Book Review: 55 Smart Web Ideas for Photographers

I‘ve just finished reading 55 Smart Web Ideas for Photographers by Zach Prez and Wendy Roe. If you haven’t heard of these two before, let me introduce them to you.

Wendy Roe is a web marketer who fell into wedding photography with her husband Byron Roe. Together they run their wedding photography studio in Oregon, and Wendy also teaches. She recently gave a WPPI Photographers Ignite Presentation.

Zach Prez is a widely known the go-to SEO expert in the photography industry. He has authored 5 guides on SEO and web marketing for photographers. His guides have helped hundreds of photographers understand the basics of SEO and apply it to their websites and blogs.

This book is about understanding how to get the most from your web marketing. It's 55 tips you can quickly put into action to improve the results you are getting from Facebook, blogging, your website and other social media. Because it is written with photographers in mind, each example is taken from a photographer, so you can quickly and easily understand how to apply the info.

The book is laid out into chapters covering:

• Facebook
• Your Blog
• Google and SEO
• Email Marketing
• More Ideas

I've read many articles about how to get more fans on Facebook, with no thought as to why you might want more fans. In fact, there's no point of having hundreds of fans who will never be clients. What's different about this book is that it approaches each area with the goal of getting new clients. Tips are designed to drive potential clients to your website, not just random web traffic.

Each chapter has several tips meant to maximize your efforts, and each page has one tip listed. Many pages have images and examples so you can see exactly what they are talking about.
The first thing that really impressed me about this book is the super easy to read format and presentation. While the book deals with some fairly complex subjects, it's not cluttered up with confusing technical jargon; the focus is on bite size actionable steps you can take one at a time. Each tip is presented in simple “how to do it” approach with some basic explanation of how this tip will help your site or your web presence.

The book is not an introduction to Facebook pages or blogging. It assumes you already have the basics down such as a Facebook page and a blog. This is not a guide to setting those up but rather to make the most of those efforts once you have a blog and Facebook page established.

My favorite chapter is the one on blogging. I get so many questions from photographers about blogging and how to do SEO. If you are confused about how to title your blog posts or improve your Google rankings, this book is filled with tips that will help you do that.

One big mistake I see a lot of photographers make is a futile attempt to get SEO results by naming every post something like “San Francisco Wedding Photographer-Jon and Lucy's Wedding” and then adding a million tags of every Bay Area city they can think of. That doesn’t work. This guide offers a more effective way of handling blog post names for photo sessions.

If you are trying to figure out how to make blogging and social media work for you, I encourage you to read this book and implement as many of the tips as possible to get the most benefit.
You could even challenge yourself to implement one or two tips per day. Instead of getting overwhelmed with trying to figure it all out, just follow and implement one tip at a time. By the end, you will have made major improvements to your web marketing and get it working effectively.
This is THE book for photographers looking to make blogging and social media effective without spending a ton of time learning all the technical aspects. It's full of great advice and actionable tips that I know you will benefit from, so I have no problem recommending it (and using my affiliate link). If this information sounds like something that would help you right now, check it out: 55 Smart Web Ideas for Photographers

What's been your biggest challenge with blogging and social media?

Tagged as: blogging, facebook for photographers, photo business, photography book review, photography websites, social media