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G.E. Masana of www.gemasana.com and Boost Your Wedding Photography Sales moved from the art world as an artist / illustrator into the wedding and portrait photography world. Since then, he's photographed plenty of big names, been featured on all the big wedding blogs and is a contributor to the Huffington Post.
His website is like no other and goes against the norm with very little information on the surface. The more I look, the more strategy I see behind everything he's doing. From his website layout to the tailored landing pages from his Huffington Post articles. G.E. doesn't come across like your usual wedding photographer.
Then there's what seems like his alter ego on another website, Boost Wedding Photography Sales, where on his about page, G.E. says, “I’m tired of the poor advice, the half truths, the fallacies that permeate the industry.”
Here’s some of what we cover in this interview:
What’s on Offer for Premium Members
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What is your big takeaway?
Following this interview, I’d love to know if you're up for the challenge and willing to invest a little time and effort into yourself, your writing and your business. If so, let me know by leaving your thoughts in the comments below and feel free to share links to your blog posts – I'd love to check them out.
If you have any questions that I missed, a specific question you’d like to ask G.E. about the challenge or if you just want to say thanks for coming on the show, feel free to add them below.
I’d rather not have price be an influence at all – G.E. Masana
iTunes Reviews and Shout-outs
Each week I check for any new iTunes reviews and it's always a buzz to receive these… for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, it's confirmation that I'm on the right track with the interviews and that they really are helping you improve your photography business. That's awesome!
Secondly, iTunes is the biggest search engine when it comes to podcasts and it's your reviews and ratings that help other photographers find PhotoBizX. More listeners means more interviews and ultimately a better show.
If you have left a review in the past, thank you!
If you haven't and you'd like to, head to https://photobizx.com/itunes and you can leave some honest feedback and a rating which will help both me and the show and I'll be sure to thank you on the show and add a link to your website or blog if you let me know the URL of your website and your name.
PLUS: if you let me know the key word or keyword phrase you'd like me to use to link to your page, post or site, let me know via email after leaving a review and I'll do what I can to make that work.
For example, If I were linking to my wedding photography page on my photography website ” Impact Images” and want to target the keyword phrase “Central Coast wedding photographer” and left an iTunes review, I'd add something like this:
Thanks for the iTunes review by Central Coast wedding photographer, Andrew Hellmich on June 27, 2016
Alternatively, if you've left a review for PhotoBizX and are looking for more backlinks to help your SEO, leave a review for the new Photography Xperiment Podcast and email me your key word/s and where you'd like me to link to.
The NEW Photography Xperiment Podcast is live and available
Following the success and support shown by listeners after the experimental format of the recent interviews, the new Photo Xperiment Podcast has been launched and is available on this site and in iTunes now.
Interviews are underway and I'll be looking for new guests, not restricted to wedding and portrait photographers. If you have someone you think would be a good fit, let me know in the comment area below or email me, [email protected].
Expensive is a subjective number – G.E. Masana
The idea behind these interviews is to get into the headspace of the photographer and find what makes them tick, what drives them, their thought process, philosophy on shooting and how they achieve what they do with their photography. So yeah, a little technique type content too.
These interviews will not focus on the business of photography – that'll be preserved solely for the weekly and unchanging format of the PhotoBizX podcast.
To hear these interviews in your podcast app, you will need to subscribe to the podcast – these interviews will not be delivered automatically if you're subscribed to PhotoBizX. Open your favourite podcast app and search “Photography Xperiment Podcast” or enter the feed URL, https://photobizx.com/feed/xperiment/ into the search field of your podcast app.
Links to people, places and things mentioned in this episode:
Thank you!
Thanks again for listening to the show and thanks to G.E. for coming on and being totally open about what he's doing in his business to achieve the success he is.
I just want to do the weddings that I enjoy at this point – G.E. Masana
If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!
That’s it for me this week, hope everything is going well for you in life and business!
Thanks and speak soon
Andrew
You were dead right…I imagine quite a few people were polarised by this one. There were definitely parts that gave me food for thought – his distraction free website is interesting. I’ve been thinking about making mine a bit more minimal and less cluttered, so I’ll take some tips from this – though not sure I’d dare to go quite as “minimal” as GE’s…I’d still want blog posts to keep some fresh content and help with SEO. It was interesting that GE didn’t really do SEO as such and seem mystified why he was top of Google in his area…I’m suspecting that was more behind this than maybe he shared.
The pricing info and the way he withholds it, preferring to build intrigue instead was. I might give this a good through the Autumn and see how it works for a period.
Overall though it felt like GE is winding down his wedding business, so his approach wouldn’t really work for those of us still building and trying to make a career of it. Whilst appreciating the world is now a different place…I do wonder how much of what GE does now, he would have chosen to do way back when he was still building his wedding business up. Still a thought provoking i/v.
Darren,
My approach now is pretty much the same as when I wanted to attract more weddings, so what I state in this podcast is the sum of everything as I believe it to be, not a particular take I have now that I’m not as keen on doing weddings as I once was.
Hey G.E
What about Darren’s statement about SEO and ranking so highly with such minimal content on your website. What do you attribute this to?
For a period of a few years, I did almost everything I heard about for SEO. Somehow along that path, I made it to the first position, first page. I wouldn’t know what thing I did exactly got me there, it’s probably a sum of several things, and that’s why I don’t talk on it because it wouldn’t be accurate information. So perhaps the takeaway there is do everything you can. But here’s a couple of things you and Darren may find interesting. First is, you can’t go only by that which you see. Darren assumes I don’t have a blog. The fact is, I do. I don’t link to it from the home page because I want people to stay contained and have only two recourses, namely, leave or contact me. Back in the day when I did have links to the blog, and to FAQs, to my “about” page, reviews, etc, it was my sense the links served to keep people from contacting me as they looked about, if they looked about, perhaps delaying them from contacting me long enough until their boss walked into their cubicle demanding they get back to work. Or until their co-worker interrupted them to show them the newest video of their kitty cat playing a piano.
The other point you may find of interest is each page on your site, be it the home page or a blog post, is a different entrance point and people arrive on that particular page for a specific reason. Someone looking for your post on a wedding you photographed at the Ritz is there for a different reason than the person who googles for “wedding photographer my city.” The former seeks an idea of what the scene looks like and they end up seeing you were capable enough to be trusted by others to photograph a wedding just like theirs, and perhaps you become a consideration. Whereas the fact of the matter is the latter group is simply looking for any wedding photographer on a search engine because they typically lack the network of resources who would recommend that specific trusted photographer to them, the go-to guy who works in their circle, and so, they’re looking mostly for a warm body with a camera who hopefully isn’t priced all too high, rather than looking for YOU specifically. And that’s a big difference. I believed what I had heard which was that the first spot first page gets 80% of the search results but the truth is those searchers are more than likely not the best fit, you for them or they for you. They’re just going down a list of what seems to them to be equal possibilities, you happen to be on top of the list, that’s all. It turns out every SEO expert worth their weight knows this already and calls it “SEO’s dirty little secret.” They tout being in first position for more inquiries, but know that it’s not necessarily related to a favorable increase of high-grade inquiries. So I’d suggest it’s not about attaining first spot, first page, but rather about being found by the right grade client, so don’t bother with SEO for first page goals. If SEO is of any use, work on your blog posts to potentially attract another wedding at the Ritz.
Hey Darren
Love your comments on this interview with G.E!
I’ve raised your point about SEO with G.E in this thread and although I don’t have the answer (hopefully he will) I suspect back linking and hidden pages on his website may be a factor. By hidden, I mean hidden to general site visitors, not Google. This is purely speculation and not something I’ve investigated.
I’d love to hear how you go with the pricing info if you do give it a try.
I agree, it does feel like GE’s biggest focus today is teaching photographers what he knows more so than booking weddings – I think he alluded to that in the interview. In saying that it’s so difficult to know if his approach (as it is now) would be effective for photographers in the build hate of their business. One thing is for sure though, if we’re all doing the same thing, it’s impossible to stand out from the growing crowd.
G.E’s approach might be a risky one, scary even, but one thing is for sure, nothing is going to change if we don’t. The question becomes how much of a risk are you (me, we) willing to take for success? Only the individual can answer that and it comes down to how risk averse they are in their position.
Single, no kids or mortgage and I’d be way more willing to experiment.
I’ve curtailed weddings lately by only accepting weddings solely by referrals or if I’ve done engagement portraits for the couple – NOT by website strategies we’ve talked about. Those strategies are actually meant to produce business, not decrease it. By the way, my focus hasn’t gone entirely on to photography education (as much as it should), but in developing more of a portrait business.
What a different approach GE. many thanks for sharing.
Haha! The accordeon made the trick for the intro 🙂
I hope you are having a beautiful trip in France Andrew.
Best,
Anais
France was wonderful Anais, thank you.
And thank you so much for adding your voiceovers and lovely accent to the podcast episodes while I was away – you added a perfect amount of French culture to the audio.
BTW, I had almost no internet while in the Pyrenees when looking for some intro music so that accordion music you heard came from a CD purchased in the markets at Argeles Gazost. 🙂