Actionable Business Tips for Photographers during Covid-19 Pandemic
It’s so easy to get discouraged when life doesn’t go to plan. Photoshoots and events are being cancelled … But guess what? We have time now. There’s more than enough time for tidying up your website and paperwork, learning new photography tricks, writing more content and so much more! If you feel like you need little inspiration during this uncertain time, here’s a list of 10 actionable business tips for photographers during Covid-19 that you can do RIGHT NOW to keep growing your business and your influence online.
Let’s dive right into it!
10 Actionable Business Tips Photographers can do during Covid-19 to grow their businesses:
BLOG more
Build your online community and get more eyes on your work! Most people are online now consuming more content than ever. What can be a better incentive to create more content than an army of eager readers, who want to be inspired, entertained and educated? While you have spare time, create a backlog of blog posts for next 3-6 months. This way you will have less stress over content creation when lockdown is over.
Optimise your existing blog posts with SEO
If you’re like me: you heard about ‘SEO’, you know what it is, but have no clue how to actually use it, get YOAST SEO plugin. It is a great free tool! It analyses every page on your website and gives you a breakdown of all the things to work on in order to improve your site’s SEO score for better Google ranking. Image alt text, key phrase length and density, meta description and so much more: as well as giving you these clues, YOAST links every one of them to a webpage explaining every term and how they work.
Invest in Pinterest
Again, everyone is online these days browsing. Just like Google, Pinterest is another search engine where people go when they’re looking for something. Unlike Google, Pinterest is more visual: beautiful images and graphics will get much more traffic to your website than text heavy posts.
Get a Pinterest business account (it’s free) and start pinning! Pin your portfolio work, blogs and even your Instagram posts, why not!
Feel free to check out my Pinterest profile!
Check your progress with Google Analytics
I can’t recommend Google Analytics enough! Thanks to this free tool, you will know exactly how many people are checking out your work, reading what you have to say and where they are coming from. This way you will know what content is working and what you can improve to get better results.
When I started blogging it was frustrating not knowing if there’s anyone even opening my blog. But now I’m monitoring everything and it’s the best feeling seeing your business grow!
Plan your social media feed
Plan in advance what to post and what you want to say. Also planning your feed is a great idea, making sure it’s consistent and looks good in the grid. There’s a number of tools that allow you to envision, plan and even schedule social media posts so you can save tons of time.
Connect with your prospects on a personal level
Check if they’re doing well. Comment on their latest post. Be genuine. This way you will be on top of their mind when is life back to normal.
Update your website
Freshen it up with new work, or go back and re-edit some of your portfolio images. If you feel like a bigger change, you can also get a new theme and renew your portfolio website completely.
Create a photography contract (if you don’t have it)
Having a contract will help you ensure you and your clients are on the same page. Payment dates, photo editing and delivery times as well as legal rights that you as a photographer keep.
Create a model release form (if you don’t have it already)
If you intend to have your work published, a model release form is a must. It also a great idea to ensure your model is okay with the photos of them being showcased (on your website, social media, etc), especially if you photograph a younger model. Have a separate paragraph for a parent/legal guardian to sign if applicable. It might not be a big deal for your model, but it’s always better to be prepared for anything.
Educate yourself and improve your photography
Explore new editing techniques, photography laws, brush up your knowledge of photography fundamentals. There are plenty of free courses and videos to learn from. Also, many photographers are offering their resources for a heavy discount or even free these days!
HERE are some fun ideas how you can improve your photography at home.
I hope you enjoyed this week’s post. If you know any other business tips photographers can do right now during covid-19 pandemic that I didn’t mention, I would love to hear from you! Stay safe!
