Humbled by Photography

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About 40 pounds ago, I was a really good whitewater kayaker, eskimo rolls and all. A friend invited me to go whitewater canoeing, which I knew would be a piece of cake in comparison. I got into that canoe, and spent the rest of the day spitting out water after tipping over again and again. Humbling, to say the least.

It has been a similar feeling as I delve ever deeper into photography. I’ve shot and edited dozens of videos, so when I decided to expand into straight photography I thought, “How hard can it be?” Well, it’s been humbling. It’s also been exciting and fun, learning a whole new set of skills.

Here’s a recent shot of coconut macaroons (click to enlarge),
coconut-almond-macaroons

and here is the set-up for the photo shoot.
food-photography-setup

The Best Social Media

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handwritten-thank-you-note

The original, and still the best, social media.

My car was dropped off yesterday after spending a day in the shop.  Inside, on the passenger seat, I found that rarest of jewels; a handwritten thank-you note.

We devote so much energy trying to expand our presence on FaceBook,Twitter, Linkedin and other Social Media. Perhaps a bit of that time could be spent letting our customers know just how much we appreciate their business.

Here’s a great article on the subject:
A Sunning New Social Media Tactic: Handwritten Notes

WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org

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I’m a big fan of the WordPress CMS (content management system). But that still leaves the question of whether to host your WordPress website/blog with WordPress.com or to set up a self-hosted site using WordPress.org. For my clients to date, the smart choice has been WordPress.com. For an excellent overview that cuts through the confusion, watch this 6 min. video from the wonderful folks at Lynda.com: WordPress.com vs. WordPress Self-Hosting

Back to Basics #1: Contact info on home page

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old-fashion-telephone

Your phone number, address, and hours of business need to be on your home page.

We start our Back to Basics series with a simple question: is your contact information on your home page? Your phone number, address, hours?  If not, you have your assignment for the day.

“But Chuck,” you say, “they can just click on ‘Contact us’ to go to the page with that information.”

You have just asked your customers to do the work you should have done. Think about your own web habits. If you’re like me, one of the most frequent reasons you go to the website of a restaurant or other local business is to find their phone number, street address, or hours. And way, way too often we have to click and click again just to find that basic information. Restaurant websites are the worst offenders, hands down.

Your job is the make the information your audience is looking for easy to find. Don’t make them have to search for the most basic facts about your business.  ~ Chuck

Google Doesn’t Care How Pretty Your Website Is

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if-you-wanna-be-happy- album-coverDo you remember the lyrics of Jimmy Soul’s 1963 immortal song?

If you wanna be happy
For the rest of your life,
Never make a pretty woman your wife,
So from my personal point of view,
Get an ugly girl to marry you.

With apologies to my beautiful wife Deb, Jimmy’s words should be taken to heart when we prioritize what needs doing on a website or blog.

You see, Google and other search engines don’t care how pretty your website is. What they care about is content. I’ll say that again. What search engines care about is content.  And writing fresh, relevant content is hard work, much harder than surfing through WordPress themes or agonizing over what font you should use.

Of course you want a good-looking website, but if you are not regularly adding interesting content relevant to your intended audience, they are not likely to find you in the first place, because content is the only thing Google cares about.  And if people do find your site and it does not offer fresh, interesting content, they won’t be coming back anyway, no matter how pretty it is.   ~ Chuck