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Plan Create and Measure

Lesson 24 from: The Photographer's Guide to SEO and Online Marketing

Lawrence Chan

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Lesson Info

24. Plan Create and Measure

Lesson Info

Plan Create and Measure

So let's talk about decision versus the sign thinking, and this is actually article by decisions by design, stop deciding, start designing and you can check it out. It's really? Um, interesting. So the point is let's think about movie watching versus party planning. It's a very easy example movie watching is consists of a few choices, you know? You want to watch this movie, this movie, this movie that is basically decision making design is when you have tio have unlimited options, such as party planning, I could make a blue theme I could make it bubble themed. Oh, maybe we could have this. Maybe we could have a little bites, you know our jurors are we can have full on sit down or buffet. They're unlimited possibilities that's where design thinking comes in and this is part of helping you find destructive ways of how you can create an innovate your own service for your clients. So if you think about amazon google trader joe's, they're always changing their, always testing new things for...

those who haven't been to portray the joes they always put in trader joe's parisian products, and if it doesn't work, they pull it off the shelf and try something else they're always changing the shelves, so test new things that doesn't work, scrap it, do it again and google really part of their ten things we know true is sort of their doctrine number three is fast is better than slow and it makes perfect sense even if it doesn't work put out there it doesn't work take it out try something else so in order to do so for yourself look for inspiration constantly be inspired travel glossop box don't sit you know behind a computer find inspiration provokes stimulation you know with look feel smell and metaphors if you think about starbucks starbucks disrupted the whole coffee industry back then where did you get coffee? Seven eleven you know am pm you know places like that it's not it's mixed with all these other snacks is not anything that's not experience if you think about starbucks what is the first thing that you're hit with when you open the door exactly the smell of coffee so if you think about the five senses sight you know valuable sense taste and tech till it e everything in the whole experience they changed everything of that you walk in you smell coffee you smell of coffee when you leave too but you smell coffee you're overwhelmed by it you know look around the whole place is different as organic brown colors earthy tones things of that sort they changed the entire pricing system where it's ends with five taxes with tax was included for all of the purchases back then but different stories are changing now all of these things even the names of of the cups or changed you know, talk grand a venti it's not small medium large as to what we're used to using italian names everything about how they change they disrupted entire coffee industry so try teo provoke stimulation through the senses as well it's just a thought and everything to do with draw draw your ideas don't write about them because the moment you right you automatically become this formulaic you know, methodical person that you're trained to write and do that and said draw things out it allows you to be more artistic and creative and dismiss biases and limitations dream of impossibilities don't let oh just because physical impossibilities oh, because time travel is not me for the draw lines like on time travel maybe later in the future but don't allow limitations to dampen or hamper what you want to create the next thing is a question everything this is a really important practice to tow home because a lot of times we like tio copy other photographers we think that oh because they're successful because in doing x y z it must be working for them but we don't know behind the scenes you have to observe and analyze and collect data and think critically soul I want to give an example that I wrote about its in a block post but I'm going to talk about right now really briefly I was really disturbed when someone wrote this article bye dillon matthews in the washington post the post's link is right there so fierce dot com question p equals eight six zero one the article name was people who marry young are happier but those who marry later earned more and I was like no period I mean he even had scientific data very convincing arguments p values and regression lines for those who were into statistics and I like still no it doesn't work that way and I'll explain how so when it comes to cause ality this is what he was talking about ex causes why so abc causes happiness that's what you're talking about in this case you know people who marry young or happier that's what causes happiness but what about the possibility of reverse cause ality so matthew's argument was saying marriage causes happiness but what happens if happiness causes marriage so you're you're happy you get married not because you marry and then you become happy like it's right there alone you could already this you know, refute his argument alternative explanation and said marriage causes happiness financial security causes happiness because you get married, you get joint tax return uh you save money by living together you share you know your food expenses that's you know financial security called his happiness or it's a sheer coincidence. Maybe there was no direct relation I mean, there's a whole thing about spring break and people like to take your clothes off. Is there really some direct correlation? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know it could be just because of the hot weather, so he would want to do so or excessive alcohol consumption leads to some craziness or peer pressure mob mentality. These are all possibilities that leads to you know what the cause ality. So before you see anything and someone saying, because of these reasons I am whatever ex success were unsuccessful question it. Think about the the possibilities cause ali reversed calls, ellie, alternative explanations and sheer coincidence think critically about everything you do in your business don't just take it for granted that go because I didn't advertise me here my business went up. What happens if it was just sheer coincidence? Because technically I'm at the same time of the world cup right now could it mean because oh lawrence, you have very little viewers for the ten, people on the internet right now? Thank you for subscribing, but everybody else is, you know, watching the world cup, but it could be because I am just very boring and the one wants to listen to me, and that could be a possibility as well. See, I cannot draw such conclusions without valuable data and I had to do the statistically long term so don't uh take it for granted I mean there's this whole article and I wrote about here too I'm not going to talk about but just read if you want this guy will a scientific paper saying nobel laureates increase with the consumption of chocolate yeah, I know it's really weird right? You eat more chocolate they're more little nobel prize laureates in the country he had scientific data proving it to and I could and I even prove nor disprove there with causally reverse called the ali alternative and coincidence too but it's just fun for me to analyze okay mental shortcuts um we like mental shortcut it allows us to think quickly I mentioned one with organic foods we're not goingto watch the farmer put the seed in there in that square with pesticides someone got on gas obtain it's not as though we're there to you know measure how much oxygen is there for me in the gas same with oxen bar you know it's like it was this really oxygen you know I don't know I'm psychosomatic cism I feel better but the bottom line of all of this is that speed winds we rely so much on mental shortcuts that top of mine awareness allows them to think of us all the time speed remember seo content strategy, word of mouth marketing social media pricing uh, psychology helps people make sense of value the rules for trust remember the whole endorsement high level endorsements five thousand euro of yours I don't know a single one of them yet I trust him these are all part of things where you put into your marketing mix to maximize your campaign's. So in conclusion I want to emphasize a few things they're really four things I want you to constantly dio always plan observe trends they're going on out there know who your target audiences and this target audience is always changing because of the external factors I mentioned poke their hot buttons, which means that provoked them make them angry almost in a way that will make them lee to act on certain things by the same time you want to provide solutions to their fears. So you want teo build that trust, build that relationship with them use this opportunity to build a report and eventually they trust and relationship you will eventually increase your business because that is your brand equity if you you know if you take away all your camera, your equipment, your supplies, it's your relationship that matters, the next thing you want to do is you want to create once you have planned and observed their needs and wants and fears you create the content that caters to your target audience you want to speak to educate with entertainment so entertained women made a board the next thing you want to dio it's to distribute this content that you have created the show you to your readers through whatever mediums you'll find most useful pitch content to bloggers and other thought leaders maybe they'll re block it for you find appropriate channels to share the content or use your own sight to distribute content through social media and search engine optimization the next thing you want to do is manage so you planned the content you create the content you distribute the content now you managed to content so you want to engage with readers and I won't apologize out there. I know a lot of people are commenting on facebook, twitter and stuff I will respond to you I just haven't had a time it's been a lot right now but I will reply so use these opportunities to reply create a conversation, build that relationship with them I mean it's not always just you know for a point of a cell you want to just build relationships because it makes you a better human being it elevates the industry and overall everybody becomes happier ville relationships to comments, emails and replies optimize your content for asio become the trust authority and all in all he want to maintain that top of mind awareness toma and lastly, you want to measure your efforts you want to set up analytics to measure inbound resource is I mean inbound sources you want to abandon efforts they're ineffective if they're not working don't don't use them again focus on efforts that work there are other things that you can use and put into your tour to bolt would be sources like bentley so can manage how may people click through? So what I'd like to do is I want to create different billy links for my facebook whether and email blast and so forth so I can see which one has a higher click through rate and which ones give me the better results? Can we give you a second to finish copying and then okay, moving along to product lifecycle? I know I talked about this earlier, but I can't overemphasize this I want to make sure that I'm not being again trying to be, uh, negative about this, but it is part of part of business cycle, you know, eventually everything has an introduction, growth, maturity and ultimately decline, so you have to understand that you yourself are a tool of your own business and eventually all tools have evolved with taste and expectations so you want teo, ask yourself, do you yourself have an expiration to whatever you decide to dio for your industry? Just as I mentioned lengel for kids is no longer a part of expectations for adults but it becomes an expectation again when we become parents or if we become parents so during this product lifecycle how are you useful and how are you constant innovating because when I started shooting when I was in the twenties and yes, I am in the thirties now one thousand twenties um my brides were very much like the twenties we were edgy were fun we were you know, jumping off boats stuff like that now authorities know when I was stopped you know, a shooting when I was getting to my older here the crowd changed I attracted naturally lawyers, doctors, scientists they just you know um we're able to relate to me better so as you evolved you have to understand your clientele expectations also evolved so whenever you're ready you eventually have tio if you don't force yourself to ever have an expiration good for you I'm not saying you should stop shooting as a passion even though I don't do photography as a business anymore I still shoot ah lot I shoot every day if anyone knows me I have my camera everywhere I go but eventually you might want to position your business for sale and how we do so I mean that's the whole course in itself and I won't have time with the remainder we have but maybe you want a position in business for so maybe it's not worth more now than later in the years. So in the end, you have to protect your bottom line, because that allows you to do and do crazy things and be innovative. So imagine if you had a big buffer pretend you're a squirrel and it's winter time you have a big stockpile of nuts in your tree. That means you could do whatever you want if you have a, you know, a good cushion allows you to be innovative because there is no failure if you feel, uh well, I'll try something new. Richard branson was actually the one who really pushed for this protect your bottom line, because once you have that protected, you know, you could experiment without any fear for failure, because ultimately, you know, I hate to use a trite term, but yolo you only live once. You don't want to probably do the same thing over and over, even if you're happy, try an experiment because even think about your photography, you stumble upon it because you were experimenting, so try to stumble upon other things an experiment and see. And if I can leave you with one thought it's really about medical ignition, think about everything I think about the thinking that you're about to do question everything, um, be methodical, analytical because when it comes to business there's so many factors you always have to constant consider and you have to be able to execute and be agile at the same time and be willing to try to be, um innovative because otherwise stagnancy will lead teo decline and potential exploration. So I want teo leave an opportunity for questions, which I'm sure we might have a lot of. No, not really. Okay, but I do want to say before we get the clean clothes off and I forget to do so. I also want to say thank you for giving me this opportunity to be here on this platform and to share and I know I may not have the most interesting call topics to talk about, but I do feel it's so important and I wish that everybody can know this and execute it and be successful. So thank you. Thank you. Internet. Thank you. Created by and everybody that's. All right. Yolo, right? You know, that's how I believe that's how you roll, laurence high nice. Well, that's quite a bit. That's. Quite a bit of content. We do have a ton of questions, so I think I'll just dive right in for sweet, all right, so you guys have been asking amazing questions and let's see how many we can get it answered that have not been answered, so going this is going back a ways because we didn't really get a chance to answer questions from the asio analytics segment. So a stuart hundred photo said if I do a block post of twenty two fifty photos when I post a wedding wedding photo, should I only renamed for five of them? Do we name to what though renaming the photos and I'm not sure okay? Well, the thing is you should always name every photo they shouldn't be like devi to six, seven, nine dot j p g every photo should be very accurate to what it is. So what? Shoes right about shoes if it's a bride right about bride, but if remember, if you leave it up to alexis hotel waiting for those and you posted twenty of them named the same thing, you're leaving it up to google to pick whichever to find them. I think that is yeah, so renamed all of them and give them each a different name. Okay, so a lot of some of these air recap, so uh mimi had asked if you have a lot of tags under a photo, is that bad? I have, like five hundred characters under each photo is it better to have fewer versus moore tag words, tag words and a photo? They don't quite get that um I'm not actually sure it just says tags yeah, a lot of tags under a photo so I'm not sure where they are always all tag oh I'm sorry uh that is not a good idea because I'm not okay you there's also like dilution you cannot put any focus on one thing imagine like what is this photo is you know, fifty different keywords it doesn't whether is it loses its clarity I don't know what it is anymore if you just think about that way is a computer you have to be very clear exactly what it is and let it be found that way because on top of it if you're optimized for the wrong thing if it's a desert photo and it's for a beach and that's going to create a bounce rate and when you have too high of a bounce rate you will be removed from that search results altogether a couple more quick one yasmin had asked what is the difference in s e o for categories versus tags and rubio photo said how do tags differ from old school keywords? Okay the first one how this categories different tags categories allows you to just simply categorize um okay both of them categorizes or both of them categorise topics the function is the same but in terms of category it's not a searchable term because it's not a separate page whereas tags are separate pages when you look up uh I'm just making this up beach photos or something and pretend you're site is super optimizing no one has a rope to my sport. You can have your beach for the wedding and the tag of beach photos come up as a search results because if you click on a tag, a number of post do come up so that's how a difference that's how they differ the second question was how was asking about how uh do tax over from old school keywords? I know I'm not really familiar with the old school keyboards and that's about the medic e words okay? Well many keywords are is part of the meadow um it's part of the I don't want to get to the codes part but it's in the head bracket and it's tear the open head and closed head tags it's different from the public that's a hidden part whereas tags are public searchable pages um the medics keyboards are hidden and those aren't even used at all in two thousand nine you khun search for youtube video matt cuts said we're not using it for google at all and after that every single search and followed suit being while being wasn't around it was microsoft yahoo so far no one uses him okay question from ka fu doesn't do domain extensions effect ceo and paid drinking's like if you have a dot info or dot net versus a dot com it doesn't in my pen my experience it doesn't matter it's too much it depends where the links are going which everyone builds up a drink that was gonna have precedence over other ones and quite a few people including z photog april ramon and studio sara asked about all of this information and and this is kind of a recap, a swell we did touch on it but all of the plug ins and all the stuff that we've covered is for wordpress specifically april has a custom site studio sarah's on blogger what if you don't use wordpress if you cannot know each of them blogger has their own plug in and set up their blogging sorry plugin directory custom blog's are very different because then you have to talk to the programme or to set up for you to set up a way to override the titles perma links made a description and so far but if you cannot because I understand there were some limitations to some platforms if you really still want to optimize, you're just going to have to have unattractive block post titles. So instead of saying hoyt and walter at an elegant uh alexis hotel wedding, you're just going to have to remove it all together it's going to be called and ah hoi and walter keyword keyword keyboard okay question from shrew me is it worth it to optimize for other search engines like being for the most part, google is the dominant one it's jones I don't know the market share butts like eighty five, ninety percent or something so it's so much unless you tell me a different country than it's different but google has so much dominance it doesn't really matter that's another thing, though, speaking of other search engines if you want you know how google analytics doesn't provide the key words anymore, but being does being has their own being is that you know, if you want to use me, please use me I will be happy to give you all information because they're trying to take away people from google, but thing is, is that beings market share is so little, so they can't provide you accurate information, but for the most far in terms of authorization, the rules applied are virtually the same. Other search engines have a little bit more like a seventy characters and so sixty characters or one forty versus one sixty and they're just nuances. The main thing is just focused on what I've taught you, which is sort of universal for all search engines. Okay, cross question from christine marie if I've been using a different plugin and wordpress csco ultimate and if I uninstall it, will it undo all of the info on my past block posts? It depends on a plug in that's a really good question but a lot of plug ins allow you to import settings to the new one so that's a possibility I think we have a question here um I had a question going back to the black hat you mentioned like white text or really really small text on your home page um I've seen photographer is using toggle buttons to hide the text on their home page is not considered black hat okay that's a really gray area because you can have toggles or the koreans where you click and expands the text or you can click and closes it and accordions are not illegal there it's part of design so it may or may not, but if you're really intention in doing it I don't know how the algorithm to texas but it can be but I cannot be a swell so I can't say unfortunately okay let's, take a couple more so just a clarification from elisa de photos did jasmine star have to remove the no follow from her sight or is that blank on most blog's she removed it intentionally if I'm not mistaken by default, you have no follows on all blog's you can actually remove that there are plug ins where you khun university removed all know follows for war trust and then anyone's comments would read directive pr so it's possible okay let's see here again people asking about multiple languages, joel said, I'm based in a german speaking part of switzerland, but I prefer writing my block post in english english would you write a block post in both german and english and have them onto sites and do the ceo for both of them in their own language is it depends on his public audience okay, which language they use more, but so a lot of people asked, had questions about, you know, having multiple sites, and if you are, I know we've covered a lot of this, like, you know, whether you're duplicating the work on each side and all of that, so I mean, I know he said it's a lot of work, but a lot of us have a lot of time, a hard time keeping one web site and logged, so you're really doing that for how many blog's are we talking about here, or are we just talking about the site without the block one block, multiple sites, but it's up to you? Okay, you I have I think I have access about four, five logs I maintain, yeah, but I don't block four, five logs that's what a lot of work to do, and I'm skilling back myself because, but see, I'm confused if you have four, five blocks, how do you keep track of when you put it out there it's all under this it all comes across is the same name though so people are confused what block is this of lawrence's and much blogging for example until ferris is one and lawrence time photography's on her but I don't really use launch and photography name of more because I don't even shoot that much anymore but if you use tumbler that's technically another one two tumbler can be another platform tumbler is very searchable so just keep that I only put it out there but again tumbler is also hosted platform that's not under your control so I don't put that much effort into it. So when I say forty five I'm talking about I have tumbler as count is one of them tio okay, another clarification question from shrew me can you please clarify because I'm so confused for better hope a drink if you have a blogger and your business site should these be two separate sites or should they be combined in the same site? That is a question that's up tio the user because it really depends on how many links you can get if you don't expect to be able to get many links I was suggest keeping just one because splitting a two of a very weak link in balance until inbound link is there going to be bad enough so you want to focus everything into one but if you're strong enough and you think you can have two sites, then I say by all means go for two meaning one website portfolio site that's linked for that's optimized for global terms such as seattle, paris, new york and the other one that is more focus for venues. So the pier mandarin plaza hotel, mandarin oriental oh, do you have a question? Yes, go ahead. Um this's, the question about, like, kind of the bounce back in or black hat getting flagged. Maybe our search engines forgiving they should you eventually like that bounce rape, wantto get back on that key word or somehow accidentally black hat yourself. Will they let you get back on the search engine? That's a very good question. The moment you have been ostracized from or blacklisted from google, can you be back on the search engines? And the answer is yes. And it usually takes a vouch from a very positive or strong site. Because it's happened, teo friends of mine before where they were just experimenting and then they just missed themselves over and it's like, oh, shoots, you know, like what, bill? All this time, what do I dio and what we did was we simply I had, um, purchase a few links from advertisers. Very powerful ones like pr sixes go back to him I wrote a nice block post shooting back saying oh you know x y z is so great you know check out this site and I went to there and within a couple of weeks or three weeks for it was a very it seems like a short time but it was a very frightful time for this person during the few weeks that sight eventually got back on sea search engines after everything was fixed because it'll all times again we don't know what google algorithm is so we experiment a lot in order to find out what works what doesn't work all right we're going do one final question and this is from d justine who would like to know where do we go from here lawrence what is the top thing that we should go home and do today? Okay the very first thing is in my opinion you cannot change your page rank immediately like he said I mean it's going to take time so first find out your page rank that's good I would take you a minute final you competitive pay drink that'll take you another minute not a problem but what you definitely should d'oh it's understand the key words that you want to target go on google instant and see what works see what's being searched and then go optimize old posts that's the first step that would do optimize all the old ones because they've been there for a long time. The contents are a variance of having to re create content, optimize existing content, and then, once the existing contents done, then create new ones. But don't just create portfolio content. Remember, create all of the other types of solutions and entertainments. And all of these have to content, and then slowly progressed from there. But the first step is going back to old ones.

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Ratings and Reviews

Daniel
 

Lawrence has done a great job in trying to simplify SEO and marketing in such a short course. He's obviously a clever and well clued up guy, and he comes across well if a little nervous and bumbling at times. The course itself felt quite fragmented over the first day. At times I almost felt like we were going through a business studies book, but in a disjointed way not knowing what direction we'd go next. Having said that the course is worth watching as there are a few nuggets of gold in there and it's a great general overview of both marketing and SEO which is an incredibly deep topic. There were a few questionable area for me over both days, but I've studied SEO reasonably well, for example he told a viewer to keep her old site and not move to a new domain as she'd lose all page rank. In actual fact the lady could quite easily move from one domain to another, and using a 301 permanent redirect she could transfer between 90-99% of her old pages link juice (ranking power). I understand going through deeper areas like this might have put fear in some people, but I think a few areas could have been better presented or explained. Would I recommend this course, yes I would. Although I saw faults in it, the amount of information on offer is pretty extensive and will help most photographers who run their own websites. SEO can go so much further than has been explained here, but for most small businesses this will be a great starting block to getting your business out there and ranking higher than you ever did before! Note to all: Anyone using wordpress please make sure you get it hosted on a decent host. After hosting my wordpress site on bluehost, and getting incredibly slow load times, I researched extensively to find out that the host plays a really important part in this area and going cheap isn't a great option. If your pages load slow you run the risk of losing a lot of potential customers and hits, so do yourself a favour and pay a little more for a decent host.

a Creativelive Student
 

I have been looking for a course like this to learn more about Online Marketing and SEO and randomly came across this course playing live. I usually decide within the first 5 minutes whether I want to continue learning, and Lawrence Chan definitely had me hooked. I wanted to continue watching his engaging presentation and listen to what he had to say. His quirky and nervous disposition was handled well as he broke into a smile or laughter from time to time, which made him funny yet relatable. Like everyone else, I was impressed by his thorough knowledge of Online Marketing and liked the examples he gave as he progressed with the course. Hopefully Lawrence Chan can be featured in Creative Live again!

Corrie W
 

Brilliant ! Great content, well organized, practicable, understandable. I felt like I had a good handle on SEO and really thought I’d be getting a refresher. I am amazed at the new things I learned. Great resource that I’ll go back to often. Well done!

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