Time for another set of curated articles that I discovered in the past few months. Skim through this reading material to find the stuff that’s most relevant to your photography business.
Marketing
A great free eBook by Agency Access and PhotoShelter: The Photographer’s Survival Guide to Marketing. It covers all sorts of marketing tips, designing promotional campaigns, leveraging social media, improving your portfolio, etc.
And another free guide: Licensing Your Photos for Social Media. “Inside, you’ll learn licensing language to consider in your next contract, tips from a photographer rep on negotiating image usage on social, plus what brands and design agencies are looking for from photographers to hire for social media content.”
A detailed article for Twitter fans: Expert Advice: Twitter for Photographers
Web-design
If you’re in the mood for a big listicle, check out 32 Things You’re Doing Wrong With Your Website Design Selfishly reminds me of my own 60+ Photography Website Mistakes :-)
Here’s another vote for simplicity: Photography Marketing: Less Is More With Website Content
Want to improve your page load times? Image optimization is a great place to start! From big to small: 5 free image compression tools reviewed
A good infographic on choosing domain names for your site: 101 Fascinating Facts You Didn’t Know About Domain Names
SEO
Make sure you’ve read my recent in-depth guide: Image SEO essentials: How to optimize for Google Image search to drive more traffic to your photography website
For advanced SEO enthusiasts, here are The Only 6 Keyword Research Tools You Need to Use Neil Patel’s articles are quite good if you can avoid the barrage of popups on his site :-)
And if you’re in the small minority of people who don’t know what HTTPS is yet, read this article by Yoast (the creator of the best WP SEO plugin): SEO basics: What is HTTPS? If you haven’t yet switched to HTTPS, you risk running into problems (soon-ish): Google Chrome to show security warnings on your site if you don’t have a SSL certificate
While you’re learning, here are 19 technical SEO facts for beginners
Others
If you use PhotoShelter and Lightroom, check out their new LR plugin version
Speaking of Lightroom, are you at all confused by the two different versions of LR now? New Lightroom CC or Lightroom Classic: Which Version is Right for You?
If you’re looking for inspiration for your new photo projects, check out this free PDF guide: How I Got The Shot: Third Edition “15 new photographers, including Scott Kelby, Clay Cook, Vanessa Joy, and Rossella Vanon, break down how they arrived at their final vision”
And then, how about getting some organizations to fund your photo project?
It’s all worth it anyway because apparently photography is beneficial for your mental wellness :-)
When two photography podcast hosts get together, the result is great: Starting a business partnership for photographers (Interview with Andrew Hellmich on the Sprouting Photographer Podcast)
We’ve got holiday gift guides as well: The Photographer’s Ultimate Holiday Wish List Guide (from PhotoShelter) and Our 2017 Holiday Gift Guide for Creatives (from Agency Access)