State your goal(s) for the month. These can be financial goals, productivity goals, personal goals, whatever you want. Don’t write down anything you can’t complete within the next 30 days. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have long term goals, I’m only saying that’s not what this is about. This is about accountability. We’re going to take another look at this at the end of the month and see how you did.

Having a network of working photographers in your area is extremely valuable. Reach out and schedule a meeting with a local photographer. Ideally, this is someone you don’t know very well. Get a different perspective, and potentially create a new referral source.

Your social media posts account for 10% of the social game. The other 90% is participating in the community. Scour Instagram for local accounts. Accounts like your local chamber of commerce, churches, and local politicians are great place to find active users in your area. Local restaurants and coffee shops are other sources that could also be great sources for active local users. Check out the hashtags that are being used and try to establish if there are any great local-centric hashtags you should be following or using. The goal here is to find 5 local non-photographer Instagram accounts to follow. Like 10 of their posts. Comment on 2 posts, and DM them an introduction. Be sure to reference one of their images in the DM. Remember, 90% of your social media strategy should be focused on participating in the conversation. Participation will lead to reciprocation. 

Post something to your Google My Business Account. These posts will disappear every 7 days so we do it weekly. Think of GMB as the most important social media platform because it will have the largest impact on your business. It will influence your local SEO and that means that it will drive website traffic from people with purchase intent. That’s the golden goose. Take that same post and use it to update your LinkedIn profile and your Facebook business page. This is a great place to test your “story style messaging”. Describe a problem. Paint the picture of what life is like living through that problem. Position yourself as the solution to the problem, and finally paint the picture of what life looks like once that problem is solved. Use an image from your session to help illustrate the transformation. Bonus points if you can repurpose your backup camera to create behind the scenes images.

The two places that I see headshot photographers struggle the most is clearly explaining what they do, and speaking on camera. Being able to clearly explain what you do in a way that positions your listener as the hero and you as the guide is a key component of marketing a headshot business. If you can say it on camera, you can do it in person. I strongly believe that video is a large component in converting website visitors into website clients. This process is the very first step to that. Eventually, it would be helpful to set up a proper camera and audio for this recording, but for now, we’re just practicing and your phone will do just fine.   I want you to be amazing at explaining what you do and how you help people. I highly recommend that you do this activity every week.

Create a coupon code for a free session in your acuity scheduling account. If you’re not using Acuity, I strongly suggest that you rethink that choice and consider implementing it into your business. You’re going to use this free coupon code to test your funnel from start to finish. Look at the automated emails. Is anything missing? Is there a place where a video would make the process more clear? We want to make sure that your clients know where they’re going, what they need to do to prepare, and what they should expect when they arrive.  This information is going to make for a better overall experience for them which will lead to them spending more money with you.

When you update your website you’re sending a message to Google that you’re actively trying to be the best solution to the problem. Every month I want you to add at least one new image to your website. Use alt-tags. Alt-tags tell Google what terms you’re trying to rank for in search. If you’re not creating one image every month that you like enough to put on your website, look into doing more free shoots.

SEO has two components, on-page, and off-page. On-page SEO involves things like alt-tags, header tags, and keywords. Off-page SEO is about brand awareness and public relations. One of the things that the  Google algorithm analyzes when establishing where your site will show up in search is your brand power. Google scours the internet for indicators called backlinks. When another website links to your website it’s called a backlink. These backlinks signal to Google that your website is important. This is a pretty complicated concept so here are some “rules” to make sure that you don’t get yourself into trouble. 

Rule #1 -Backlinks cancel each other out. If I give you a backlink and you give me a backlink then we haven’t really accomplished anything.

Rule #2 -Backlinks from a bad website are undesirable. Ideally, your backlink will come from a trusted website that gets organic traffic. The more authority the website passing on the backlink has, the more valuable it will be to you. The more traffic you get from the backlink, the more valuable it is to you. 

Rule #3 – The more backlinks there are on a page, the less valuable they become. I’m mostly talking about directories here. I wouldn’t go out of your way to get a backlink from a directory because the value of the backlink is divided by all of the other links on the page. 

The best backlinks for you are going to be found in articles about photography and this is one of many reasons that I think it’s important to be a great writer. 

Write an article.  I want you to focus on writing helpful content. This could potentially go on your own website, but I’d rather see you submit it for publication. Either way, it’s a great way to practice Identifying a problem, positioning yourself as the solution, and showing a transformation.

Post something to your Google My Business Account. These posts will disappear every 7 days so we do it weekly. Think of GMB as the most important social media platform because it will have the largest impact on your business. It will influence your local SEO and that means that it will drive website traffic from people with purchase intent. That’s the golden goose. Take that same post and use it to update your LinkedIn profile and your Facebook business page. This is a great place to test your “story style messaging”. Describe a problem. Paint the picture of what life is like living through that problem. Position yourself as the solution to the problem, and finally paint the picture of what life looks like once that problem is solved. Use an image from your session to help illustrate the transformation. Bonus points if you can repurpose your backup camera to create behind the scenes images.

Google Analytics is a tool I use to find problems with my website. Do you want to know what the most popular page of your website is? Analytics will tell you. Want to know how long someone stays on a page before leaving, analytics will tell you. Do you want to know how well a page is converting visitors into clients? Analytics will tell you. Log into your analytics account. Check for messages or alerts sent to you by Google. Check your bounce rate. Identify the pages that people enter your website and exit your website and look for anomalies. The more traffic your site receives, the more actionable this data will be.

Responding to reviews is important for a number of reasons. If someone leaves you a stellar review, then you should thank them. If someone leaves you a bad review, addressing it can mitigate the damage. It can provide you with an opportunity to publicly right the wrong.  Head into your Yelp and Google My Business accounts and respond to any reviews you’ve received in the last 30 days. Sometimes it’s as simple as saying thank-you, sometimes you may have a fire that needs putting out. Either way, it’s a signal that you care and that’s important from a search perspective. If you’re not getting as many reviews as you’d like, consider adding a step to your shooting workflow that involves clearly explaining to your clients that reviews help your business grow and then make it easy for them by providing them with a link to leave you a review.

Ranking high in search is the easiest and least expensive way to create a traffic source for your business. Most of my marketing efforts both on-page and off-page are done with the goal of ranking higher in search. 

Once a month I like to check my progress on the keywords that I’m most interested in ranking for. Open a web browser that you don’t typically use. Personally, I use Chrome for my daily browsing and Firefox for testing search results. Log into your unused browser and open a new private window. Because search is location-based, I love to use this link for the Google Location Changer website. This allows me to check search results for other zip codes too.

Over the years I’ve consumed a ton of content from the talking heads of the photography industry and I found that it gave me tunnel vision. Take a moment and get a fresh perspective. Go listen to a podcast or watch a Ted Talk given by someone outside of our industry. Surely you have interests outside of photography and this allows you to scratch that itch. Think about what they’re saying and ask yourself if any of it can be applied to your headshot photography business.

Post something to your Google My Business Account. These posts will disappear every 7 days so we do it weekly. Think of GMB as the most important social media platform because it will have the largest impact on your business. It will influence your local SEO and that means that it will drive website traffic from people with purchase intent. That’s the golden goose. Take that same post and use it to update your LinkedIn profile and your Facebook business page. This is a great place to test your “story style messaging”. Describe a problem. Paint the picture of what life is like living through that problem. Position yourself as the solution to the problem, and finally paint the picture of what life looks like once that problem is solved. Use an image from your session to help illustrate the transformation. Bonus points if you can repurpose your backup camera to create behind the scenes images.

I go out of my way to avoid having any accounts receivable. What I mean is that my business plan forces people and companies to either pay me before the shoot or on the day of the shoot. It’s very rare that anyone ever owes me money once a shoot has been completed, but when they do it’s important to keep up with collections. Do you have any outstanding money? This is your monthly reminder to spend a little time working on collections.

Your website will never be done. When you decide to stop updating or improving your website, you’re effectively limiting your potential success. Your website is a constant work in progress. Take this time to identify the weakest link. Take one section of your website and make it better. This isn’t a redesign, this is a refinement. Take ten, twenty, or maybe even 30 minutes and make one part of your website better than it was. If you do this every month, your website will constantly be improving. This is going to help you rank higher in search and convert more website visitors into clients.

Header tags are our way of telling Google what our sites are about and subsequently what we’re interested in ranking for. Head over to SEO Review Tools and check your header tags. Your website should have one H1 Header tag, and more than 10 H2 tags. Another 10-20 H3 tags would also be helpful. Remember that if you’re using header tags to style your content you’re doing it wrong. Everything that shows up in this report should be terms you’re interested in ranking for in search. 

Social media is 10% content and 90% participation in the conversation. As humans, we’re trained to reciprocate. Start a conversation on LinkedIn. This is intentionally ambiguous. I want you to do it in a way that feels natural to you.  Scroll through your feed and ask an open-ended question in response to something that someone has posted. Scroll through your contacts and introduce yourself to someone you don’t really know, but you’re already connected to. Find someone out of your network that’s doing something interesting and participate in the conversation. This is an example of just doing something. The more you can make a habit out of doing this, the more attention your own posts will receive. Again this is about reciprocity. When people post things on social media platforms they’re doing it for the engagement. If you give them the engagement they desire, most people subconsciously will return the favor. This will eventually lead to your own content being viewed by more people in an organic way.

Post something to your Google My Business Account. These posts will disappear every 7 days so we do it weekly. Think of GMB as the most important social media platform because it will have the largest impact on your business. It will influence your local SEO and that means that it will drive website traffic from people with purchase intent. That’s the golden goose. Take that same post and use it to update your LinkedIn profile and your Facebook business page. This is a great place to test your “story style messaging”. Describe a problem. Paint the picture of what life is like living through that problem. Position yourself as the solution to the problem, and finally paint the picture of what life looks like once that problem is solved. Use an image from your session to help illustrate the transformation. Bonus points if you can repurpose your backup camera to create behind the scenes images.

As we approach the end of the month it’s a good time to revisit your goals and evaluate your progress. There’s still time left to make one last push to make them happen. A personal rule I follow is that I’ll only move a goal to the next month once. If I set a goal and it doesn’t get completed, I move it to the next month. If it goes a second month without getting completed there’s a reason for it. Maybe I don’t want to do it. Maybe I’m not qualified to do it. Whatever the reason, if it doesn’t get completed in the second month, it’s time to ask for help or hire someone to do it for me.

Showing the work that you want to be hired to do is the cornerstone of a headshot photographer marketing plan. The more work you’re actually getting hired to do, the easier it becomes to show that work. If you’re stuck in a rut of either creating work you don’t like or not getting the opportunity to create the work you want to get hired for, it’s time to do something about it.

Identify and invite someone to your studio for a free session. Give them an Acuity coupon code so that they can speak to the entire experience. Be intentional. The people you choose to invite should either have a look you’re interested in adding to your portfolio or they should be chosen based on their network and your ability to leverage it. Pro-tip: Set the coupon code to expire after 30 days and make them aware of this to create a sense of urgency.

My marketing is heavily influenced by the way that I’m marketed to. By paying attention to the ads and sales funnels of companies with multi-million dollar advertising budgets, you can get the equivalent of an MBA in marketing.

Screenshot and evaluate every advertisement displayed in your social media feeds throughout the day today. Click the links and see what the landing pages look like. Are you being asked to opt-in for something? Are they collecting data? What’s the message they’re trying to convey? Does it work? Are you compelled? Are you now seeing ads for similar products? This is marketing folks, and you can do it too.

I recommend creating a note and saving these links and screenshots so that you can revisit them for your own campaigns.

 Review a competitor website you haven’t reviewed before and use this page as the criteria. Give them an overall score. What are they doing better than you? What can you improve on your site to be the best solution to the problem in your market? Most of the month, I try to ignore my competition and focus on me, but when your goal is to be the best solution to the problem, you have to be better than your competition. You have to know their strengths and weaknesses. Then once you find yourself at the top of search, you need to keep one eye open, because you’ll find yourself with a target on your back.