Do you lie awake at night ‘imagineering’ potential ideas in your mind… mulling over the creative possibilities of where you could go with a digital photography blog?

Photo blogging is actually one superb way to start making money in photography. Of course though, you DO need to put the effort into it (like anything, right?)

Although it’s easy enough to set up a WordPress blog (like this one), keep in mind you’ll still need to post (write) to your blog often, be willing to work hard at it, learn the basics to blogging, and make sure you keep firing questions to passionate marketeers like me!

However it’s not always as easy as it sounds. You kind of need to have your own ‘mission’ and blog purpose – and continue working on it no matter what. Otherwise you can have “…unrealistic expectations of how fast your readership will grow and how much money you will make, and when these expectations are not met, the disappointment can crush the desire to continue blogging.”

To counter-defend yourself against the frustrations that inevitably sneak up as you look up to the summit and see how far you’ve STILL got to trek, you need to have a realistic plan and stick to it. Everyone has their own plan, but in any case, it can be something as simple as writing a blog post, or contacting another related photo blog for a reciprocal link once a week.

And if you’re serious about making money in photography from blogging, then you’re going to have to do a little bit of photo marketing too… Stuff such as taking the time to let other folks know about your photo blog, posting comments on other related blogs, making comments in photo forums, and so on.

More often than not though, you’ll automate some of these processes to save you time. A really good example of hands-free, easy-automation is Jonathan Leger’s 3 way linking tool that’ll help to get your digital photography blog ranking highly in Google. But all in all, prepare to work at it for a good while before you start seeing results.

Once you understand that it does take work, you’ll know that to cultivate the regular visitors, you’ll need to keep posting on your blog, and continue the photo marketing side of things as much as the actual writing part.

You can also do things like drop a subscription form into your blog that invites your visitors to join your mailing list, or promote affiliate products through writing reviews or using banner advertising. When a website visitor clicks and buys one of these products you’ll earn a nice little commission.

The key to all this is staying committed to your project. To stay motivated, set goals for how often you will update your photo blog, and how many readers you want to attract, and then reward yourself for sticking to your plan. By mastering the basics, and taking action, you’ll be ahead of 99% of the market…

So, a digital photography blog does a few things well… It’s a creative ‘canvas’ for your ideas, a good way to ‘put you on the map,’ and a potential (and very cool) way to start making money in photography too!

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If you take a quick peek at their site (see link below) you’ll notice the black background works well – especially when presenting photography. By the way, they have an impressive little photo slideshow on their intro page too. One stunning image in particular stands out – look for the lone yellow tree bathed in it’s own magical light by David Beatson.

Click here for your SmugMug photo sharing FREE trial

In summary: You pay a yearly fee ($40 – works out to about $3-4 a month) and for that get unlimited photo storage and bandwidth, photo sharing and photo upload, great photo based galleries where you can sell your photo creations and photo calendars etc. There’s no advertising (ie. nothing to distract viewers away from your photos!) and you can take a free 14 day trial too, as a taster. (See link above).

Here’s what some other SmugMug users said:

“I have been using smugmug since they launched. They are hands down the best photo sharing site I have come across for those who care about their photos. Since they charge a fee, there is no advertising or gimmicks, just great display and organization of photos. They allow viewers to download the full file size so it is easy to do photo transfer. It is worth $40 for me to have solid photo storage and great UI.”

Things I love about Smugmug and why I chose it over other competing services:

• They allow you to try the service free for 14 days. You can try EVERY feature they offer without any restrictions
• Your photos are safe and secure. They keep 4 backup copies of each photo in 3 states so you’ll always have access to them
• You can lock galleries with passwords to keep them private
• Smugmug doesn’t send you SPAM and there are NO ADS on the site
• You can share your photos with friends & family without them having to register with Smugmug
• A+ customer service. It’s fast, friendly, and professional
• Basic account offers UNLIMITED storage
• Prints can be ordered right from Smugmug. No need to get them ordered with a different company
• Comments, tags, keywords, and compatibility with blogs and forums – very convenient!
• Video clips are allowed with a Power User account
• Very helpful and friendly forum called “Digital Grin” who can answer just about any photo related question you can think of
• The company is FAMILY OWNED and not run by some internet conglomerate like Yahoo or Kodak

NB. Hey, on that last point… I emailed one of the team from SmugMug and received a friendly reply within a day. I don’t know about you but I certainly felt a real ‘family type’ feel to this site (think ‘accessible’). Maybe you’ll pick that up too. SmugMug keeps it nice and simple… “We dream of an independent company devoted to nothing but your priceless photos.” Way to go guys.

Need unlimited photo storage and photo sharing? Try this…

“SmugMug, a family-run business that will celebrate its fifth year anniversary this Friday, says it has over 450,000 paying customers and makes over $10M in revenue per year. There are no free accounts on SmugMug; users must pay a minimum of $40 per year, but they have access to unlimited photo storage and photo sharing. The company has yet to take any outside money, and seeing how well things are going, probably won’t.”
Quotes and user comments thanks to Techcrunch:

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Image via Wikipedia

Just a quick post today as I have been one very SLACK bunny. For some weird reason it’s easy to get waylaid never mind the fact that it only takes about 10 minutes to post a blog comment!

So, let me update you on new projects.

The first is a complete redo of my Digital Photo Toolkit guide – I re-wrote the sales page basing it on a story about me being stuck at the Kumbh Mela festival in India, with a Pentax K1000 and not much else. That was a few years back now, but nevertheless still a memorable and adventurous week. See that selling photos online guide here.

I’ve also busied myself with writing articles. I encourage you to do the same if you have a website setup and/or an information product. Articles? What’s writing got to do with photography? Well… you’d be surprised!

A bunch of my recent articles have touched on digital photography tips, but with a slight twist. Check this out for a title… Digital Photography Tips – How to Raise and Train Your Camera! These articles DO bring interested visitors through to my blog, and it’s a great way to become an ‘expert’ in your field too…

You can see exactly what chaos I’ve been creating by checking out the photography tips articles here.

Enjoy…

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The Challenge: You’ve got an ebook, ephotos, or series of ‘how to’ digital photography tips videos that you desperately want to sell on eBay…

You know that there’s 280+ MILLION buyers who are looking to buy products from eBay every single day, with roughly over 70,000 new buyers joining eBay every day… which just means eBay is an absolute GOLD MINE for you and me.

However…

Recently there was new changes to eBay… eBay basically said ‘you can’t sell ebooks anymore’ (and enforced a complete ban on selling digital items).

As soon as I heard about that I thought about the incredible opportunities that lay in waiting… And today we’re about to see one of these opportunities realized. It’s called Auction Acrobat and in a nutshell it automates the creation, packaging, and shipping of your CD/DVD’s…

Here are some features of Auction Acrobat:

1) Automate the delivery of your CD/DVD’s on eBay.

2) Build a highly profitable buyer list on auto-pilot using your favorite auto-responder: Aweber or Getresponse.

3) Make Money Without Selling – Awesome ’secret’ email feature inbuilt into the software will enable you to increase traffic to your blogs, websites, or sell your other products to laser-targeted buyers. You can even send these ‘hungry’ buyers to affiliate pages!

See more: http://hurleypix.com/auctionacrobat

Just think about it…

You could be selling DVDs AS EASY as selling eBooks!

How does one sell info products on eBay?

Well, in my case, I’m considering using CDs and maybe even DVDs to package my products… (What other options are there?)

And let’s face it, when digital items are neatly packaged into tangible CD/DVD form, the value of these products goes way UP.

So, if you’re a photographer, artist or designer, then you could be easily putting your designs or photography onto a CD or DVD, and setting up the whole process on autopilot… Customer comes along, orders your photo screensavers CD, pays for it at Paypal, and your software takes care of the WHOLE ordering process…

ALL you need to do is keep running eBay listings… (and checking your Paypal account for sales notifications!)

Impressed yet?

You should be…

So… How To Make Money On eBay?

Create a great product that people want (need), put it on a CD/DVD, put the whole process on autopilot, and tweak until you get it right…

http://hurleypix.com/auctionacrobat

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How to write an article if you don’t have a clue how to go about it? And, are resale rights products the answer?

Let’s go and find out…

Firstly we need to understand what Private Label Right (PLR) products are. (PLR is also known as Resale Rights Products).

In a nutshell, Private Label Rights products are YOURS to own, edit, sell, resell, grant resale rights to and more. Basically you BECOME the author of the product without writing or creating a thing.

So it does not take a genius to realise the value of these products… You can use PLR as your own and sign your OWN name as the creator. In other words, you can have a business in a box (think affiliate income) within minutes, with all your own back links and up sells without writing a single word.

When you have your own PLR products you can:

1. Sell them on their own mini site – Use the PLR material to create your own mini website and sell your products from there.
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2. Add them to bigger packages – Take 3 or 4 related PLR products and add them to a larger package. This is turn will allow you to sell your package for a much higher price.
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3. Convert them to CD or DVD and sell them on auction websites – Place your PLR on a CD with your website links and affiliate links inside and not only create an income from selling your created items on auction websites, also make a massive residual income from the other sources of income.
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4. Create a home study course with a variety of PLR products and sell them for a huge profit – You can create and sell home study courses with the help of PLR. Package your PLR onto a CD, box it up with check lists and help manuals and you can create a home study course which you can sell for 100’s of dollars.
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5. Split your private label into articles – Place them on article websites with your website links, mini site links, auction links and generate traffic you never knew existed. (PLR articles).
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6. Create a mini course and distribute them to your mailing lists – Convert your PLR to a mini course and send it to your subscribers. This really makes PLR work for you.
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7. Convert your products to physical books, print and sell them as your own – By converting your PLR to physical books you can them place them on auction websites such as eBay and Amazon and create huge revenue potential.
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8. Add your affiliate links to your PLR – Create affiliate income sales which will earn you a residual income for years to come. By adding your affiliate links and website links to your PLR eBooks and articles and granting resale rights the viral effect is in place, your eBooks and articles will be around for years…

Can you see how you actually don’t need to write those articles yourself? All you need to do is make full use of resale rights products (PLR). And then, with some basic tweaks, you have your own instant articles!

What else can we learn about PLR?

Well, let’s see…

For starters, PLR can be very very expensive. There’s also a LOT of cheap and copy PLR websites out there to choose from. YOU have to be careful and make sure you are getting fresh content or content quality.

Fortunately there’s a nice little solution available, called PLR Monthly. And I know these guys pretty well – in fact, I’ve been ‘annoying’ one of these guys (Daniel Sumner) for the last two years or so with my ever-varied eBay related questions!

But actually what you can get here for a pretty good monthly payment is substantial. They really do over deliver with great content.

In fact, here is an idea just what you will get from them (sourced from their sales page):

• Niche Market PLR eBooks – PLR eBooks are very expensive to develop and hard to find. Such top quality private label fresh content has been sourced for you as we strive to provide the best service possible. With the Niche Market PLR package you can use the 3 PLR eBooks as a niche collection and provide your potential buyers with more than a single eBook, you can give them a whole multimedia experience.
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• Bonus PLR eBook per month - You can use the bonus PLR eBooks the same way as the package PLR. We supply all you need to get your products ready to sell.
  .
• Audio eBook with resale rights – You can place the audio book as an auction or include it as a bonus in your eBook packages. All audio sales letters are graphics will be provided for you.
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• Mini website graphics to use with all PLR products – Use the mini websites and sell your converted PLR to the public directly from the internet. You can use Paypal or any online banking system to do this and completely automate the process.
  .
• 25 PLR articles per month – Use your PLR articles with your affiliate links inside to generate you traffic for years to come. Submit them to article directories blog, and content hungry websites to earn your affiliate commissions and a steady influx of traffic.
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• An eBay sales template - Simply paste the template to eBay and we host the graphics for you. There is no need for a website hosting service for this one!
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• CD graphics – Use your CD graphics on your auctions and your mini websites. Print the covers to your CD’s and sell them as physical items.
  .
• DVD graphics – Why not advertise your product as a DVD and burn it to a DVD! You can charge more for a DVD than a digital delivery item.
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• eBook graphics – Use the eBook graphics for your auctions, your mini sites, your sales letters and your physical printed Book creations.
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• Header and Footer Graphics - we supply for you the graphics for your headers and footers for your mini sites and your auctions, which are all professionally prepared by our graphics team.
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• A PLR request service – This service will give you mini sites, websites, graphics and PLR eBooks (NB: for this service, certain terms apply.

As you can see the amount of content you get is phenomenal. Not only do you get all of this, you get full support for your products and a bunch of tutorials to help you move your business along. All in all this is one of, if not the best PLR opportunities I have ever seen. It’s a complete no-brainer so get involved with PLR Monthly today.

http://hurleypix.com/plrmonthly

So by the way, if you’ve been wondering how to write an article, now YOU know that one answer lies with private label rights…

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How many of us pour our heart and soul into creating snappy looking websites, inspirational photo blogs, image rich presentations and then find out the only people visiting our sites are family and friends, or the occasional waylaid visitor?

I’ve been there and done that, and it’s not much fun. You become disillusioned REAL quick with just a dribble of traffic to your websites. It’s like a healthy, growing plant… if you never water it, eventually it curls over and dies. Please don’t let this happen to your website, especially if you’ve spent a LOT of your time on it.

So, what are we going to do about it then? Well… I read that there were only 3 ways to grow your business, and here they are…

• Increase customers.
• Increase the transaction value.
• Create a backend product/create more products.

So, let’s focus on the first one. How we can increase customers, or increase website traffic?

Before we jump into that, let me say that the whole ‘normal’ process of getting ‘bums on seats’ or visitors (traffic) to your website is not exactly a walk in the park. In other words, it does take quite a bit of effort on your part.

In this case, we’re focused on ‘organic’ traffic, or ’search engine traffic.’ In a roundabout way, that simply means I want you to find my website (or blog) in the first page of Google when you type in specific photo marketing or photography tips related keywords. I personally focus on Google, but Yahoo also works well for some niches too.

In the articles on this photo marketing blog you can read about many of the different ways to increase website traffic, including a free download-able guide about Article Marketing (click to download), so I won’t get into all the methods here.

But thankfully there IS an easy way… a method that allows me to get a whole bunch of my websites on page one in Google, for a number of different photo related keywords…

Basically I use a service called 3 Way Links ($47 per month). I won’t go in to the mechanics of how it works exactly (you can read more at the 3WayLinks site) but it sure has made it a LOT easier for me to hit page one in Google much faster (and with very little work on my behalf – all I did was add one page to my blog).

As you could imagine, a page one in Google for a few particular (highly searched) keywords gives me a LOT more eyeballs, plus get more sign ups to my ezine, etc.

Having said that…

• You need to choose your keywords right.
• You also will want to know how to monetize your website or blog effectively whether that’s with Google Adsense or other methods. (That is, if you want to make some money from this!)
• You also need to post regular content (often) to your website or blog (that’s why blogs are SO good for this!)

So if you’ve got a nice little WordPress photography tips themed blog or brand spanking new website, and you’re struggling to increase website traffic… then at least consider the 3WayLinks method. No matter what niche you’re in, this ’set it and forget it’ method is one way that makes getting that highly desirable page one in Google rather attractive, and very achievable.

Read more about 3WayLinks here.

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How about becoming a featured artist or photographer for PhotoBox?

Sometimes opportunities reach up and grab you by the hair. (Head? Neck?) When they come it’s often good to make the most of them. Otherwise, they can be like ideas… if you don’t hook them on the tip of your pen, they can slip away into the night faster than you can blurt out “thank you Elvis.”

So, how would you like to become a featured artist on PhotoBox then?

After all, you get to…

- Showcase your photography work online

- Earn royalties (10%-20%) per card volume sold

- Potentially set up a recurring income stream

PhotoBox also…

- print the cards on environmentally friendly pulp

- Soon to include A4 and square cards (big!)

- Offer send-to-me cards where they send the card to you with envelopes, and you can sign the card and send on to someone else… (Or you can choose send-to-someone-else cards as well. They’ll post the card on your behalf using First Class post or Airmail…)

Anyways…

To get your photography work showcased online and hundreds of future customers potentially browsing and buying your photo greeting cards – just visit PhotoBox here…

The process to submit your photos or artwork is step by step (and doesn’t cost any $). You have to submit a design, choose a template, and fill in your artwork submission form…

Yes… a little bit of upfront work involved, but great potential for ongoing income… Never know where your photography might end up, and in whose hands…

Go for it…

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Let me introduce Yahoo Answers to you with this quote…

“When your focus shifts from getting rich, selling more ebooks, and banking more cash to a mindset of adding value to more people’s lives, helping them get richer, healthier, happier, more successful… a paradigm shifts in your success level.”

The above quote by my friend Dr.Mani does a lot to explain ultimately what is at the heart of all successful businesses… whether that’s in Internet marketing, digital photography or any online niche. It’s all about giving. It really does pay to give your knowledge away.

And one great way to give is by using Yahoo Answers. Basically this is where you can go to ASK any questions you have, or answer other people’s questions. (To answer other people’s questions, just search for questions on your preferred topic, and post with an answer. Make sure to drop in a link to your website too!)

I love Yahoo Answers because you get some really, terrifically HONEST questions being asked. And to be able to help these people out is very rewarding. There’s a photography section too, and so you constantly get people looking for photography tips, printing photo questions, selling photos, website help etc.

IF you are knowledgeable in a particular area, it’s worth contributing, and posting your perspective. I try to get in there every week and give it a blast. If your answer is chosen as the best answer, you can end up (down the track) with some good search engine rankings. Yahoo comes with a LOT of link power!

Answers.Yahoo.com – remember to add to Yahoo Answers with quality input.

Yahoo! Answers allows you to make someone’s day each time you reply, give value to people no matter where they live in the world, and share your intelligence (and depth of knowledge) for a good cause.

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Download Article Marketing Strategies Here

“I used to work hard. The 18-hour days. The 7-day weeks. But I didn’t start making big money until I did less – a lot less. For example, this ad took me about 2 hours to write. With a little luck it should earn me 50, maybe a hundred thousand dollars.”

That’s not my quote but you get the idea… The idea is that as a photographer, you want to be utilizing your talents and knowledge and inbuilt genius in the best ways possible. One of these ways is with photography.

You go out and you create art, or beauty, or amazing digital landscapes, or abstract photography, whatever it may be, and you form it into an image. Your genius goes into this image, and then the image travels the globe, end up on magazine stands, posters, postcards, websites, exhibits, t-shirts and a thousand surprisingly different avenues of expression.

For many of you, this is your big mission in life. But having said that, there’s still something missing. You are also capable of expressing your creative talents in words. And if you struggle with this and blurt out “but this is why I take photos, so I don’t have to write!” Then let me assure you that there are an abundance of passionate photographers out there who you can interview at the drop of a hat. In fact, right now, they’re waiting for you to call them!

But make no mistake. Content does rule the Internet, friend.

Cast your mind over the millions of people this very minute with fingers poised, quietly brainstorming within for the right keywords to use to find what they want online. Will they find you? Do you want them to?

But back to the story…

Yes, it’s cool if you’ve got 200 stunning nature pictures on your photo blog or website. But even cooler is if you’ve got articles, reviews and over-deliver with great content on your website, as well as those compelling nature pics.

Because we want to read all about it! We do want to know what makes you tick, what pulls YOU up in the morning, what makes you chase thunderstorms, get up at 5AM to snap the misty start of a new day. All that and more!

And so, after all this… How do you increase website traffic (attract more visitors) then?

Well, one way is by writing articles. (Or do the interview thing I mentioned above). Simple stuff. 500 words or so. Just like you were talking passionately to a close friend. Just talk about what you know best. You can, right? And then you submit these articles to specific websites. Boom.

With a link that points back to YOUR website in the resource box (you’ll put that at the end of your article), your good articles will be picked up by other websites. And all across the web they’ll swim… far and wide. With little friendly links all pointing back towards your website… and LOTS of people reading your article and finding out what makes you tick…

You getting the big picture here? I hope so… Because if I could give you any digital photography tips whatsoever then this one would be HIGHEST on the list.

And now you have no excuse not to take ACTION. Because ‘Article Marketing Strategies‘ (with 51 very revealing pages) is yours to download. All you need to do is click the link above. Or below:

Download Article Marketing Strategies Here

And then go forth and create your digital photography empire!

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Return To Te Rapa, also known as LPA 1692.

Beautiful abstract type design and fluid lettering sit nicely on the side of a railway carriage. Man, I could photograph this stuff all day. Or maybe all evening… Or maybe when the light is right… at certain and particular times of the day.

Actually I was compelled to brighten up this digital photography business blog with some of my original abstract photography pieces.  Rather than let them collect digital dust on my iMac’s hard drive I thought I’d bring them out and let them bask in the warm midday sun…

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