A gentler pace ..

Child and animal studies taken at a reasonable price! Sounds so quaint, but I think I might market myself like that from now on! The line's from this fantastic 1980 classified newspaper column I found in my archive. Portraits, canvas or standard; magnificent album from £39.99; samples in your home, without obligation! It all sounds so civilized and gentlemanly, not like the rip tear of modern marketing and I for one would gladly go back to putting a nice 'ad' in the paper to get my work.
There's just so much info out there now and, sadly, getting work's very often not about the quality of your photography but your skills with SEO and getting your name up the Goggle ranking! (Not a spelling mistake!) ..

Sit down, Martin! Have a cup of tea!
Ah, now there's an idea for your new Home page picture ..

Smoke & Mirrors ..

More SEO 'bs' yesterday, with two epsiodes concerning Google to tell you about. Firstly, I was contacted by yet another of those magical 'We can get you up the rankings' companies, whose first line to me was - and I quote - "I was going through the leading sites in your sector when I came across you, and wondered if you’d like a Complimentary Website Review." Hang on! I come up in the 'leading sites'? Isn't that 'Job Done' then? So why do I need my site reviewing if it's, by their own admission, already doing its job?  And, as if to prove it, I was phoned straight afterwards by a company who'd Googled photographers in Warrington, and who've now booked me for a PR job on Friday! Eat yer heart out, complimentary website reviewers!

I was on a PR job the other day - you may have seen the link to some of the pix on Facebook - which was actually in the car park of the company, as it was a motor-cycle training event. In a corner of the car-park was the 'smokers' hut' - the pong-palace where people came out for their fag-breaks. Man, I could not believe the amount of young people coming out for a smoke. It was depressing! Speaking as someone who doesn't have a single friend that smokes, it comes as an ever-more shocking site to see people gathering in huddles to suck shit into their lungs. The message is not getting across, is it?

Do you blog?..

Further to my ramblings about the Google ranking system and how to get yourself up it, I was chatting to a new chap at badminton last night who turned out to be a 'senior IT consultant'  (That was handy!) I asked him if he knew anything about SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) "A little .. " he said, self-effacingly, so I asked him if he knew how I could get my website higher up the search pages. "What is it you do?" he asked. "Photography!.." I said. "Ah, ok.." he nodded "So do you change the pictures on your site very often.." "Oh, yes.." I said "In fact, I just changed the front page this very day..."


He thought for a moment... "Do you actually submit the site to search engines?"
"I do, indeed" I said "And I use Google Adwords, albeit at a very low budget"
"And are you on Facebook?"
"Oh, yes, of course.." I said "I have a specific Facebook page for StudioFiveFour"
"And Pinterest, Flickr, etc...?"
"Yes, I use all of those.." I said "and Tumblr"
"And you Tweet?"
"I tweet"
He scratched his cheek and twirled his badminton racket as we waited for our turn on the court. "Ah, well..." he said, breaking into a smile "What you need to do is to write a blog!.."

Oh, bugger....

Con Man ..

The mysteries of The Google Rankings are a dark art, and I could study them for another hundred years and still not understand how they all work. Thankfully, yet another 'expert' came to my rescue yesterday and offered me his services to get my web-site up the listings. "There are so many brides out there.." he assured me "who are happy to spend £1, 350 on their Wedding photography" and, for a fee, he added, he could direct them to my site. Oooh, I said - with faux enthusiasm - so how much would that fee be? He started to hit me with figures. My mind went blank. It involved hundreds of pounds! My eyes started to water and I went for a lie down! Isn't it funny that the word 'con' can be used to mean 'to study' or 'to swindle'...

Point me to Google..

Bloomin' poo and wee and sausages! I don't know whether I'm coming or going! I've had real problems lately getting up the mysterious 'Google Rankings', despite spending ages tagging every flippin' photograph on my site with keywords and venue names and Wedding terms. So, I've done what no man is supposed to do .. I've admitted I was flummoxed and turned to the experts! "Ah.." they've said "No, no, no..." (I imagined fingers being wagged at me, even though we were speaking on the phone) Seems Google doesn't read words within images any more. Oh, you silly man! Text! That's what you need! Tons and tons of text on your pages. Text that Google can read, text that Google can assess for relevance, text that's taken bloody ages to add to my site, and there's the day gone and I've not moved from my desk since 7am! So, when did that change then? And why? And can someone please warn me about the next sneaky shift in 'their' way of checking things! It only seems ten bloody minutes since I was advised that I must be on Google Adwords, and then that was a no-no, it was all about Facebook, and now it's blogging and tweeting and emailing that you've blogged about your tweet on someone's wall .. or something! Aaaagh!

Still, as long as it brings in business..