Google has a useful account on YouTube called GoogleWebmasterHelp that publishes short video answers to search engine optimization (SEO) questions submitted to them. If you have a website promoting your photography, then thinking about SEO can help you drive more visitors to your photography.

Here are a couple videos that are relevant to photographers:

How can a photographer’s image-focused site gain PageRank?

Takeaway points: include text relevant to the image(s) inside the img tag and around the image to help the search engine understand what the page is about. For example, you could include a description of the photo in the name or title tag of the image.

Secondly, allow visitors to comment on the image. This often leads to users describing some aspect of the image for you (i.e. “I love the light falling on the barn door”), which helps search engines understand what’s happening on the page.
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Ever wonder how top photographers deal with their files? Chase Jarvis just put out an awesome blog post and behind-the-scenes video describing his entire workflow from capture to backup. You’ll probably be surprised at how much backing-up his studio does for all its data, and how much storage space they deal with. He points out at the end that all his strategies are scalable, so you don’t need to have infinitely deep pockets to achieve roughly the same amount of redundancy (albiet on a much smaller scale). I guarantee you’ll find this video interesting!

If you’re interested in seeing specific details, head over to the blog post for more images and text.

A while ago my friend discovered Microsoft’s Bing Cashback program, which provides instant savings for “qualified” purchases. What’s neat is that any eBay purchase made with “Buy It Now” and paid using PayPal qualifies for the savings. After he discovered this, my friend bought Canon 5Ds in bulk on eBay and sold them on craigslist for a profit.

I just bought a used 5D yesterday on eBay for $1200, and instantly saved about $100 using this method. Here it is as a step-by-step tutorial:

1. Search for the Product on Bing

Head on over to Microsoft’s Bing search engine to search for your product.

2. Click the Sponsored eBay Link

In many cases you’ll find the link in the sponsored sites box. If you don’t, just type in something else until you do find an eBay link (i.e. “Canon 5D”). It doesn’t need to be the item you’re looking to purchase. As long as you enter eBay through a sponsored link on Bing you’ll be qualified for cashback.

2. Check the Top of the Page

At this point, there should e a special “Microsoft Cashback” graphic at the top of the page, with the text “Must use Buy It Now and PayPal”. As long as you see this, you’re good to go. If you don’t enter eBay through the sponsored link on Bing, you won’t see this and you won’t be participating in the program.

3. Find Your Item

You can now search for any item you’d like to buy, using eBay just like you normally would. You have 60 minutes to find and buy what you’re looking for before the cashback expires. If it does expire, all you need to do is start over and reenter eBay through Bing. It’s really that easy!

Since the program requires that you Buy It Now, it makes sense to filter by Buy It Now listings, and to sort by price from lowest to highest.

4. Purchase the Item Using Buy It Now

Make sure the special graphic at the top from Step 2 is still visible. If it is, click “Buy It Now” to purchase the item.

5. Check the Review Page

After clicking the “Buy It Now” button, eBay takes you to a confirmation page to allow you to review what you’re getting into. If you’ve done the previous steps correctly, this page will also have a special “Microsoft cashback” box that tells you exactly how much cash you’re going to get back with the purchase. If everything looks right, hit the “Commit to Buy” button to make the purchase final.

6. Pay Using PayPal

Pay for the item like you normally would using PayPal. As long as you pay using PayPal, you’ll get the cashback.

7. Sign Up for the Bing Cashback Program

Once you’ve purchased the item, you’ll receive an eBay message in your account telling you to check your Microsoft Cashback page. If you don’t have one, you can create one at this time. Make sure you create your account through the link provide in the message.

The signup is very fast and simple.

You will soon find the cashback amount show up on your account. Ordinarily, cashback takes 60 days. However, if you sign up for an account beforehand, you can go into your Microsoft Cashback settings and join the “quick cashback program.” This allows you to have the cash sent to your PayPal account very shortly after the purchase (sometimes immediately).

That’s it! What’s great about this program is that you can use it for anything on eBay as long as you use Buy It Now and PayPal. After buying the 5D yesterday, I used the program to purchase a VGA adapter for my MacBook Pro, and saved 8% on that as well in addition to the low 3rd-party price I found on eBay.

Good luck, and leave a comment letting us know how it goes!

A few years ago New Zealand-based Flickr photog fettucininz was looking for an easier way to position his flash for table top photography, when he found that his old desk lamp had just the right screw thread for mounting his flash. The resulting setup is ultra flexible and super cheap (it’s free, after all). If you have an old balanced-arm desk lamp lying around, see if you can repurpose the thing as a nifty flash stand.

Image credits: Photographs by fettucininz

Recent surveys found that many image users in the United States and UK are ignorant when it comes to knowing when it’s okay to use an image, and how images may be used. 22% of those surveyed admitted that they used photographs found on photo sharing websites for commercial purposes. In response to these findings, Getty has launched stockphotorights, a website that answers many of the common questions people have about image use and copyright. They also have a blog documenting cases of image misuse, and a section filled with case studies.

If you have multiple lenses and not enough space in your camera bag, carrying an extra lens might require you to stack a lens on top of another in a single lens compartment. The problem is that the bottom of one lens might rub against and scratch the lens below.

Derrick Story over at The Digital Story has a simple do-it-yourself solution to this problem: a Rear Lens Cap Pad. Cutting out a piece of adhesive, padded material and attaching it to the rear lens cap allowed him to rest his 50mm lens on top of a 70-200mm lying horizontally below.

If you’re working with smaller primes, another tip is to attach the rear lens caps of two lenses together, allowing you to securely transport two lenses together. The downside of this method is that your lenses won’t be able to travel separately.

Do you have your own tips or tricks for saving space when hauling your glass around?

Rear Lens Cap Pad for Stacking in Camera Bag (via Wired)

Image credit: Photograph by Derrick Story

Flickr recently changed how sets are displayed. Rather than displaying all the sets in an account on a single page, they’ve implemented pagination and are limiting each page to 30 sets. This means you can no longer go to the sets page and do a simple “Find on page” to easily locate a set you’re looking for.

The change was made in an effort to improve page load times across the service. While this might make sense for users with hundreds of sets, many users with a smaller number would prefer seeing their sets on the same page.

Luckily, there’s an easy workaround: simply add ?per_page=1000000 to the URL, assuming you don’t have more than a million sets.

For example, instead of visiting

http://www.flickr.com/photos/petapixel/sets/

the URL would be

http://www.flickr.com/photos/petapixel/sets/?per_page=1000000

This obviously isn’t the best example, since we only have a few sets, but hopefully you get the idea.

While this doesn’t permanently change how your sets are displayed, it’s a way for you to bookmark a page with all your sets displayed, or a way to link someone else to a complete page of your sets.

(via Thomas Hawk)