Recently in Internet Category

Wendy Newman, M.Photog.Cr., CPP, recently earned both her Master of Photography and Photographic Craftsman degrees from PPA. One of her reasons for pushing herself toward those degrees was her clientele. "My clientele are predominately professionals, such as physicians, lawyers and pro athletes...all of whom are familiar with what it takes to become a 'professional,'" she says. "In all of those fields, it takes a lot of hard work, practice, dedication and continual testing or trials to validate their abilities. My PPA degrees assure my clients that they are dealing with a qualified photographer who is at the top of her game. "

Curious about PPA's degrees and how you can earn them (and use them), too? PPA has created a website that walks you through the what, why and how of those degrees and merits: www.ppa.com/degrees.

Collages.net (www.collages.net), the first to bring selling images online to professional wedding and portrait photographers in 1999, today announced the re-launch of its website making it easy for photographers to get started and to sell more images. As part of this re-launch, photographers can also now link video highlights to the image sharing sites that they post - at no extra charge. To celebrate these product improvements, PPA members can now receive four months of FREE posting and until March 1st, photographers can also enjoy 50% off large prints. PPA members sign up for free and receive their four months free by using promo code PPA4FREE during the sign up process. Current Collages.net customers can call for 50% off a new album sample.

Dear PPA Member,

The Internet is a big black hole. It will suck you in and send you off into another part of space. And if you're not careful, it will spit you out onto a page where cats play piano or worse...Rick Astley sings "Never Gonna Give You Up." (If this has ever happened to you, the term is "rickrolled." You can find out more about it...on the Internet, of course.)

So how do you make sure that the Internet does what you want--bring clients to your site instead of '80s pop sensation Rick Astley? It's all about metadata, keywords and fresh content. This week's Vital Signs gives you some road signs for the big black hole that is the Internet, as we discuss search engine optimization (SEO).

Go ahead. Click on through to the article. We promise that Rick won't serenade you.

Cheers!
Christel Aprigliano
Director of Member Value & Experience

The OurPPA forum committee has been working to improve the user experience on the forums at ppa.com. The forum conversation topics will soon be grouped into one of four sections:  Welcome, Member, PPA and Community. The total number of forum topics will be reduced as well. For example, forums with similar topics or with low activity will be combined. Work on these changes should be completed in the next few days, so you will soon be enjoying the "leaner, meaner" version of OurPPA Forums.

In the meantime, here is the layout of the new, simplified forum structure:

Professional photography and search engine optimization (SEO)...they seem like very diverse skill sets. But there is a connection between them, and if photographers can learn how to strengthen that connection, great results may come.

"I always ask my photography callers how they found me, and I'm amazed at how many say it's from Google or Yahoo! searches," says Blake Discher, a Detroit-based professional photographer and SEO consultant. "Because I am consistently in one of the top three positions for my search phrase, I get about 60 percent of my new clients each year because of good SEO. I think that number will only go up as more people become more comfortable using search engines instead of more traditional business search tools like the Yellow Pages."

As you can see, Discher has firsthand experience with the powerful effects of SEO in the photographic business realm. He's even willing to share that knowledge in the upcoming PPA webinar, "Drive More Clients to Your Website: Tap into the Power of SEO" (March 31, 12pm ET).

Discher was a very early adopter of the Internet as a marketing tool for his photography business. Even though websites for photographers were a "novelty" at that time, he was already doing well when Yahoo! and Google got their starts. He was in the perfect position to stay on top of what the search engines were looking for in a website, constantly tweaking his own site to remain at the top of the listings.

Take advantage of all the online solutions BIG Folio has to offer, from SEO to logo/branding design services to online proofing and sales. They have everything you need to successfully present your photography business to your valued clients, all under one roof. Plus, PPA members get $100 off any Premium design OR $50 off any Standard design. Visit the Extreme Details page in the Benefits section of PPA.com for complete details on this offer.Offer expires September 30, 2009.

We are launching a new Imaging USA Fan Page, and the old Imaging USA Facebook group will be closing soon.

Make sure you don't miss out on any of the excitement! Go to http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Imaging-USA/82819519050 and become a fan now!

A friend forwarded me a link to this New York Times article today: "Mom-and-Pop Operators Turn to Social Media." It is a look at how small businesses are using Twitter to create digital word-of-mouth marketing. If you are new to Twitter or not using it yet, the article may give you some good ideas on how to begin.

Even more exciting than the article (at least for me) was its link to a blog called "Small Biz Survival, the rural and small town business resource." It has a wealth of resources and ideas for small business owners in--you guessed it--small towns and rural areas. In addition to the well-written articles, Small Biz Survival offers a newsletter, podcasts, a free downloadable booklet: 20 Small Business Ideas for Small Towns, and a community of readers who share their ideas on the articles--the comments following the articles can be as useful as the article itself. Take a guided tour of the site to see all they have to offer.

Buckeye Color Lab expands its educational resources with their new professional level learning portal at www.theMentorBlog.net.

TheMentorBlog.net is a free website that features six of the country's top professional photographers who share new insights each week on what and how they are shooting client jobs to stay as profitable as possible.

This refreshing new resource is updated weekly and features fresh posts from an all-star team of photo talent including:

• Children and family photographer AUDREY WOULARD,
• Portrait, editorial, and wedding photographer TAMARA LACKEY,
• Studio business and marketing expert ANN MONTEITH,
• Wedding, family and seniors photographer GREG SCHRADER,
• • Photo Marketing expert CAROL ANDREWS,
• Successful studio management educator SUSAN ROWE,

Steve Troup, CEO of Buckeye Color and the creator of this new concept explains "Each author brings a variety of talents to the site and is encouraged to post an item of interest on whatever they happen to be doing that week. It's a great way to share how photographers of all disciplines are keeping their businesses growing no matter what the economic climate is."

theMentorBlog.net is online now, proving to be unusually popular with thousands of hits each day, and is open to everyone.