Blogs, SEO and social media are great ways to advertise or express yourself in this day and age. I teach college photography and 99.9% of all my students lack basic computer knowledge, or any clue of blogs, SEO (search engine optimization) and the use of social media.
I love to make things and started a site called Metal Design. I make custom furniture, jewelry and a variety of other stuff. Because I understand blogs and SEO, I get calls all the time from companies needing metal fabrication. Some of the work is over my skill set, or I just don’t have the time. Most work I accept is because it is something I will enjoy. Metal Design is more of a hobby than a job. It is something I want to enjoy. The reason I get so many calls is because my site is the one getting found on searches. Most metal fabricators in the area do not have a website or know anything about getting found on internet searches. Just one example of the power of SEO
I photographed someone from India who was working in IT in this country. I asked him when they start teaching computer programming in school. He said in 5th grade! My daughter is in 8th grade and knows nothing about the subject. However, she can tell you about the war of 1812. Not sure how that is going to help her in the future.
The real point of this blog is to promote my niece who started her own blog titled, “E.xploring L.ife H.appily” Personally, I don’t enjoy writing and partly because I am not that great at it. Take time, click the link and check out Ellie’s blog.
P.S. Backlinks and links within a post to your own blog are great for website analytics.
Image Ratios
Getting hired to shoot images for a website is pretty common now. A lot of small businesses decide to manage their own sites. This is not a big issue, as long as you have your template or site available before the shoot. A photographer really needs to know what size image needs to be in pixels before they shoot. This helps the photographer shoot each image in the correct ratio and avoids important information getting cropped. Not knowing image sizes or ratios can result in re-shoots and extra costs. It also benefits the client because I can size all images for the client and make them ready to use.
A quick note for clients. Color Management is very important for photography. It ensures color to be true to a viewer. Most photographers use the color space Adobe RGB or Adobe 1998. Any image used on the internet should be in sRGB. Make sure your photographer or webmaster converts files to the correct color space.
Below, I will post a new page I am devoting to Website Information. I show examples of how image ratios can affect your photograph.