Web sites and Adobe Flash

I was talking to some friends via Facebook last week who were looking at photographers web sites.  They discovered, as I'm sure many before them have, that there are several good choices to choose from.  So many in fact that  they eventually got to the point where if they web page used Adobe Flash to display the pictures, they'd skip the site entirely and go on to the next one.

Now, I don't use Adobe Flash for my site www.porterspixels.com, as it allows my site to load faster and allows people to see my work on those ubiquitous iPhones.  My questions is:  Have you ever skipped over a web site just because it used Adobe Flash?

GigaOM

Ever since Mathew Ingram left the Globe and Mail to go to Giga OM, I have been reading it with some interest.  They have a great column on how to do some job searches using social media tools here: http://gigaom.com/2010/01/25/8-guides-for-becoming-a-power-business-social-networker/?utm_source=gigaom&utm_medium=navigation

Social Capital

Off to hear "Julien Smith on Social Capital, Trust Agents and the New Tribe" tonight as part of the 3rd Tuesday meet-up group.

Training

I'm putting on a workshop for photographers on how to start a web site and make it easy for your potential clients to find.  I'll post more details once the dates are confirmed.

Networking

I’ve been meeting over the past few weeks with old long time friends and colleagues whom I’ve not seen in years. I’d like to say thanks to all of you who’ve renewed your ties with me and it’s been great catching up and finding out how people are doing. My friends are predominantly the types you see holding Blackberrys, home office with the laptop and who are never really off work. Let me tell you about some of my findings:

• People are willing to take a lower paying job if they get to turn work off a few nights a week and the odd weekend.  A few are tired of getting out sourced and are looking at changing into a career where this is less likely to happen.
• Having a long list of acronyms (alphabet soup) after your name are merely table stakes these days. They don’t guarantee anything but you better have a Bachelor degree, some certifications (PMP, ITIL etc...), hopefully and MBA, Six Sigma etc. or you are likely to be immediately disqualified.   A friend who just had her first child was astonished “I’m not certified to be a parent!” (She was joking, sort of...).
• Social networking IS important but you had really better follow it up with face to face contact.
• Leads and tips happen almost any where providing you get out and meet with people.

New page into Google - follow up

I've sent a note to the guy who own Dave Porter Photography in the UK to see what he's doing in Toronto that beat me out of top spot. I'll let you know what he says.

I've noticed it's an ongoing issue to stay near the top, you need to keep adding content as it's now Thursday and I'm starting to slip a bit...

Taking a new page and getting it into Google

As many of you are aware, I have a budding photography business called PortersPixels.  Using the tips I received from my network of friends, I have managed to take my new web site from not being indexed to showing up rather well in the Google search results on November 1, 2009.

Some of the methods I used that worked for me:

• Don't spend a lot of money on tools to make this happen, I promoted my photography site this using Twitter, Blogger, Facebook, LinkedIn and Flickr.
• Do make Google your best friend.  This includes using their Feedburner, Analytics and Webmaster tools.
• Do keep your site current and have interesting content.
• Do have business cards that name your web site.

When I started this effort, I had no idea quite how many other David Porter's there are in the city.  After my first post in my photography site, it didn't even show up in the results (unless I cheated and mentioned the URL). 

Now, as long as people remember my name, there's a good chance they'll find my web page.  I'm not number one on the list yet, and they do have to use the search phrase "david porter toronto photographer", but it's coming along OK for 10 days worth of work.

Contact me if you want the details on how to do it.