “tiers”:

1. Optimization
2. Segmentation
3. Personalization

Optimization

Think of optimization like split testing (also known as “A/B” testing) where we see which of two elements performs better and continue running the test to optimize the website for conversions and leads.

For this, I like to use tools like Sumo (see screenshot below), Google Optimize, and Optimizely.

For example, here’s how I’m running split-tests on my own website with Sumo:

Segmentation

Segmentation is often confused with personalization because it does offer a more custom experience than just with split-testing.  Segmentation means using the demographic data of the user to customize the experience on your website.

For example, if the person visiting your wedding photography website is male, it will show different photos, lead magnets, calls to action, etc.

Another example would be to segment based on geographic area (I’ve had a few clients having a lot of success with this lately) where we deliver specific calls to action based on their location.  Imagine living in London and considering getting married at Azul Fives in Mexico.  You see a call to action that says “Thinking about bringing your entire bridal party from England all the way to Mexico? Get our guide before you book tickets.”

They’d think you were reading their mind and conversion rates would be through the roof.

Personalization

Personalization takes this to an entirely new level where the experience on a website is completely unique to each visitor.  Some elements may be the same from user to user, but because true personalization scales using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning, there are no limits to what it can do.

Go Bigger with Facebook Groups

Having a personalized website is great for getting in leads that come to your site, but what about bringing in all of those people who do most of their searching on Facebook?

I remember getting an email from a wedding photographer once that said:

“Brendan, why would I want to make a community around my business? People just want to book me once and then never hear from me again.”

That guy’s business is going to fail. I guarantee it.

Unless he changes his mindset about what a photographer really represents to a bride or family: you’re so much more than just the photos you take.

Henry Ford was a big believer in service. Not “customer service” as we think about it now, but service as in serving others: helping them get what they wanted out of life.

Right now, one of the best ways photographers can serve their potential clients in by creating a community that helps them get what they want.

Right now, groups are one of the best parts of Facebook (in terms of reach, but also now with group analytics) and it makes the most sense to build a community there.

For example, if you’re a wedding photographer in Pittsburgh, create a group around brides planning weddings in Pittsburgh.  In the group, you can chat about the best venues, answer questions, provide tips on weather and recommend other local vendors you know and trust.

Sure, some of them might book you, but that’s not the point.  It’s about being of service to them and believing in the process that if you serve them enough, the bookings will follow.

What’s Next?

So which one of these strategies is going to be a game-changer for you this year?  Which one are you going to implement right away and avoid becoming part of that 70% failure rate?

There are two ways to increase the revenue of your photography business: higher prices and more clients.

So which do we choose?

Why not both?

Here’s how you can not only raise your prices but also get more clients: build more trust.

If you want to build the kind of trust that gets you more clients and helps you raise your prices, you need to start writing.

3 Reasons Why Photographers Need to Write

1. Everything starts with writing

99% of this article is words.

And you’re reading them.  Lines on a page and I’m able to communicate thoughts, emotions, and stories with you.

If you think about it, everything that’s ever been sold has been sold with words, even things that don’t seem to need them.

Even before television, people were using words to communicate over the radio.

Before the radio, people used words in print.

Before print, we just spoke… with words.

Words are hard-wired into us.

Look, you’re still reading.  And as my friend Justin puts it, “that’s magical.”

2. Writing That Builds Trust

As photographers, we naturally assume that the best way to build trust with our clients is to show them our portfolio.  Once they see our work, they’ll know that we’re great photographers and naturally want to hire us.  Right?

Wrong.

Photos are fantastic for showing competency with our gear, but not for building the trust that gets us hired.

So we need to use words to sell more photos?

Yes, but no.

We have to use the RIGHT words.

There are words that you can write to achieve a sale, known as copywriting.

But there are also words you can use to build trust and provide value. This is called content marketing.

We need to have both, but before we can sell a potential client with copywriting, we have to use content marketing to provide value and build trust.

Why? Because people buy from those that they trust. When you provide value first, you earn permission to sell.

Keep reading and I’ll give you the ultimate formula to build trust with potential photography clients.

3. Writing = Google = Leads

97% of people who are going to book you are going to Google your services (or you!) first.  As a photographer, you need to be there when that search happens.

When people search for services on Google, 42% of people click one of the first three results.

For example, if you’re a wedding photographer in San Francisco, and 250 people search for that service every month, 105 of them are clicking on the first three results and 68 of them are clicking on the first result.

That’s 68 people looking to hire you coming to your website every single month.

That’s 816 NEW leads per year that could be coming to your site.

This is why writing matters for photographers.  Google does search for images and we can optimize those, but it mostly searches words to discover what a website is about and how well it covers the topic.

What’s awesome about this is that 99% of photographers are not going to write.  They like taking photos (that’s why they got into this in the first place) and don’t want to have to write as well.

And that’s great for you because you’ll instantly stand out and achieve top search rankings.

Why You Don’t Write

We’ve already established three really important reasons why you need to write, but if it were just as simple as choosing to write, you would’ve done it already.  After working with a lot of clients on marketing their photography business, I’ve found there’s really two big reasons that photographers are hesitant to write:

1. They Think They Aren’t Any Good

Think back to when you first picked up a camera.  If you were to look back at those photos today, what would you say?

They’re terrible, right?  But did the fact that you weren’t taking the world’s best photos stop you?

Nope.

Think about when you first started your photography career. When people first paid you for your work. How are those compared to your work today?

Still terrible? I bet.

Photography is a process where you grow over time and writing is the exact same way.

Doing it regularly with small tweaks over time has a huge impact.  If you aren’t willing to write poorly, you’ll never write well.

Be willing to be imperfect, at first.

2. They Don’t Think They Have Anything To Say

Lots of other photographers think they don’t have anything unique to say.  Not only will we take care of that will the blog post formula at the end of this article, but we need to realize that it’s okay not to have anything to say at first.

You write to find out what you have to say.

When I first started my podcast (now downloaded over 170,000 times), I had something to say.  But after about 20 episodes, I started to have even more to say because I was “in it.”

I was doing the work.

Just like podcasting, people prefer to read in a conversational tone.  If you can talk, you can write.

Everything I write is very similar to how I speak.

You’re reading this, so I know you get it.

Here’s another example of a wedding photographer that does that really well:

What To Write About

We start to think about crafting our message; we have to make sure we’re firmly established in their mind as the go-to expert in our field.

Establishing ourselves as the expert requires that we think about a few things:

First, why would somebody want to work with us instead of our competition? With so many amateur photographers turning “pro” every day, why would somebody book you instead of one of them?

Second, what benefits does working with you have that they won’t get anywhere else?  This isn’t talking about the features of working with you (those are things that are focused on you), but the benefits of working with you (what they get from your features).

For example, a Kindle Paperwhite has the feature of battery life that lasts for weeks.  The benefit of that feature is that you can spend time reading and not charging it.

We have to make sure that our writing sets us up at the expert.  Most people who hire us can tell how we may differ stylistically from our competition, but may not be able to tell the fine technical details that make us the obvious choice.

One of the coolest parts of the internet is that you can get in touch with the people who inspire you.  I’ve gotten a few messages back from Chase on Snapchat and when I asked him about how much to charge, that was his response.

Being premium means you need to do great work, but it also means you need to build a lot more trust.

A CEO has to trust you a lot more to pay $10k for photos than she does to pay your competition $900.

Here’s how to build that trust…

The Photography Blog Post Formula

Remember, the goal of writing blog posts about our work is to be found in a search, position you as the expert, and to build trust, not to make a sale.  This section literally breaks down the way that I teach my clients to write and how I write for them.  It also includes the most important parts of seo for photographers.

1. Title – In our title, we want to use the keywords that we’re targeting (portrait photography, wedding photography, etc.) and the location.  This lets Google know what kind of photography session you’ve done and where you did it.  Google is fantastic at context so don’t be robotic about it.  

Bad: “Brad and Misha’s Wedding”

Better: “Wedding Photography – Navy Pier, Chicago”

Best: “Stunning Sunset Wedding Photography at Navy Pier”

Rookie Mistake: I still see a lot of photographers using their client’s names in the titles. Unless you’re trying to rank in Google for their first names (i.e. “Tina and Tim’s Wedding”), we’re far better served focusing on keywords and location.

2. URL – In our URL, we can be a lot more robotic.

Bad: randomphotographer.com/rustic-golden-gate-park-san-francisco-wedding-photography

Better: randomphotographer.com/san-francisco-golden-gate-wedding

Best: randomphotographer.com/golden-gate-wedding (Google will know it’s in SF).

Rookie Mistake: Trying to cram everything into the URL.  You don’t need adjectives or details in the URL.  The more succinct it is, the better.

3. Content – This is the most important part of the post, so we’ll further break the content down into a few sub-areas.

Subject – Briefly talk about the subject of the session and your relationship with them.  It lets your reader know that your relationship with clients is extremely important to you and you’ll be fun to work with.

Obstacles – I’ve never met a photographer who didn’t have something go wrong the day of a shoot.  

Highlights – You can feel free to include these before and after the ‘Obstacle’ in order to sandwich it a bit, but finishing your article on a high note is important. We want to share some of the most amazing parts of the session/day with the reader, so they start to imagine themselves in that same successful position.

Link – Once your site visitor has finished reading your content, they may want to learn more about you so including a link to do that is super convenient for them.  This link might be to sign up for your mailing list, a link to your contact page, or your phone number.  On mobile devices (where most people will be seeing your site), the phone number will be clickable making it super simple for them to get in touch with you.

Photos – I always advise photographers to only include their five best photos from the session.  If you aren’t able to convince them to hire you in five photos, including all 70 of them isn’t going to change their mind.  If you’re using WordPress (which you should be), then inserting a gallery here works perfectly.

Link –  But, Brendan, didn’t we already include a link to get in touch?  Yes, we did. But the combined effect of your writing and your photos is going to be a one-two punch that will leave your reader wanting to get in touch or learn more about you.  Make sure that you’re phrasing things differently than the first link in the post (don’t copy & paste, now isn’t the time to get lazy), but link to similar destinations (phone, services page, contact page, list signup, etc.).

Here’s what that looks like:

How It Works

You’re a surf photographer based in California, and for every session, you follow the formula above.  When you’ve photographed 30+ surf events, and hundreds of surfers, who do you think is going to be found in Google when a major publication wants to license a photo?  Who is going to be found when a startup surf brand is looking for somebody to shoot their next look book?

You.

Remember that organic traffic from Google is driven by authority.  Showing Google you’re the authority on a topic and then using content marketing to turn those leads into clients is the best way to increase your revenue this year.  Learn more about Search Engine Optimization in the PhotographySpark SEO Cookbook.

Bonus: Because your post is much more optimized for conversion, you can use Facebook ads to drive traffic to it. Target your demographic that lives in the location or likes the venue you were at, and you’ve got a great start to an overall marketing plan.

I’d love to see the Photography Spark community take action and start converting that valuable website traffic into clients!