Today’s guest post is by Brian Hirschy, a photographer & designer living in the Tibetan regions of western China who has a passion for teaching photography, participating in the growing photographic community and working with Asian NGO’s to communicate their stories. In 2009 Brian helped start Plateau Photo Tours, a company that facilitates socially-conscious  one-of-a-kind photo tours throughout Tibet – providing socially responsible and culturally non-destructive photo opportunities throughout the region as well as creating sustainable job opportunities – all in an effort to actually help rather than simply complain. You can see Brian’s work at BrianHirschy.com or follow him on Twitter @BHirschyPhoto.

Last week, I ran across a video of my friend Zack Arias talking about the need for honesty and perspective as photographers (check it out there). It was a refreshing conversation about honesty and stood in stark contrast to often unhelpful conversations that we constantly see in this industry. Zack’s video was a punch in the gut, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what Zack said since.

I’ve spent the last three years working as a photographer in western China. In 2009, I started a company called Plateau Photo Tours with a desire to engage the Chinese photographic market by running culturally appropriate, unique photo workshops in the Tibetan areas of western China. I wanted to live somewhere that pushed me as a person and as a photographer. Having traveled these areas extensively for the better part of a decade, living here continues to be a fantastic experience.

But there’s so much more to the story than that.

Here’s some honesty: Over the last three years, I’ve spent a disproportionately large amount of time schmoozing Chinese officials for permission to keep working in this area—largely for no return. There’s nothing like kissing butt for no reason. Since starting the company, we’ve had to call off five tours. I’ve watched our filled tours (of great participants) get cancelled due to political and social stresses, as well as a devastating natural disaster. I’ve seen what I thought were amazing opportunities pass just out of reach. Recently, I’ve been banned for months at a time from exiting the city in which I currently live. I’ve been followed around by plain- clothed police officers — an interesting experience. The local government constantly tells me where I can and cannot takemy camera and where my “foreign face” isn’t welcome despite having official government permission. I’ve dealt with all sorts of political and social insanity just to keep a company afloat in a tough and variable market.

Here’s some more honesty: I’ve made more money as a web and print designer and consultant over the last year than I’ve made as a photographer. I’d love for every person who visits my website to think that I’m making it entirely with my photography. But I’m not. I’ve relied largely on my gracious wife’s job for parts of our income. I’d love for you not to know that. Depression, questions of identity, future, and my photographic ability have started to steal more and more of my thoughts and sleep. I’d love for you guys to think that I’m bursting from the seams with confidence.

This is not a pity party, and this is not a rant. Above all, I’m certainly not unique.

It’s hard. No matter where we are in our careers, it’s going to be hard. It should be hard. If it’s not hard, you’re in that dangerous place of not pushing far enough or hard enough. Or maybe you’re in the wrong industry. Maybe you?ve set your goals too low.

The more I hear photographers get real with each other, the more I’m happy to discover what I already suspected: I’m not the only one fighting fights and getting black eyes in this industry. The black eyes I get from running a business in western China are just as painful and just as real as the ones everyone else is getting—despite where they are in their careers or what part of the world they live in. You deal with bridezilla, and I deal with drunken Chinese officials. By my count, we are even. It’s hard to run a business—let alone one that is focused on photography. It’s hard to be an entrepreneur in a service industry. It’s hard for me. It’s hard for everyone.

The point is this: We should want to learn from others? black eyes. We should learn from each other?s hard times—learn how to dodge the pesky left hooks of the industry. We should try and help the young and upcoming photographer become the best he or she can be and avoid what pain can along the way. But for some reason, we as an industry are so busy trying to convince everyone else that it was easy, that there were no hard times, and that the black eyes simply don’t hurt. Maybe we want everyone to think we are special, naturally talented, smarter than the rest—so much so that we managed to navigate the minefield of this harsh industry with perfection and ease. And now everyone else needs to pay attention to us. Hell, some of us have it so figured out that we’ve formulated the industry into a “top ten list.”

It wears on me, this façade. It’s tiring because not only have I been a willing participant, but also because I see hundreds of other photographers daily pushing something that isn’t real, something that isn’t personal, and mostly something that just isn’t at it’s core fully honest.

Maybe more honesty in our industry would result in fewer stretched families, fewer people going into debt because they were convinced they had to have some product in order to compete, fewer tired and burnt out photographers trying to keep up their image. Maybe honesty just makes for better stories. Maybe we’d actually spend more time shooting (remember, that thing we all profess to love so much?) now that we are, finally, allowed to be who we really are and where we really are in the industry.

I’m talking about more honesty in ourselves as photographers — more perspective on where we are in our photographic journeys and more willingness to share the successes with the failures. I’ve personally found that the more honest I am with myself, the more capable I am of falling in love with what I do. After all, that’s really the point – loving what we do.

This article is the culmination of thoughts brought on by Zack?s amazing video (Kudos to Zack, Atlanta Creative Mornings, and Matchstic for producing it). If you haven?t watched Zack?s video, I strongly suggest you carve some time out to do so (here). These are simply my very personal and honest gut reactions to something that I?ve seen in myself for quite some time and something that I?ve seen more and more photographers bring up – it?s not meant to be a rant, an angry fist in the air, or a bemoaning of the self- promoting nature of the photographic industry. Zack says this infinitely better than I do and deserves credit for raising this subject in my mind and beyond that, being one of the most honest, generous, and gracious voices in the industry.

Ever since Mark Wallace picked my name out of a hat to win a pair of PocketWizard Mini TT1/Flex TT5 units, I have been a fan of his.

Just kidding.

I always enjoy the way Mark teaches photography, especially lighting. His technical acumen about big studio lights or little on or off-camera speedlights is phenomenal.

While his YouTube channel is full of great videos explaining how he uses light, from May 18 through the 20th, he is going to be doing a bit of a brain dump through CreativeLive. So, sitting in the comfort of your home, you can tune in online to view Mark talk about Speedlights for FREE. On those days alone, it is a live event.

I have watched and bought several CreativeLIVE courses and they are all very well produced. Also, knowing Mark, I expect his attention to detail and his dedication to teaching to come through. What’s truly awesome about CreativeLIVE is, as it is happening, you can ask the instructor questions or comment on what you are learning. You do need a Twitter account and the right hashtag to do so. If you enroll now for Mark’s class, I am sure you will be emailed some instructions on what to do.

If you can’t make the online event or the nightly re-broadcasting of the show, then you can buy the download for $99 – a small investment for your business or hobby. If you know the in’s and out’s of using your speedlights this course may not be a good fit for you. But if you are like me who wants to know all the functions, say, a Nikon SB900 provides, then I would recommend tuning in (hey, it’s FREE) on May 18th, 19th and 20th.

If you miss Mark’s CreativeLIVE presentations, you can hopefully catch him during one of his photography workshops this year. He is going to start in his hometown of Phoenix, then goes to Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, Miami and Houston. Other cities may be added to the list. So, keep an eye out for that on his workshop site. Mark is offering 4 distinct workshops at each stop. Check them out! I hope to go to the ones in New York, unless of course, he decides to bring the workshop to Boston, or better yet, to Hartford, Connecticut.

Howdy Tiffinbox readers! My name is Marit and I’m the Creative Director for WeddingLovely – we help brides all over the world plan a stress-free wedding and find vendors that match up to their budget and location. That’s where you come in! We have five vendor specific directories, one of them being WeddingPhotoLove, our directory and community dedicated to wedding photographers. We want to help you improve your business, and have a few tips to help you out!

There are lots of ways to increase traffic and customers to your website for free. Not everyone has huge budgets for advertising, so you have to get scrappy and promote yourself wherever you can! Here are some ways to increase your visibility:

Get Social!

Blogs are an awesome place to share your work — do you have one yet? Do a small teaser post for each wedding or engagement shoot you do, and get your clients to share it with their family and friends. 

There are many other ways to connect directly with customers and let your personality shine through. Create a Facebook page for your business and encourage your clients and friends to “like” you. Make sure to post your photographs in albums on Facebook for potential clients to browse and share! You might have a website, but let’s face it– people love Facebook and will likely see your presence more there!

Twitter is also great for building an audience around your personality and likes/dislikes. Since Twitter is so time based, you can use it to drive traffic to your blog posts (make sure to post once in the morning and once in the evening so the most people will see your tweet). Also use Twitter to share industry related news and tips with fellow photographers.

Pinterest is somewhat new on the market, and there are a lot of worries about Pinterest stealing images and removing credit. We’d recommend to use it to share your very best work to promote yourself, and make sure it’s watermarked just in case something goes wrong. Pinterest is amazing for driving traffic, so don’t ignore it!

Create Free Profiles on Directories to Drive Traffic

We built WeddingPhotoLove because it sucks to search for a wedding photographer on the internet. With Google, you get a ton of results, but the results are overwhelming! Not to mention, most vendor lists on blogs cost a ton of money and only list a few photographers. We wanted a beautiful, easy-to-use directory that welcomes every wedding photographer, regardless of a couple’s budget.

So of course, we’d recommend signing up for a free account on WeddingPhotoLove! In addition to traffic, your website is linked to directly, which can improve your SEO. Here are four tips for creating a compelling profile to maximize the number of people clicking through to your website:

1. Choose one image that shows your style. In a basic profile you are only given one image so choose one of your best — we made the images large so people can really see the detail in the photo!

2. Stand out from your competition. Take a look at what other people are sharing. Browse your favorite portfolio images and select the one that differentiates you from the rest. Revisit the site from time to time and update your image! This will draw attention to your profile from regular visitors.

3. Be personable. Let’s face it. You’re all making a profile for the same reason, which often results in profile descriptions sounding alike. Make sure you profile your company in a way that sets you apart from other photographers. Perhaps you can mention what you love most about weddings? Better yet, rather than profiling yourself – profile your ideal couple. Get creative and make it fun to read!

4. Contact past clients. Never underestimate the power of a review. Ask couples to post a review on your profile, whether it’s a sentence or two about their experience or a detailed explanation on how awesome you are. 

Promote Your Weddings on Wedding Blogs

A lot of wedding bloggers love to promote beautiful weddings, and they’ll link to you and send you extra traffic to boot! On the WeddingLovely Blog, we feature real weddings and engagement shoots, wedding photographer interviews (linked to your WeddingPhotoLove.com profile), as well as guest blogs from photographers for brides … since you’re the expert in wedding photography, not us! 

There are a ton of other resources to submit photos to — we particularly like Two Bright Lights, which will take your submissions and let you send them directly to hundreds of bloggers. Two Bright Lights charges though, so if you have a budget crunch, try making a list of wedding bloggers and contacting them directly!

We Hope That Helped!

There are a lot of little things you can do to promote your business on the internet, and we hope our tips will help get you going!

If you’d like to become a WeddingPhotoLove vendor, we’d be stoked to have you join! To get a profile, just head here. And if you decide you want to upgrade your profile, here’s a little gift for you: enter PARTNER20 in the promo field to receive 20% off forever. 

If you have questions or would like to give us more tips about using the internet to promote your business for free, you can email me directly at marit@weddinglovely.com. I’d love to hear from you!

Without a sale, you don’t have a business. You have a hobby. Which, by itself may be where you want to be, but most readers of Tiffinbox are either professionals or aspiring professionals, so I figured I give you a head’s up on this short video by Kristen Kalp introducing her new product offering called Sales Without Shame.

Some of you may recall that I reviewed Kristen’s e-book, Circus Circus. If you follow Kristen’s popular blog – BrandCamp Blog – you’ll immediately grasp what she is trying to convey thanks to her lucid writing and her humor.

Sales Without Shame promises to be another remarkable and useful guide for those of us who are shy about in-person selling. If your online sales are off the charts, then you may not even need this guide. If, however, you are not seeing great results with that strategy and want to try selling your services and products to your clients face-to-face and don’t know how, Kristen’s guide is your ticket.

Personally, I do very little online sales. All of my portrait clients now expect to come in to meet with me after their session so that they can see all of the images I created for them and it gives them an opportunity to fully describe what it is they are looking to buy. Selling, to me, isn’t about pushing products on unsuspecting clients. It’s about having a good understanding of what my clients may need now and in the future and then suggesting a few valuable options to them.

While I have not had a chance to see the final version of Kristen’s new guide, I mention it here because I find her writing and advice for photographers so very valuable. I trust that Sales Without Shame will teach me a few more ways to help my clients better appreciate the art that I create for them. And lucky for you, if you order Sales Without Shame (less than $20!), you get to learn from her as well.

So, here’s what you should do next: Go to Sales Without Shame and enter your email address. Once you do that, you’ll be sent a “sampler,” which in itself is chalk-full of great info that you can put to use in your business today. Then, at the tail end of this month (May 29th or so), you’ll get an email inviting you to purchase the full version. Bingo!

Tara Gentile, a thought leader and creative business coach. She brings creative thinking to branding, product development, and marketing that incorporates both strategy and high touch design. Her approach to business in the You Economy resonates with MBAs, PhDs, and graduates of the school of life. She writes frequently for the Daily Worth, Design*Sponge, and Etsy. Bestselling author, Jonathan Fields, named her blog a Top 22 Single-Voice Business Blog of 2012. She’s the author of several popular digital guides including her latest on the relationship between personal art and money, The Art of Earning.Visit her websites: Reclaiming Wealth and KickStart Labs

1) You project a tremendous sense of discipline. Who do you attribute this trait to? Your mother, as you say, instilled in you the habit of saving. So, she would be my first guess.

I think you’re right – my mama taught me discipline. Her business – she supported my brother & I as a seamstress – was driven by her values & personal priorities. She wanted to be present in our lives as much as humanly possible: picking us up from school, attending softball games, being there when we were sick.

So naturally, she found the discipline to work at the wee hours of the morning to get a batch of alterations complete or the strength to canvass the wealthy neighborhood a few minutes away with flyers about her business.

I think her disciple also emanates from just how much she loves & is challenged by her work. She still owns a sewing business even though she doesn’t need to work. She truly wants to be at her sewing machine crafting new garments & altering old.

My discipline is very much the same. I want to work as hard as I do. I want to provide for my child. I want to model entrepreneurship & self-determination for my child. I’m also driven to discipline by my clients because I want to serve them at my highest level all the time.

But my personal discipline is also paired with a deep appreciation for time off. I don’t push myself through “not feeling like it.” If I don’t feel like it, there’s a reason and I respect that reason. I do something else instead — even if that something looks frivolous on the outside.

I work hard & I play hard. It’s a good life and one I’m happy to lead.

2) If I can speak for photographers as a collective, I would say we sincerely believe we can be both profitable and pursue our art. But we also a lot that gets too easily derailed. What would your advice be to stick to the path we initially imagined we would be on?

First, make sure you’re not trying to do more than you can for the sake of money. Photographers (and web designers and web developers) all fall into the category of trying to work too much. As in, you try to accumulate too many billable hours. You work more to make more money because that seems to be the easy way to do it.

How can you make more money working less? Charge more for what you do. Create other revenue streams (i.e. sell prints at the right price, create books, diversify your services). Run your business smarter (i.e. create systems for referrals)

Second, make sure you’re differentiated within the market. If where you shine is taking pictures of families with small children, make sure everyone knows that’s your specialty. If you’re the master of black & white, show that on your website and have a “no color” policy. You’ll be able to charge more for your best work instead of making less doing more things.

The average joe doesn’t know the difference between you and the 50 other photographers in your geographic area. Make it obvious. Show average joe that you understand his unique needs. Be the best match or tell him to go somewhere else.

3) In your seminal ebook, The Art of Earning, I get the feeling you are giving us artisans permission to pursue our dreams, which includes honing our craft and creating a sustainable lifestyle for ourselves and our families. Am I reading that right?

Yes! And right there you’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s a two fold mission in becoming a thriving artist:

a) Hone your craft. Get better at what you do. Don’t just learn about business — learn to become a better artist! Keep up with trends, invest in equipment, learn new skills.

b) Create a sustainable lifestyle. Make the money you need to live the way you want to live. Nothing is out of your grasp if you name it & work towards it. Don’t aim for getting by, don’t aim for working 100 hours per week. Aim for sustainable and thriving.

4) You say “transformation is valuable” and I agree. But who gets to place value on that transformation? Let’s say a wedding client of mine is looking at a picture I took of her and her late grandmother on the dance floor. How does one put a dollar value to that emotion the bride is feeling at that moment? And how is that value conveyed to my client without sounding like a used-car salesman?

This is one statement from the book I might back pedal on a bit today. Not because it’s untrue but because it needs context.

People don’t actually buy “personal transformation.” No one believes there is a lump sum of money they can plop down & become better, smarter, richer, or prettier because of the service they’ve just bought. However, overall transformation is something that can be broken down into its parts. Those parts can be bullet-pointed, named, and price tagged.

For a photographer, transformation may be seeing yourself as you’ve never been seen before. It might be capturing the beauty of friends & family gathered ’round. It might be providing the best souvenirs from a moment in a child’s life.

No kidding, there is no set fee for “the bride & her late grandmother on the dance floor” but that doesn’t mean the fee should be low just because it’s a beautiful moment either. Charge what you need or want to charge and then back it up with the language that you use to describe the service that you offer.

Break what you do down into tangible bits. Let people feel into having you as their photographer and give them a sense of what both the experience of being photographed & the experience of seeing the photos will be like.

Don’t worry about sounding like a used car salesmen. This is ridiculous! You’re not a used car salesmen. You weave beautiful stories when you talk to friends about what you do – weave those same stories for your potential clients.

Then say with confidence, “This is my fee.” And give them the space that they need to say, “Yes.”

5) Is having or making that “third choice” – beyond saving/investing or spending it on “stuff” – the driving force behind the art of earning? Also, do you recommend you declare this third choice to your clients so that they understand WHY you are doing what you are doing for you and your business?

Yes, the art of earning is always about earning with purpose. It’s not about earning more for the sake of earning more — and it’s not about earning enough to “get by” or “have just enough.” If you’ve built your business with a big ambition, and I hope you have, then earning money is a byproduct of working towards that big ambition.

The more you serve, the closer you come to your ambition, the greater your realize your purpose, the more money you stand to earn. Not in a drain-’em-til-they’re-dry way but in a whole-hearted people-see-the-value way.

6) In a world where there are other artisans also providing a similar service, how does one distinguish oneself? Is it by clearly defining how we will deliver either an experience or product full of meaning to the client?

First – let me say – differentiation is so important! It’s probably the biggest thing standing in between you and more money, you and better clients, you and full artistic self-expression. It’s true!

I could talk all day about differentiation but I want to define it in two ways today:

First, your values define you. What are your values? How do you prioritize? What makes you stand up and say “yes!”? My values include wisdom, excellence, and equality. I know I resonate with someone else’s work when I see those same values echoed back at me. I can instantly align with both their purpose & their modality.

Talk to me in values. Tell your story in values. Explain your process in values. Give me something to say “yes!” to.

Second, your value drives you. What are you really selling? What are people really paying for? Understand your value from your customers’ perspectives. Interview them about how they received your services and what was important to them in the experience.

Don’t paint in broad strokes. Use fine detail. Share others’ experiences and allow me to see myself in their examples.

7) How much does faith personally direct you to help people?

Great question. Up until about 6 months ago, I didn’t realize how much my faith & my previous academic study of that faith had carried over into my business. My faith not only directs me to help others but has shaped my whole outlook on business & the commercial system.

Especially observant folks have noticed that I have “Bonhoeffer chick” in my Twitter bio. Bonhoefferchk was my first blogging handle. But the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is also the theology I ascribe to personally. That theology has also directly impacted my approach to business.

Bonhoeffer posited that “Jesus is a being for others.” Jesus’ sole purpose was to live his life for others. While great self-love & self-acceptance is a necessary part of that kind of faith, it manifests itself outwardly in service. That’s the kind of business I know seek to run and the kind of business I direct my clients to run, as well.

Yes, you must self-express through your great work. Yes, you must have a high self-worth to increase your net worth. But in the end, it’s service of others that pushes you onward. It’s service that defines your success. Your work exists for others not merely for yourself.

Those are the kind of businesses I want to see in control of the new economy.

Are YOU part of the “new economy” that Tara mentions? I highly recommend you follow Tara Gentile on Twitter. Sound off below to tell us what you thought about this interview. If you would like more such interviews, please help me spread the word. Thank you!

Today’s guest post is by Chris Cummins, a Kansas City photographer and owner of Glow Imagery. His passion is creating images that reveal the personalities, expressions and character of his subjects in beautiful images that become family heirlooms for his clients.

We can all accept that a better website means a better business. But what is a better website?

As a professional photographer specializing in weddings and portraits my definition of a better website is how well it answers a simple two-part question: Are the right people finding my website? Also, is the website doing its best to persuade as many of the right people as possible to contact me?

The website’s job is not to be the prettiest, get the design awards or get me the most compliments. Nor is its job to make the sale, that’s my job. I just want it to appeal to and persuade a specific kind of person enough to make them want to raise their hand and ask for more information. It’s a conversation starter, that’s all.

What works best to do that? The ideas are virtually unlimited and the questions are even more. For example. Is it best to put a short bio on your splash page? Does an automatically starting video of you talking about your art appeal to your visitors more than a beautiful slideshow gallery of images? Do written testimonials encourage your visitors to email or call you more? Do you want to require them to give you their phone number in your contact forms or is it better not to ask for that information? The challenges and unknowns are endless.

The trouble is what we want people to do on our website and what they actually are doing when visiting our website are so often two different things. So many of our assumptions are often wrong and we don’t even know it when it comes to our websites.

Whether you accept it or not, a business website has the task of herding cats. People get distracted, they don’t think like us, they don’t respond the same as us, their values are different, their means of experiencing your website can be very different (smartphones, some old version of Internet Explorer or the latest Chrome browser), simply put they are not us.

Accurate thinking is so critical to your success. Gut feelings, hunches and the simple desire to chase the herd are not good substitutes for making a better photography website. But how do you know the answer to these ongoing questions? Fortunately we can eliminate a lot of guesswork by using a variety of free and low-cost tools.

Many of the tools listed here track visitors and visitor behavior to your website, one even allows you to hear the opinions of visitors to your website. How cool is that?

Warning: This article assumes some working knowledge of how to get to the guts of your website code. Most of the tools described here require some basic familiarity with your website code in order to drop in chunks of special code that will install the ability to track your visitors.

1) Google analytics

Most people know about Google Analytics, but most photographers don’t have a clue how to use the information. What the heck is bounce rate anyway? If you aren’t using Google Analytics or some other equivalent form of tracking code then you haven’t put any serious thought into your photography’s web presence. Period. It’s time to change that.

To get started all you need to do is sign up for a GA account through google. Usually your gmail account information is sufficient. From there, google has tutorials that will walk you through how to set things up. Most portfolio website designs have some manner of copying and pasting the code into your web pages. Setting up a new checking account is harder.

With this information you can find out which parts of your website are performing well and which are performing poorly (i.e. lots of exits, poor time on page.) You can also track what online and offline marketing efforts are building your visit numbers through the traffic sources

Don’t be thrown by the depth of information and complexity GA provides. It can be overwhelming the amount data it shows you so keep it simple at first. Get it set up and start tinkering with the data reports after a few weeks. Start off my just tracking basic visitors stats. Look at the “Traffic Sources” information to determine where most of your visitors are coming from. From there, just start tinkering a little bit at a time. Since its introduction in the mid 2000′s Google Analytics has grown into an application just as complex as Photoshop but you don’t need all that to use it to help your web marketing.

It is a richly layered ocean of data about your website and what visitors are doing on it. Do you what to know how much time Android users are spending on your web page devoted to sleeping beagles? Google analytics will tell you. But don’t let that complexity scare you.

Ratings: scale of 1 to 10

Cost: 10 (it’s free, what more do you want?)
Ease of set up: 7 (Google has a neat little verification function which will check to see if you have it set up properly)
Ease of use: 6 (The information is very detailed and little overwhelming, focus on basics and tinker with all those extra data points when you have the time and inclination.)

What do you do with this tool’s information? It tells you who, what, when, where and how of your website visitors. Track the overall visits and dig into the data to see what kind of affect your marketing efforts, both offline and online, are having on the web traffic to your site. Check and see what pages are experiencing high number of exits or a short time on page. Set up goals to track what pages contributed to the most completed goals (hint: those pages are doing their job) and see which ones are losing your visitors (time to fix those.)

2) Crazy Egg Web Analytics

We just started using this one. But we like it… a lot. Crazy Egg seems to know where Google Analytics struggles. Crazy Egg is made for photographers and other visual thinkers. Rather than pile on tons of data into your lap it shows a visual representation of what visitors are doing. It takes your visitor data and tells you where people are clicking on your site and which areas on a site page could use improvement through a series of visual tools. These visual tools show a copy of your web pages with a map overlay of where people clicked. It shows scrollmaps that have heated zones over the page to see where people’s eyes have spent the most time on.

For visual people like us photographers, it is a very pleasant experience to look at a photograph of our website’s pages with blurbs of color representing hot zones where people are clicking. It just makes sense!

The set up is remarkably simple. Copy and paste the code into the page’s code you want to track. If you can do Google Analytics you’ll see that Crazy Egg is as easy. (If you are using a WordPress set-up, even better. There’s a plug-in which allows you to enter the code once and every page on your wordpress platform has the code. Easy.)

I am not aware if most portfolio websites are equipped to take such a code, I know my Clickbooq site does not.

The only downside to this software is that it isn’t free. But it is very affordable and includes a free 30-day trial. Their basic plan is nine bucks per month (billed annually at $108.) This gives you up to 10 pages to track and 10,000 visitors per month.

Why do you need this? The burden of expertise is a big risk and you are the expert. As someone who eats, breathes and sleeps photography portfolios, very often what you think looks great and makes perfect sense to you website presentations of photography makes no sense to the average person. Crazy Egg is among my faves because it is like sitting in a focus group of hundreds of users and observing what they do with your website. It can be humbling.

Ratings: scale of 1 to 10

Cost: 6 (it is free for 30 days, nine bucks a month afterwards for a basic plan but it is an excellent investment.)
Ease of Setup: 8 (may have some issues with the website portfolio template places that are popular out there.)
East of Use: 10 (it’s fun and very simple to learn how to use)

What do you do with this information? Look at several important pages on your website and ask yourself, “what is it I want my visitors to do on this page?” and Crazy Egg will show you in a really visual way what your visitors actually are doing. This will help you to quickly identify any distractions or poorly designed features that may be interfering with that goal.

3) All-in-One SEO Pack (wordpress users only)

This is a champion of a little plug-in you can download for free. Activate this guy and give your on-page search engine optimization efforts a major boost in the arm. If you are not familiar with the virtues of search engine optimization, that subject is a huge discussion unto itself. But for now you can start here.

I’ll just say this, SEO has been the single closest thing to a marketing magic bullet for my photography business. It beats the holy moly out of just about everything else I have tried. As a photographer, SEO can’t be your only marketing effort but it is an essential piece in this day and age.

A well known trait to winning SEO is using the right titles and descriptions for pages and blog posts. You can do this through the regular title feature on WordPress but also through the plug-in’s interface. This helps you optimize for keywords and phrases you know your target market may be searching for.

The only downside is it for the WordPress platform and can only be used with wordpress content.

Ratings: scale of 1 to 10

Cost: 10 (it’s free)
Ease of Set up: 8 (your basic WordPress plugin installation procedure will do.)
Ease of Use: 10 (every time you publish a page or blog post it is there for you to enhance the search-engine presence of your content.)

What do you do with this tool? Your blog is a tremendous opportunity to create attractive and interesting content that will earn you links and points with the search engines. This plug-in adds a little extra power to all those posts by helping you mix up some of the big items search engines use to evaluate where to rank your website when someone types in a search.

4) WordPress SEO by Yoast (wordpress users only)

It’s not often you have a plug-in that educates its users as well as it provides an actual immediate benefit. I’ve begun to prefer this plug-in over the All-in-One SEO pack simply because it makes the dark science of SEO easier for just about everyone. Using both is a good plan.

Once you download and activate this plug-in, each post and page you write will have a handy snippet preview in the plug-in’s window that shows what your post will look like as a Google listing. It also helps you identify a focused keyword for your content and keeps a checklist of where your keyword is in the most SEO-smart places (i.e. Page URL, Content, title, etc.)

You can also click on a tab that does a page analysis which features lots of excellent helpful tips, warnings and kudos about your post. Absorb this information while working on your blog or website and you are way ahead of your competition in a short period of time.

Ratings: scale of 1 to 10

Cost: 10 (it’s free)
Ease of Set up: 8
Ease of Use: 10

What do you do with this tool? This tool helps analyze your posts and page content to see what you can do to improve its potential to be ranked highly by search engines. More importantly, it educates you about the important set of habits you need to be forming when using the web to help your business grow. Kick ass SEO is about good habits repeated over and over.

5) Feedback Army

Rather than all kinds of code, data and scrollmaps, sometimes you just need to have real people use your website and provide you real feedback. I’m not talking about a group of photographers on some forum, either (don’t do that… please.) Photographers deal with photography on the web all the time and have that burden of expertise. What does a mom with three kids think when she sees your website? If your website’s intended audience is the general public it really helps to get a reality check on a regular basis, enter Feedback Army.

For 20 bucks you can submit your website to a group of reviewers in which you can receive 10 responses. You will have the opportunity ask specific questions about your page and what it does, Feedback Army provides some useful tips for what to ask. Ask both general questions and specific questions.

Unlike Crazy Egg or Google Analytics you are hearing the impressions of real people about your website. A word of caution: they can be brutally honest so submit your site prepared for a frank list of what you haven’t quite done right. While they can be tough they are almost always helpful.

Once in a while a reviewer doesn’t seem to care and isn’t helpful with their review, you can reject their review in favor of someone who seems to have taken some time to offer genuine help. All reviewers are from English speaking countries, too.

The surprising part of this services how fast the reviews are. I had ten reviews completed for me in just two hours. That’s instant feedback.

The web gurus call it a usability test. I call it a reality check.

Ratings: scale of 1 to 10

Cost: 5 (It’s $20 for 10 reviews of your website,the most expensive option on here, but still worth the occasional investment)
Ease of Set up: 9 (it took two minutes to submit my site)
Ease of Use: 9 (simple, simple, simple and the feedback is very fast)

What can you do with this tool’s information? Hear from real people their impressions and thoughts about the experience of viewing your website. This takes the guesswork out of what may be wrong or not helping you on your website. A word of caution: have a thick skin because the reviewers can be tough.

6) Google Website Optimizer

The very top performing websites out there like Amazon, Apple and Zappos are aggressive and constant testers of their web pages. They are always putting new ideas out there and testing them versus the old methods to determine which is better. Little guys like us can do it too. This is where Google Website Optimizer comes into play.

With GWO you can improve the effectiveness of your website by testing if changes to your website content are more effective in getting conversions. You choose what to test and which pages you want to examine.

Which is better? To have a large video autostart on your homepage or have a small video that visitors can click on if they want to watch? Is it better to have a contact form that requires visitors to submit their phone number or not? Use Google Website Optimizer to create two versions of the same page and it will send a portion of your site traffic to each version to help you determine which one your users respond to best. GWO provides reports and recommendations on which version you should use.

You can do A/B tests or multivariate testing. For photographers, I recommend sticking to an A/B test which is a classic marketing testing strategy. An A/B test means you have two versions of a specific page that have the same goal. To determine which version is better, you subject both versions to experimentation simultaneously. In the end, you measure which version was more successful and select that version for real-world use.

The GWO reports are straightforward and not overloaded with information like Google Analytics sometimes is. Installing the code on your website is no more or less difficult than a lot of the other tools listed here. Google has a very easy to use verification test for the pages you are looking at testing with GWO.

The only downside is the tests do take time. You do need to get a wealth of visits to be able to make reliable conclusions from the data in a short period of time.

Ratings: scale of 1 to 10

Cost: 10 (it’s free)
Ease of set up: 8
Ease of use: 9 (straightforward reports, no extra bells or whistles needed)

What can you do with this tool’s information? Test the crap out of your ideas, designs, galleries, images and quickly discover what is getting the job done and what may need tweaking and what needs to be put in the recycle bin.

How do these tools benefit you as a photographer? One big reason is virtually no other photographers are using them. In this business, if you aren’t doing what everyone else is doing, you’re doing something right.

The other big reason: you’re working your tail off to get people to visit your site but you are very likely losing prospective clients and buyers after they go to your website because something isn’t pulling them towards the specific thing you want them to do. Sometimes it is a big issue across the whole site that is hemorrhaging away your hard won visitors, it may be a very small issue that can be fixed in seconds.

You don’t know until you can get useful data to make informed decisions. Otherwise … it’s just a guess and your assumptions.

Which of these tools do you already use? Which ones were new to you? Discuss below!

Today’s guest post is by Stephanie Zettl, a photographer from St. Louis, Missouri who specializes in photographing people. She got her start as a newspaper photographer and enjoyed photographing people and their relationship to the events around them. In 2003 she started her own business specializing in documentary styled wedding and portrait photography. Her husband, Peter, later joined her in the business as a photographer and business partner. Stephanie is a respected lecturer and mentor and enjoys watching new photographers improve their skills. Education is important to Stephanie and she believes that photographers should invest in themselves by studying both the technical and creative side of photography. She has just published The Nikon Speedlight Handbook.

I was as giddy as a school girl the day I signed my new studio lease and took the first step towards owning my own business.  While I had a lot of my ducks in a row, I really had no real clue what I was getting myself into or where this job would take me. I wish I could go back and have lunch with that young, eager photographer and share with her some of the things I have learned in the past 10 years.

Since I really haven’t been able to figure out the secret to time travel, I thought I might share with you ten things I wish I knew ten years ago when I started my business. There was some valuable time, energy and money that could have been put to better use if I’d just had a little more direction and wisdom. While I would not have changed my decision – I love what I do! – here are a few pearls of hard-won wisdom you might find useful and helpful no matter where you are on your journey as a photographer and small business owner.

1. When you start a Photography Business, you are starting a business.

Make sure you understand what is involved in starting a business. It’s important to have a business plan, an understanding of sales and marketing, and a financial budget.  Being a starving artist gets very old very quickly. My biggest piece of advice to anyone new in the business is to take a small business class and get some sales training of some kind. It doesn’t matter how awesome your photographs are or how good your equipment is if you can’t sell your work. 

I spent the first seven years of my business thinking that my photographs alone would sell my work.  When the economy took a hit, I was faced with the stark reality that to book work, I needed to have a better understanding of business and sales. I knew I couldn’t lower my prices and I didn’t have additional income to fall back on.

I took a year-long sales training and business coaching course with Ken Stark of Sandler Training, which I chose for two reasons.

The first was that the company is known for training salespeople from all different types of professions. The second reason is that it was an extensive year-long course that included personal coaching and lots of reinforcement.  There was a lot of information I had to learn, understand and practice.A one-day “get rich quick” photography sales training course is never the solution.

Not only has Sandler helped me to be a more confident person, but by combining it with a lot of hard work, I was able to completely turn around my business in a down economy and accomplish my goals. I count it as one of the best things I ever did for my business. And to be honest, it has also helped my photography. Because I understand business and sales, I now have less stress and more time and energy to focus on my photography, making it better and more creative.

2. Selling is not a dirty word.

The sooner you get over this idea, the better. Selling is what keeps a roof over your head and food on your table. Your photography needs to support you and you need to charge prices that will support you.

In the beginning, I hated selling because I really didn’t know what I was doing and therefore I had no confidence in it. To become successful, I had to change both my attitude and technique. In my sales training classes I learned not only how to properly sell my product, but I gained the right attitude about sales.

3. Keep It Simple.

There are no shortcuts on the road to success. You have to do the work and put in the time. That being said, there are ways to make it easier. If you keep things simple and get it right in camera, it will save you more time and money than any action set will. Focus on learning to see the light, shape the light, create the light and capture the light. I wasted too much time trying to get a style in Photoshop when I should have been developing my style based on my photography skills and what I captured in camera. When I finally figured this out, it saved me a lot of time on the back end with production.

The same thing goes for the products you offer and type of photography you shoot. Remember that you are a small business owner and not a large department store selling everything from lawn mowers to toilet paper. Choose your products carefully and choose the ones that make you money. I no longer offer greeting cards because I found I was spending too much time on them; they didn’t make me a whole lot of money, and I didn’t like doing them. So I don’t offer them anymore, and that is okay.

By keeping things simple you will find your pathway to success is much more direct.

4. Know what you like and what you want to do.  Life is too short to not do what you love.

Gone are the days of the big studios that do all things for all people.  Our industry is getting very specialized which is why it is even more imperative to have an understanding of what you want to do and why you want to do it.

People will tell you that you should be shooting kids or high school seniors or weddings. They will tell you that you should be selling wall portraits or albums or purses with your images printed on them. While there might be some financial gain in doing these things, if you have no joy in shooting them or selling them, you will find yourself in a funk and burnt out. Life is too short to not do what you enjoy.

How do you figure out what you want to do? I had to take some time and really reflect on my own personal style and my own personality. I started going through magazines and ripping out images that spoke to me.  As I laid them out, I would ask myself why I liked a certain image. I started to notice patterns. I love images that are clean, elegant, introspective, emotive and much more classic than trendy. I also figured out that I love photographing weddings and adults. I try to make sure that my clients are a good fit so that I can create images that we both love.

I also started listing the things I didn’t like to shoot and made sure that I was not advertising that type of photography by showing it in my portfolio. The result was that my work was improving because I was doing projects I loved which made it easier to give all my energy and creativity.

Find what you love to photograph and pursue it with all your passion and energy.

5. My happiness does not depend on someone else’s definition of success.

This statement became my personal mantra in 2011. It was the statement that had the most impact on my attitude about how I run my business.

Some photographers will tell you that you need to be photographing 50 weddings, 150 seniors, have a million dollar studio and go on a speaking tour to be successful and happy. Other people will tell you that you need to have a house in the country, work two days a week, have two kids, a dog, a cat and a white picket fence to be successful. Neither of these paths to success is my definition of success or happiness.

I had to develop my own personal definition of success and happiness. I don’t drive a fancy car, live in a big house, or have kids. But I have a wonderful husband, we get to travel, I have a job I love and good friends.  This is what makes me happy.

Having your own plans and goals and sticking to them is better than chasing someone else’s dreams. It takes time to think about what is important to you, but figuring out your goals and writing them down is well worth it.  Writing down your goals gives you direction and makes you much more likely to accomplish them. I wish I had done it much sooner.

6. Be fearless.

I could write several articles on this topic alone. Becoming fearless can involve so many aspects of your life. For me, being fearless meant getting over my unhealthy need for approval. We all need to have some need for approval; it’s what keeps us from being jerks. But when we require too much approval from other people we become paralyzed. We become too worried about what other people think of us, and we lose our own strength and brilliance.

Many artists have this problem. We put so much into our work – our heart, our soul, our vital energy – and then we put it out into the world to be judged. We want people to like it. We want people to appreciate it. We want people to approve it, and in effect approve us.

Besides having an emotionally paralyzing affect, it also has a bad business effect. What’s the best way to get people to like your work? Give it away at a discount or even for free. There were times that I would make a financial decision that would put me at a disadvantage or even hurt my business, because I had a desire for praise and approval. By gaining strength and confidence in my self, my work and business, that misplaced need for approval has been controlled. I know I have talent, expertise and a specialized knowledge, and know that I deserve to be appropriately compensated for that.

7. Photograph something every day.

In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell explains that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to become proficient at something, anything. Whether you want be a star baseball player, a violin virtuoso, or an accomplished photographer, a large portion to your success requires simply putting in the time. For a photographer, that means we need to shoot every single day.

Shooting every day doesn’t mean having a paying client every day; we just need to be making images. Whether it’s the spoon in your cereal dish, your kids playing, or a personal project, find something to shoot and find a way to make it visually interesting. Never be content with what you shot the day before, try to make it better.  And don’t feel that you have to use pro equipment for your personal daily assignments. The most important thing is that you are constantly looking and exploring - watching the way light falls on a subject, looking for  life and emotion in your images, trying to convey a message with your work.  I use my iPhone all the time for such images. Any time I see something visually interesting, I take a quick photo of it. Oftentimes my iPhone photos become creative inspiration for future paid sessions.

8. Take every opportunity to learn something new each week. The more you know, the faster you will grow.

I believe that we are currently living at a pivotal point in the photography industry. We have gotten to the point where the cameras are so good and so easy to operate that most people have the ability to create a properly exposed photo. To really stand out as a good photographer and make a good living (which I believe you can still do) you have to have a deep understanding of lighting, posing, composition, and exposure – this is the art and science of photography. To continue to excel in this, you have to invest in your education. You can never stop learning.

The best thing I ever did was study with David Williams. His “Almost Alone” workshop (approximately 10 people) was the most inspiration and influential course I have ever taken. After Dark Education is another one of the best hands-on workshops /conferences available today. It boasts 30+ of the best photographers in the industry as mentors at each event. The creative energy that flows throughout that event is addictive and inspiring. Another great conference to explore is Mystic Seminars, which features a more classroom-based experience, and offers some of the absolute best photographers in the industry as speakers.

Online photography forums can also offer a lot of support and education. Forums that I personally have found to offer valuable and legitimate information include the Digital Wedding Forum and the Foundation Workshop Forum.

Other photographers that you might consider studying with are: Storey Wilkins, Jerry Ghionis, Greg Gibson, Cliff Mautner, Chuck Arlund, Tony Corbell and John Michael Cooper. These are a few of the photographers that have been very influential in my photography and are very good teachers.

You might also consider looking into your local PPA organization for local learning opportunities. The print competition aspect of your local and state PPA groups is an amazing learning tool. It’s a good day whenever you learn something new.

9. Give yourself a personal project.

You must feed your artistic soul.

Personal projects are the projects that you do for no other reason than because you want to. Having one gives you permission to play and explore things without pressure. You will find that your personal projects will be some of your best work because they are the projects you are most excited about. The excitement, energy and technique that you discover in your personal projects will pour over into your commercial work.

I have a project I lovingly call my “Mentor Series Project.” I’m on a mission to photograph everyone who has taught me something influential in my life. The goal is to photograph them the way I know them and capture their personality. Truth be told, this will be a lifelong project. One of the biggest challenges of a personal project is completing it. It’s very easy to start one; it is very difficult to have the discipline and commitment to continue working on it and finish it.

10. To be a great artist, stop worrying about success.

I sat in on a college photography class a few years ago. The professor, Jim Norton, spent the class reviewing the student’s work from that week. As he looked at one print, he turned to the student and said, “Quit being worried about being successful.”

Those few words have stuck with me. So many times we think we need to photograph things a certain way or do certain things to be successful. We chase after that hero print. But in the process we forget about what we are creating, why we are creating it and the actual journey we are on as a photographer.

Norton went on to explain that it is was better to have a print with potential than something perfect with no soul. Ideas cannot be corrected. You have to be psychologically ready to photograph. What is inside you?  What does your heart want to share? This is what you should focus on every time you pick up a camera, and not how many people you want to impress.

The truth is, life will give you many twists and turns. Being too caught up in an idea of success will destroy your opportunity to explore things that will really enhance your career.

All of this reminds me of a quote from Conan O’Brien that has become my approach to my career: “Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get, but if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

Truer words have not been spoken.

To see more of Stephanie’s work, please visit her website at www.zettlphoto.com/blog

Ok, it’s your turn. What do you wish you knew when you were starting out as a photographer? Between today and April 30, I’ll randomly pick the best entries to win a copy of Sarah Petty & Erin Verbeck’s new book called “Worth Every Penny.” It’s a great read and I know as a business person, you’ll want to get your hands on it. I only have a very limited number of copies to give away. Sorry, US residents only, though everyone is still invited to comment!

It was well past his bed time, but that didn’t matter to him or me. Somewhat unusually, my son Ketan and I started to watch television documentary a couple of night’s back.

The submarines in the deep blue ocean had both of us hypnotized. Moving gracefully and carefully from one section of the ship to the next was a robot. Ketan’s jaw dropped. Boys will be boys, right? The guys in the submarine were ecstatic on what that camera on the robot was sending them back visually. Not fully realizing what was going on, my son laughed too.

Then came the animations and talk of an iceberg, a collision and the ultimate sinking of a ship. The tone changed and I could see a shift in Ketan’s body language. He nuzzled up to me, looked at my face for approval and then returned his gaze back to the television.

On April 15, 1912, a 100 years ago in a few days, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg and sank; finding its final resting place two and a half miles deep. 1,514 people died in that tragedy.

Please watch this clip from the documentary:

Bill Sauder is not a photographer. His name probably won’t ring any bells unless you watched the recent National Geographic special on the Titanic. He is the Director of Research for RMS Titanic, Inc. and has worked closely with James Cameron, the movie director behind the movie “Titanic.”

What struck me most about Mr. Sauder was how, even as he was breaking down in that clip, he was so very clearly able to articulate his ‘WHY’ – his reason for doing what he loves to do. His dedication to the Titanic project, was less about the stuff that could be brought up to the surface and more about the people behind those things.

He says that upon opening those perfume vials found on the Titanic, “… for those few minutes, the ship was alive again.”

As photographers, I feel there is a valuable lesson here. Speaking for myself, I know I am not a photographer to create tchotchkes for people, but to tell their stories through images that they can treasure. For me, like for Mr. Sauder, photography will always be about the human condition – who we are, how we relate to each other and what we find important to celebrate as a global community.

Even for Director James Cameron, the pitch he made to the Hollywood producers was simple and effective – “Romeo and Juliet on a boat that sinks.” It was about a love story and the tragedy that befell the people on the ship. If you think about it, the ship itself is really a backdrop in the movie. We are more interested in the people – their mannerism, the class structure or distinction and their social sensibilities. Sure the movie is a bit much in some spots, but there is a reason why it was the biggest grossing film for 12 years, not to mention the first movie to surpass the $1 billion mark in ticket sales worldwide. There is power in telling stories. There is even more power in telling people’s stories.

The tangible products we produce need to be of such quality that a 100 years or more from now, people looking at them or feeling them in their hands can think about the people behind them. I want my client’s future families to relive moments that they may or may not have experienced themselves. For the images to be truly successful, they must help reconnect them to their parents, grandparents, uncle, aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews. To be the one to create this artifact, no, family heirloom, is such a huge honor and a responsibility for us photographers. What’s more, there is no way of telling what real impact those images may have down the road.

When I watched the documentary with my 4 year old son, I couldn’t help get a little choked up too when I heard Mr. Sauder describe those perfume vials. For Mr. Sauder, it’s a sense of smell that reconnects him to the people on that ship.

I had to ask myself, when my clients receive their prints or albums, do they experience that fragrance of heaven too? Isn’t that what they truly deserve? Should we not take the time to educate our clients about the work we do, why we do it and how they will be remembered and celebrated? I think we owe them that much.

Sound off below to tell us what you thought of the clip above or whether you know your WHY. In all honesty, I haven’t fully defined mine yet but this book by Simon Sinek called Start With Why, is helping me get there. It’s an interesting journey.

Kirk Mastin and I connected through Twitter. It was only when I spoke to him (scroll down to see the video interview), that I discovered he and I shared a passion for story-telling and a background in photojournalism. Kirk uses film cameras of all types.

In my interview, I ask him about that and the purported demise of film (especially as Kodak is now officially bankrupt). I also ask him about his experiences photographing wedding and engagement sessions. Check out his responses.

I caught up with Kirk when he was visiting San Francisco. So, the only connection to the Internet he had was through his iPhone. Please bear in mind that the interview has its moments; where I am convinced Kirk is in a kung-fu movie and the audio and video didn’t quite sync up.

“The only thing I am selling is my vision, my art.”

Got questions for Kirk, ask them below in the comments section or on his Formspring page.

An Adobe Community Professional, you can find A.J. posting video tutorials & reviews on his website, when he’s not creating content for Layers Magazine or GeekBeat.TV. This is his second guest blog post for Tiffinbox. Read his first post as well. Then follow him on Twitter.

First, I want to thank Seshu for having me back on his blog. My schedule is such that I really try to make time for these guest articles; it’s truly a privilege to contribute to the community.

For today’s post I wanted to discuss copyright, and what you’re not doing about it. I’m constantly surprised at the number of photographers who don’t register their image copyrights. If you consider yourself a professional photographer, act professionally for the sake of your business and register your images. It’s easy and affordable ($35), especially when compared to the insane amount of money you spend on your equipment. It can also be done online through the Electronic Copyright Office (eCO).

As I re-read the above paragraph, I can see how I’m coming off a bit harsh. Not my intention, it’s just lately I’ve come across more photographers who have seen their work used by someone else. It’s easy for you to register, it’s even easier for someone to grab your image and use it. Consider this recent example in which Will King Photography was blatantly ripped off by 367 Media. What I find interesting is the folks that stole Will’s images are located in the same geographic area. Usually, when I hear of these cases, they occur in other countries or different states.

In a previous post Seshu suggests you secure your images, and provides a link to David Riecks security page. Those are all good suggestions for discouraging infringement.

Registering your copyright is going to be your go-to solution if infringement happens.

Copyright is a civil matter handled in federal court. Without proper copyright registration you may be entitled to actual damages, e.g., standard licensing fees, profits received from infringement, and little else. You will not receive any statutory damages without proper registration. Considering most photographers reading this are using some sort of DAM (digital asset management) for organizing photos adding registration to your digital workflow wouldn’t be too hard. For Lightroom & Photoshop enthusiasts I’ve recorded two videos on adding metadata to your images. Not only is this a good idea for SEO purposes, it’s also a great way to ensure your copyright info is embed in every image you post. Did I mention most thieves are lazy? Yup, you shouldn’t be surprised how many times your image is reposted as is, without even a name change, metadata intact.

Lightroom SEO

Photoshop SEO

Here are some additional resources to learn more about copyright registration:

1. The PPA helps photographers educate their customers on why copyright is important.

2. Ken Kaminesky interviews Carolyn Wright aka The Photo Attorney who answers photographers burning copyright questions.

3. Jack Reznicki & Ed Greenberg produced the Photographers Legal Guide on DVD, which you can purchase through Kelby Training.

DISCLAIMER – I am not an attorney, nor is this article to be considered professional legal advice.

Do you copyright your images? Tell us about your process down below! You may want to consider a company like MyOWS to help you copyright and then manage and protect your images.