In the post, “20 Tips for Marketing Professional Photography Online”, I talked about the importance of site architecture in the development of a successful photography site. Here’s a site I developed over the weekend to demonstrate an example of what good architecture might look like:

This site is based on a css template by Dieter Schneider of Norway and here are the top 5 things I like about the architecture:

1. The Photography takes center stage
2. Details are hidden below the fold and on inside pages
3. Navigation is simple and intuitive
4. Audiences are separated into 3 categories (Photo | Studio | Print)
5. Pages are light and optimize well for search — No heavy, expensive Flash

I said “5 Things I Like”, but here’s a sixth worth mentioning: The Galleries are incredibly easy to browse.

Most of the small businesses I work with are not professional photography studios, but many of the strengths of architecture in Dieter’s design still apply.

Comments?

Chad Takenaka, owner of Design Models of California, has an approach to his work that really resonates with me:  Blending the latest technology with old school hand crafted values.

Chad Takenaka, owner of Design Models of California

After reading today’s LA Times article by Cyndia Zwahlen, I felt compelled to do something to help Chad’s business prosper. So, with a cup of coffee at my elbow, I sent the following email to Chad Takenaka, outlining 5 Steps he could take to improve his internet marketing:

Chad,

Enjoyed the Times article and hope it brings you lots of business. I’m particularly attracted to your concept of blending “the latest technology with old school values.”

As the owner of HandPickedTomates, I wanted to share a few quick (albeit unsolicited) thoughts about your website.

It looks professional, clean, simple, well organized, and (forgive me) really dull. Here are some suggestions to improve it to drive more business to you:

* 1. Improve the architecture
* Improve the impact of the landing page (you have 3-5 seconds to connect, don’t expect visitors to drill down to do it)
* Separate your audiences on the landing page
* Message to each audience individually (I’m guessing Mattel and Disney speak differently and have slightly different needs than Northrop and Boeing?)
* Enable zooming on all photos. (Imagine trying to communicate the beauty of Hawaii using only thumbnail images)
* Tag all images, links, and urls for better search engine optimization (SEO)
* Replace the email us link with a simple form, .e.g Contact Form
* 2. Name drop
* Your client list gives you instant cred. Yours more-so than most, so don’t hide it.
* 3. Make Social Networking work for you (Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter….)
* Your work is hip and interesting. Take the time to capture it and float it out onto the social networks.
* Use professional grade Photography and Video to tell the story
* Upload photos and video to YouTube, Flickr, etc. Make sure every post is well tagged for SEO.
* 4. Leverage Email Broadcasts
* Add an email subscription form to the site
* Send periodic email broadcasts to clients and other subscribers to keep your name in front of them
* 5. Post a Calendar of Events
* Consider offering regularly scheduled tours of your facility and post the date and time (see my Wednesday Free Consult for example)

This just scratches the surface. I hope you find some value in it. Please contact me if you ever decide to offer the facility tour.

Best,
Stephen

What do you other small business owners think about these steps. What others should be on Chad’s list?

Something incredible happend this Wednesday. I stopped at the Stony Creek General Store in Sequoia National Forest and ran headlong into a need for Google Wave. Here’s what happened…

My son and I were just ending a four day backpacking trip through the Jennie Lakes Wilderness when we happened upon Markus Herzig who was just getting ready to mount his strangely customized Yamaha FJ-1200 motorcycle.

When I asked him where he started from his answer startled me: “Switzerland”, he said. “Wow, that’s a long way away” I ventured. “How long did it take you?”  ”A long time the way I went”, he replied and then he recited a rough outline of his travels over the past year, in lightly accented English:

“Started in Switzerland and road across Europe and the Middle East to Asia. Traveled from one end of Japan to the other and then across China, Mongolia (no roads here – broke my frame and had to wait for a replacement) and Russia, across the Bering Straight and through Alaska and down the Western Canadian Coast, and across Southern Canada to Nova Scotia and back to the West Coast of America.”

“Today I am going to Death Valley and then down to the Mexican border. Then over the next year back to Switzerland via Central and South America and Africa.”

Cool trip, but what does this have to do with Google Wave? Well, for starters this trip calls for global collaboration across languages and media. According to Google, with Google Wave people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, [voice] and more. Concurrency control technology lets all people on a Wave edit stuff at the same time – kind of like how people talk at the same time and even over one another in normal conversation.

Since Markus’ trip is currently being blogged only in German ( www.motonaut.ch ), it would be uber useful to have Google Wave’s ability to instantly translate chats, emails and other text based communication word for word into English or another of 40 different languages, as seen in this video. And wouldn’t it be cool to track Markus’ progress on an interactive map?

Good news for anyone looking to track his trip. Google Wave is due out later this year, in plenty of time for Markus’ scheduled return into Switzerland sometime in the latter half of 2010.

The tech part of me can’t wait. And at the same time I’m a bit daunted at the prospects of our shrinking world. Wish I could open up a Wave on that.

Sometimes highly functional simplicity isn’t immediately obvious… but in the end it’s always remarkable.

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