Wow it’s the end of another crazy week already. I think I blinked and missed it. But that’s an occupational hazard I guess, especially when you work two full time jobs like I do.
So yeah, life is pretty hectic. I’m almost always doing something.
Now, put yourself in my shoes just for a moment. When you are that busy – how do you find the time to stay in touch? How do you stay up-to-date with your friends, family and peers? How do you think you would find the time?
Getting off subject just for a moment… I am a self confessed geek. I love technology. I embrace it. I seek it out! I really love my mobile devices though; my iPhone 3GS and my HTC Touch Pro. Apple and Windows. Chalk and cheese. But both are very cool and share similar functionality. One of those functionalities is internet access.
Now, who here catches public transport to and from work? Or who, like me, sits in peak hour traffic twice a day doing nothing but staring into oblivion through a double glazed piece of glass?
And finally, who here is on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace etc. etc? I really love Twitter and Facebook. Both are easy to use. One takes a little bit of time and the other can get you lost in pages and pages of… stuff. They are great though for networking; but not just networking with your friends.
In Twitter for example, I have chosen to “follow” my peers; photographers I admire and aspire to be like one day. I think it is great that with one finger swipe and one click I can see what everyone is up to. But it gets better. I advertise a link on my Perth Photography website www.timography.net that encourages people to follow me on Twitter – and they do. All of a sudden potential clients can scroll back through my previous posts to see what I have been up to. As some of you know I also love to post simple, often meaningless but cool images I have taken just moments before with my phone camera. This is all great stuff. It gets you out there – with a minimum of effort.
Even better is to write a blog. Put your name and your business all over it. It doesn’t really matter what you write about (clearly you know that by now if you are still reading this!) but it all helps with your Google ranking. I posted a tweet about this a few weeks ago, but go here and have a look at this video. It’s the best hour and a half you will spend on the internet this year – I promise. Three of the worlds most well known photographers all telling you how to make the internet work for you. I currently pay Google a princely sum of money each month to make sure my name comes up in the sponsored links of just about any photography / wedding / portrait keyword search that you can think of relating to Perth photography. But I don’t have to pay them that much – I could do it myself. But, even better my tenacious little wife is learning how to do it so I don’t have to – bless her.
To end for today, my point is this; we all have the ability, the time and the means to spend a few seconds to a few minutes to an hour or so being productive with our “downtime” and promoting ourselves on the web. I am writing this as much for me as I am for you guys. Sometimes (ok, most times!) I need a kick up the butt myself when it comes to promoting my little home Photography Studio here in Kelmscott, Perth. Interesting fact: since I started this blog I have added over 40% more traffic (unique visitors) to my website which already had a respectable number of unique visits per month - in the region of 400-500 visits per month (45,000 individual hits). And the people that do visit are coming back twice as much and staying about 40% longer on my site each visit. The people that visit my site from 0-30 seconds has dropped a whopping 30%. People that stay from 30 minutes to 1+ hours has risen also about 30%. Now you might think that isn't a lot. Well truth be told, you are right. But compared to this time last year it is a HUGE improvement, and I think that’s pretty cool. All I did is get a Twitter account @timography and started to write this blog – all in my spare time. If I can do it anyone can. I can't wait to look at my website stats in a year from now...
Which begs the question, what are you waiting for? More internet exposure + more website hits = MORE CLIENTS!!
PS – from this blog post alone Google will find 4 keyword phrases that will lead to my website… and they didn’t cost me a cent.
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