Your clients can’t find you…..so go to your clients

• wedding venues
• wedding fairs
• google

Picking the right venues and fairs are essential to your business. About 40% of my work comes from both. The rest is from internet enquiries, mostly from google. I want to concentrate on this area and explore how you can maximise your exposure on the web……yourself

This week’s homework:

• make an appointment to see at least 1 wedding/events planner
• book at least 1 wedding fair for 2010

Completing these two simple steps will generate enquiries – do it!

Back in the day, I relied on friends and family to generate leads for my wedding photography business. After a year or so these soon dried up. I then tried advertising in a couple of bridal magazines. They were expensive and didn’t generate many enquiries. I was throwing mud at the wall, but not a lot of it was sticking.

I started to think about

1. The type of clients I wanted to work with
2. How I could reach those clients

Once I’d worked that out, I knew I could rule out a lot of advertising routes and concentrate on one major area; the internet

In the next post, I’ll tell you how I threw away thousands of pounds of money on internet advertising, and reveal how you can achieve huge internet marketing success at very little cost.

Until then, have a think about your target audience;

• What kind of bride will your style appeal to?
• What is your geographical target area?
• What is your pricing bracket?
• How are you going to reach your target audience?

My photography marketing tips are FREE. Please subscribe if you would like to receive regular updates on how you can generate more enquiries and more business

Zero to Hero – Part 1

If you want search engines to find your website based on your chosen Keywords, you must use the correct HTML code

Bad link example:

http://www.richardfordphotography.co.uk/

OK, so this provides a link to your site, but it doesn’t tell the search engines anything about your site. We need to provide information in the link itself. This is called ‘anchor text’. If I was looking for a wedding photographer in Sussex, the search engines would spot this:

Good link example:

Wedding Photographer Sussex

The link provides my Keywords – Wedding Photographer Sussex and it gives my URL – www.richardfordphotography.co.uk

Sweet! Now the search engines will know that Richard Ford Photography has something to do with wedding photography in Sussex

The code looks like this:

<a href=”http://www.richardfordphotography.co.uk/” target=”_blank”>Wedding Photographer Surrey</a>

Change the highlighted text for your URL and Keywords

I’m always interested in exchanging links with other professionals. Send me your new code using the above example. The more links you have coming into your site for your Keywords, the higher the search engines will rank you. My wedding photography site is listed on page 3 of google for ‘wedding photographer surrey’. Anchor text and correct linking has helped me get there. Please contact me to exchange links for your business

Quackit provides an extensive list of articles and tutorials to assist with your HTML coding

12 months ago I was ready to jack in the wedding photography business and look for another job

• My photography was well received by my clients
• My location was wedding venue rich
• I was paying £200/month for advertising

So why wasn’t my phone ringing off the hook with new clients?!

I felt very frustrated, dejected and my self-confidence as a photographer began to fade. I couldn’t figure out where I was going wrong.

Just when I was about to throw in the towel and look for a ‘9 to 5′, I was lucky enough to meet an amazing marketeer; Karen Mitchell, who gave me the inspiration and marketing know how I needed to continue my business.

With Karen’s help and expertise, my wedding photography business is going from strength to strength:

• I book an average of 4 weddings each month
• My client’s average spend is £1200
• I spend LESS money on advertising

If you’re struggling with your photography business, please don’t despair. There is a solution.

Over the next few weeks I will cover the key areas that will help you generate more inquiries and more business

Please subscribe to follow this story and get updates on free marketing advice for your wedding photography business

Cheers, Richard

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Download the zip file here

Download zip file here

Download the set for free!

You can use the set for all your projects for free and without any restrictions. However, it’s forbidden to sell them. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

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This theme is no longer available for free download. A brand new theme is currently in development and will be ready for 2010. Please subscribe to register your interest. The first 50 downloads will be free to the early birds!

DOWNLOAD NO LONGER AVAILABLE

If you have a domain name, access to a database, and an ftp account, you are ready to install WordPress. I use 1and1 to set up all three. They are fairly priced and offer good support.

If none of this makes any sense, and it all looks like gibberish-as it did to me-don’t panic! There are plenty of free help resources online. Just take your time and get it going step-by-step.

I’ll post some links to some useful help sites soon