This is a guest blog by Jessica Lewis, co-owner of KRAFT and JUTE, which provides personalized kraft-sleeves and wedding favors using 100% recycled paper. Co-owners Melisa and Jessica are hard working wives and mothers; Melisa is due with baby #2 in December! She is a professor of business and marketing at Edinboro University and is currently working on her doctorate. When not running around after toddlers, Jessica sews sample CD sleeves for clients and runs her own photography business – Live: Beautiful Photography. Melisa and Jessica happen to be cousins who grew up together in northwest PA and have fond memories of playing in the tractor-tire sandbox on their grandparent’s farm.

The process of starting a new photography business is overwhelming for many new photographers. Many get weighed down with setting up a website or blog, finding a proofing site, creating a good workflow, managing a business, designing a logo, developing their brand… oh yeah – and taking and editing pictures. It is a lot of work and with so many different options, it is easy to lose track of time and become frustrated with trying to find the best solutions.

This process of being overwhelmed and frustrated is what led us (Melisa and Jessica) to develop Kraft and Jute. Jessica, photographer of Live: Beautiful Photography, wasn’t happy with the choices of Digital Negatives/DVD Slideshow packaging. We tried using the standard slim jewel case, but it screamed “cheap.” We thought about buying a 5×5 trifold from White House Custom Color, but were overwhelmed with trying to put together artwork and figuring out a nice layout. We knew we couldn’t spend a fortune on really nice custom packaging, but at the same time, we understood the value of a great presentation to the client.

So what better way to solve your own problems – create something for yourself! And that’s just what we did.

We created our own custom, eco-friendly, packaging for digital negatives in which we drew a lot of inspiration from two different websites: Caroline Ghetes and The Paperieboutique

The whole process was organic. We had tons of different ideas swimming around in our heads, but decided (encouraged by economics) to use the resources that were around us – kraft paper, our printer and a sewing machine. The feedback and ideas from friends and family were also key in developing our own professional packaging solutions. We knew that whatever the end result, we wanted something that was simple, yet beautiful.

You can see where we are now in the process by visiting our website, KRAFTandJUTE.com. Yes, this is still a process! We first posted some listings of the packaging products we had created in our Etsy shop. The response from fellow photographers was overwhelming. We were very excited to see their logos and brands printed on our simple CD/DVD sleeves. They looked amazing! We strive to fulfill custom packaging requests from professionals like you that need something that will make their brand stick out (but not lose a fortune in packaging costs).

We continue to build on our standard packaging solutions but also work on a one-to-one level with photographers all over the world to make something that is unique, simple and beautiful for them.

Kraft and Jute products have expanded from the simple CD sleeve to now include: CD/DVD sleeves, double sleeves, custom printing, print sleeves, print folders, and deluxe gift bag packages (for the total presentation). There are so many more new product ideas in the works – just not enough time to do it all at once!

We have produced over 5,000 CD sleeves for photographers and brides since July 2010 and were just featured in the latest addition of Design Aglow's Issue 11, “Presentation Perfection: Packaging That Inspires.”

Our clients LOVE the eco-friendly kraft and jute packaging. We hope you will be inspired to discover or create something beautiful for your treasured clients too!

SPECIAL OFFER: Receive 10 free Simple Stitched CD sleeves with every order of $15 or more until November 30. Mention the following code: “PicSeshu”.

This guest blog is by Andy Bondurant, co-founder and director of Senior Portrait Artists (spa) an organization dedicated to equipping and inspiring senior portrait photographers. spa holds an annual Event that will be held this year in Palm Springs, California, in February 2011. Feel free to follow Andy on Twitter (@spartists), Facebook or the spa blog. Find out more about how spa and spa Event can help your senior portrait business by visiting www.spartists.com.

One of the problems that confront photographers who create high school senior portraiture on a regular basis is the question “What's too sexy?” It seems like every time I get together with a group of photographers, this discussion comes up. Everyone deals with it. I've posted on this question several times over the past year, and it has been one of the most viewed blog posts on the spa Blog to date.

In short, there is no real easy answer. You may please the senior, but not the parent or the parent but not the senior. Or you may be able to please both the senior and mother, but totally miss on the father. It's a fine line to walk no matter how you approach it.

Quite a few years ago we learned a great tip from fellow senior portrait photographer Gary Box. He says there are three things that make up a portrait that may be viewed as too sexy.

1. Outfit
2. Pose
3. Facial expression

His rule is that you can get away with using any two of the above three at one time. However, once you combine all three, you will have an image that has crossed the line and officially become too sexy. So if a senior brings in an outfit that will expose quite a bit of cleavage be careful with either the pose or expression (as well as being willing to talk with the parent and senior about the outfit chosen and how it may look).

Now, here may be the bigger and more important question – even though you've pleased the client how do you choose an image for your advertising? It was a question that was raised in the spa Talk membership forum just the other day – “Is this advertisement too sexy?”

I recently read a great article about branding and marketing about how a funny image or advertisement is good but it does not compete with an image that creates shock. Both engage emotion, but the one that shocks causes movement in the viewer more often than the one that is funny. In all honesty, if you aren't getting an email, phone call or letter every year or so that says you've crossed the line, you may not be close enough to the edge.

Again, it's a fine line. A really fine line. When working to attract clients and potential clients to your studio the reality is that sex sells, but at the same time too much sex repels. The same three rules apply in advertising, like they do in shooting an image for a client.

It's important to remember that in the end, high school seniors are kids. Many times they aren't even 18 years old. They aren't models, how you project them in your advertising can change the image they carry in their world (both for good or bad).

So, what do you think – have you been told that your work crosses that line? Do you agree that none of the images of high school seniors are “too sexy”, just right or completely inappropriate? Comment below. A dialogue is usually a spark for bigger ideas. Your voice is heard here!

This is a guest post by Alethea Cheng Fitzpatrick, NYC based architect, interior designer, photographer AND mom! Alethea has her own business, nestingNYC (formerly alethea cheng fitzpatrick photography). Her first guest post here was “Please Don't Just Give Your Clients A CD or DVD!”

You know how many families want beautiful family portraits in their home but have a hard time getting through the entire process?

As an architect/interior designer and baby photographer, Alethea takes care of the whole thing from start to finish, meeting families in their homes and designing, creating, delivering and installing the perfect custom portrait wall gallery to complement their home and lifestyle.

My eighteen month old son is going through a very affectionate stage (well, apart from when he's screaming his head off in the stroller and looking up at me with teary eyes filled with betrayal because I won't carry him).

He comes up to me, pulls my arms around him and says “‘ug!”

Sometimes he says “mommy ‘ug!”

Yes, it is as heart melting as it sounds.

But it's also particularly meaningful because of an amazing piece of advice I recently received from Kristen Kalp, business and marketing genius at Brand Camp Blog and an incredible photographer in her own right at Essential Imagery.

“Coffee coffee coffee,” she said. “Take people out for lots and lots of coffee. And measure your success in hugs.”

This little piece of advice has changed everything for me – how I think not only about my business but also about my life.

I don't interpret this advice literally. It might not be coffee, it might be a two and a half hour lunch… with cocktails… on a weekday. And hey, I live in New York City, some people kiss and hug everyone … and some people don't really like to hug at all.

But what it means, to me, is that you should surround yourself by people you love, and who love you. It means business dates, not business meetings. It means connecting with people, asking them what their biggest challenges and dreams are, and finding out how you can help them.

It means believing that you have something amazing to offer – and offering it.

It means that all of a sudden something has clicked for me and I finally understand how to grow my business in a way that feels good.

It means that I have fallen in love with marketing.

I've never hated marketing, and as an architect, I probably was “into it” more than most. I started my own business after having my son as a) I went crazy taking photos of him and gained a new appreciation for the power, meaning and value of portrait photography and b) I wanted the flexibility so I could continue to be mostly at home with him. It's also true in retrospect that I've always wanted to have my own business, ever since I started one as part of an extra-curricular activity in high school, but I had become waylaid from that goal over the years.

Even with over ten years of experience as a creative professional with lots involvement on the business side, and even though small business owners are always talking about how surprised they are at how much time they have to spend marketing … well, there's no other way to say this. I was still surprised! I feel a little silly about it now but yes, I suppose I did somehow think that I could put up a website, tell all my friends, and run a few facebook and craigslist ads and I would be up and running in no time!

Well, needless to say it has taken a little more work than that. It's one thing to hear that running your own business involves a lot of marketing, but actually experiencing it is a whole different thing. I have been truly humbled by how much there is to learn, but it has also been thrilling to learn so much so quickly… and think of how much money I've saved by not going back to school to do it!

The good news is that the “hug” approach to marketing means that marketing and, ugh, the even more dreaded (to me) “networking” don't feel like marketing or networking – it feels like living your life. In other words, it feels very natural.

I do think that it means you have to be in the right place to begin with. You have to not only love what you do, but you have to love where you are and the people that you get to meet and work with. Where that is will change over the course of your life. It certainly did for me when I became a mother in a way that was completely unexpected to me – I wanted to be a mother all the time!

Now I know that to some, that may sound like a complete nightmare, and they enjoy their professional life where they get to exist outside of parenthood. I can totally understand that. But for me, that was the last thing I wanted to do, and it still is.

“Being a mother all the time” does not, for me, mean spending all my time with my son, at least not since he was a tiny baby. That would not be good for either of us. But it means building a professional life for myself that integrates well with being a mother not just practically in terms of hours and flexibility, but conceptually. It means building a professional life for myself based on who I am as a person. It means integrating the professional and the personal much more than I ever dared to do before.

Being a mother is part of what enables me to be the photographer, designer and business owner that I now am – it's one of my assets and I draw on it constantly. And it explains why returning to my old and formerly much loved professional life suddenly seemed and continues to seem so unfathomable. I don't want my professional and personal life to compete, I want them to complement one another and feed off one another.

I hear a lot of talk in the photography industry these days about shooting from the heart, following your passion, and doing what you love, and not just from crunchy granola types either. Again, these are easy words to say, but I'm starting to experience how true it is, not just from a creative perspective but from the business side too.

Measure Your Success In Hugs

So simple, yet so powerful, it impacts everything – who you talk to at the next event and how, what your website looks like and says, what your offerings are, the relationships you establish with other businesses and vendors, and how you work with and follow up with clients.

I'll have to come back in a year to tell you the longer term impact, but so far, all signs indicate that it's going to be really great.

I love connecting with new people, telling them about my business and following up with them. Everyone has been so excited and supportive.

I really look forward to filling my monthly newsletter not with sales and marketing copy but with information that I hope will be valuable and interesting to new and expectant parents and families with young children. I feel good about forwarding it to people, rather than self-conscious that I am “marketing” to them.

I've had some fantastic business dates with people I have quickly come to love and I can't wait to see what those relationships bring. I know it will benefit them, their clients and my clients as well as my business – it's win/win/win/win! And honestly, I'm more excited about what I can do to help them than what they can do for me.

In the same way, I'm no longer afraid to ask for business, because I'm not asking for something, I'm offering something.

Finally, I get to create beauty out of joy and happiness every day… and people hug me for it. It doesn't get much better than that.

Who are you going to hug today? And who will hug you?

If you're looking for amazing insight into where you should be going with your photography business, check out Brand Camp Blog and talk to Kristen!

This is a guest blog by Sean Low, President of The Business of Being Creative which “provides practical business advice to those in the business of being creative.” You have got to follow Sean on Twitter.

Of all the issues confronting creative businesses, photographers included, pricing tops the list. Always. What to charge? How to charge? Can you charge? When to charge? If only there were a right answer. Unfortunately, there is not. However, there is definitely a wrong answer.

If you are not transparent and do not have a pricing model that supports your philosophy, you will go broke in a hurry. Why? You will never be able to create the trust with your client necessary for you to do your best (or even adequate) work. If you are trying to “bury” expenses and/or profit in a single number or “package”, your clients will sense it and will (rightfully) question your integrity. They will be waiting for the other shoe to drop, even if there is no shoe. So the better question to ask yourself is: have I communicated the value of my art and does the way I do things support that value.

You can earn a fair return if you a transparent with your pricing and your business model.

Fundamentally, photographers are in two businesses: 1) selling the act of creating the image; and 2) selling the products derived from the image (i.e., prints, albums, etc.). In a perfect world, a photographer would be able to make money on both businesses. However, in the digital age and with competition the way that it is, it is increasingly difficult to earn a fair return on your investment of time and energy in either business.

The pricing pressure on the act of creating the image has never been greater. You need only take a look at Groupon offerings by photographers to witness the price of creating an image approach zero. On the other hand, services like the Album Boutique make it very difficult to extract value from selling products associated with an image. Moreover, many clients are placing photographers in the very difficult position of having to give up control of their art and just turn over a CD of hi-res images. Just say no.

To move forward, you have to bring integrity to your process. You can earn a fair return if you a transparent with your pricing and your business model. You should be able to say to your client that this is what you need to create your images. If it means having a second or third shooter, then you should lay this out too. Despite what you might think, clients do know you are in business and have to pay things like rent, utilities, payroll, etc., so if you do tell them that you charge say fifty percent on your and your staff’s time they will probably accept it. Likewise, if you require a certain quality of album be purchased (it is the legacy of you and your art after all), they will likely accept that too. Again, you are entitled to earn a fair return on your investment of time and energy – enough to sustain your business. The key is to be transparent to what that is with your clients. Transparency builds trust and is really the only currency you trade in.

Ignore those that would compete with you solely on price. Focus on what you offer and why you do things the way you do. Be uncompromising when it comes to the integrity of your art and completely transparent in what it takes for you to create it. Your ultimate value has nothing to do with the price you charge and everything to do with how you communicate. Those clients who need (read: not just want) your vision will pay for it. It is up to you to move them from want to need.

It's your turn to sound-off. What are your challenges when presenting pricing to your clients? How do you approach pricing – is it transparent or do you make it difficult for your clients to get a good read on you and your business? What issues do you encounter when discussing pricing with your clients?

This is a guest post by Zach Prez who offers 1-on-1 coaching and SEO workshops. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

Everyone knows choosing the right keywords begins the SEO process (or at least you know now). After all, search engine optimization means optimizing keywords so you can rank for them. In this post I’ll refer to keywords as a phrase you want to rank for, and demonstrate how to find longer keywords where competition is less extreme. Even a new site or beginner can rank quickly.

Knowing Keywords is a Critical First Step

Without a keyword list it’s easy to optimize for the wrong words, repeat words, words nobody searches for, and words that don’t create new business. All of these take time away from your true talent (hint: not SEO) and are doomed for failure. Let me demonstrate some examples of what not to do. Feel free to bang your head against a desk for having fallen victim to one of SEO’s classic blunders such as:

1. Wrong words: optimizing for wedding binders won’t make you crazy cash like a successful rank for wedding albums. Go with words people actually use.

2. Repeat words: No need to put Los Angeles wedding photographer in all your blog titles and images. Do you really expect every one of them to rank for that phrase? A homepage will outrank a blog post for a main/primary phrase. Target one page per phrase please.

3. Words nobody searches for: Cool, you rank #1 for Arizona ocean photography but nobody has yet to search that in Google. Don’t waste time optimizing for that.

4. Words that don’t create new business: A #1 rank for celebrity photographer may build your online rep to Ashton Kutcher levels, but if you’re based in Minnesota and not willing to travel it probably won’t deliver new clients. Avoid the above by doing a little up front keyword research to find the most searched terms. We’ll put those terms into a list and map it to a content timeline.

How Longer Phrases Can Help SEO

Before you go picking the top 10 most difficult keywords in your niche, let me explain how Google works.
1. A user types a phrase into Google
2. Google looks for a page about that phrase
3. Google finds lots of pages about that phrase and ranks the page with the most authority at #1 (authority is mostly determined by the number of links pointing to the page or site)

Thus, Google looks for keywords on the page (in the title, then URL, then body copy and images). A phrase like Los Angeles wedding photographer appears on 3.5 million pages.

Rather than try to compete on authority for that phrase (or in addition to), find phrases like Hollywood Indian wedding photography ideas. No pages exist with that phrase, so if you optimize a blog post then you will easily rank very high. Plus you might even rank for different keyword combinations such as Hollywood Indian wedding, Hollywood photography ideas, etc. Even if only a handful of people search for that every month, that blog post provides exactly what they are looking for. Specific phrase + little competition = new client. Multiply the number of posts optimized for specific phrases and the traffic becomes significant. Look at this Google Analytics snapshot from a Sacramento Photographer. The main phrase Sacramento photographer was just 1 of 3,868 keywords that she ranked for and contributed to less than 1% of total traffic. Most of the few thousand phrases are very specific searches you would never imagine people would type.

Long-tail SEO is a strategy to find and capture search presence for the thousands of long phrases users will type to find you. Here’s how to locate and organize them.

Keyword List Worksheet

Start with a 4 column list on paper or spreadsheet using the following column headings

Adjectives: Indian best
Locations: Los Angeles Hollywood
Niches:  wedding photography
Nouns:  ideas

As the columns fill out, use various keyword combinations to develop the best phrases for your business.
1. Indian Hollywood wedding ideas
2. Best Los Angeles Indian wedding photography

Put the most important phrase at the top of the list. Next time you write a page or a post, take a look at the list and see if you can incorporate one of the phrases into your post idea. Or you can proactively start writing posts about each of your phrases. This week write about item 1, next week item 2, etc. Cross them off your list so that you don’t optimize for the same phrase twice.

Idea! Create a “best-of” post using content you already have written elsewhere. Take a paragraph here, and image there, and using old posts you can quickly create a new and optimized post.

How to Find Great Keywords

Two of my favorite 10 SEO Tools for Photography Keywords are free Google Keyword Tool and Traffic Travis PC software. Most everyone knows about the Google Keyword Tool for keyword research, but may be confused on how to get great ideas. I searched Los Angeles wedding photographer has 170 broad searches per month, meaning those 3 words were somewhere in the search criteria. Notice other keywords that users type as a part of their search phrase: Indian, top, ideas, photography. Add these to the keyword list worksheet for future use.

Yes, it is that simple. Looking up Hollywood Indian wedding photography ideas would not show any search volume, but we can see that users do search with those words in different combinations. If people are searching top wedding photographers, then they would also search for top in local searches as well. You don’t need 1,000 visits to grow your business. Rank high for something that 5 people search for each month and you can snag all of those clients ASAP. Traffic Travis just offers a second opinion. Another search uncovers more great keywords. I add the following keywords to my list: tips, best, destination, beach.

My next post might be something like “10 Photographer Tips for the Best Beach Wedding in Los Angeles” and capture users searching for beach wedding tips, best photographer tips, Los Angeles beach wedding, etc. The power of long-tail SEO gains a little traffic from a number of phrases.

Compare Two Keywords

The other time a keyword tool comes in handy is when comparing the search volume of two or more keyword phrases. If I’m a wedding photographer in Southern California it would help to know which cities have the most searches. After typing a few phrases (at the same time) into the Google Keyword Tool I find that Orange County is very highly searched. Optimizing for that location has a lot more potential than Beverly Hills, while Hollywood and Burbank have very few searches. The keyword list should reflect this priority with the majority of phrases going after Orange County and maybe only 1 or 2 for the other locations.

For the creative and visual learners out there this video speaks to some of the tactics above.

Take Keywords to the Next Level

Keywords are a small portion of search engine optimization strategy. My Photographers SEO Book and Blog SEO Zen ebook are quickly becoming the standard do-it-yourself guides for ranking photo and wedding businesses. Learn about site structure, link strategy, and tools with no technical knowledge needed.