046: Demian Farnworth – Content Marketing for Wedding and Portrait Photographers

046: Demian Farnworth – Content Marketing for Wedding and Portrait Photographers

Andrew Hellmich: I'm super excited to have Demian, who is a prolific writer and a teacher of good writing. He's the chief copywriter at Copyblogger Media, and he also has his own website, The Copy Bot. Now, I love the bio that I found on his Google Plus account, which says, "My main gig is to write web copy that conquers the web's two main problems: obscurity and neglect. To overcome those two problems, I'll write web content that search engines can easily find and people can't resist." I love it. Today, we're talking content marketing, we're talking blogging, and I'm hoping that Demian is going to be able to teach us a ton of good stuff that we can implement into our businesses. Demian, welcome to the podcast, mate.

Demian Farnworth: Thank you, Andrew, appreciate it.

Andrew Hellmich: Mate, maybe you want to start just by telling the listener a little bit about where you're based and what you actually do.

Demian Farnworth: Great. So I'm from St Louis, Missouri, in the States, and I've been a copywriter for the last 14 years. I was, I went to school and I got an English Literature degree, and when I graduated, I was wondering how I could make money doing that, because I knew I wouldn't do it being a poet. Somebody introduced me to marketing. I absolutely fell in love with the idea of being able to influence people with words, and so I've been doing that the last 14 years. I've also had the privilege of learning everything about copywriting, content marketing online. So I've had the experience of being able to test and get immediate results from everything I've done. And I kind of mean, as you mentioned in the, in the bio that I have on my Google Plus profile, is that I basically, kind of carved out, you know, what are the two main issues that people deal with online. And I try to do everything as I was just, you know, growing in this occupation. I was trying to learn everything I possibly could surrounding those two, those two things. So that meant, you know, studying things like SEO, studying not only just copywriting, but SEO and then usability, and actually even design. But my main focus is, yeah, it's on writing content that persuades people and gets found in the search engines.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so you, first of all, how did you end up at Copyblogger? And was that, was that sort of the focus you had sort of from the start, or you just sort of found your way there?

Demian Farnworth: But, yeah, I found my way there. And it's interesting, because I never thought about working there ever, because I just didn't think it was possible. I knew people that worked there, but it just never occurred to me. But so yeah, I worked, I worked in the corporate world a number of years, and then in April 2011 I decided to go and work for myself. And eight months in of doing that, I decided I never wanted to do that again. I did not like the freelance lifestyle, not like, you know, having to pitch new projects and then build people and do all that sort of administrative work, and realize that my, you know, I want to work in an environment, you know, culture and cause that I can put my weight behind and kind of just pour my energy into being creative. I'II, I'm not, I don't I don't have a good business bone in me. So working as a freelancer wasn't working. So I spent the next 10 months looking for a job that I could really appreciate. Because I knew I didn't, I didn't just want any job. I wanted the job. And so I, like I said, I spent 10 months looking for that job. I applied to many different places. Went through several interviews with different places, and a lot of times it just came back. You know, I don't think this is it. This is not going to work. And I started doing some contract work, for Brian Clark at Copyblogger Medium. And he eventually said, "Hey, do you want to work full time for us?" And that's like, when the light bulb went off, I was like, you know, that's a no brainer. I was like, "Yeah, absolutely." And so I started full time with Brian in January of 2000, year 2000, so January of this year.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice, I see, you've been there for a little while.

Demian Farnworth: Yeah, I've only been there for full, not even a full 12 months now, so..

Andrew Hellmich: Fantastic, that sounds great. Now, it's really funny, because you said that you wanted to be able to be 100% creative and throw your weight behind that, whereas now you're working for someone else. So how does that allow you to be creative? If you actually don't, you have, like the pressure to churn stuff out and said, to write what they want you to write?

Demian Farnworth: I have pressure. That pressure is namely comes from myself. The beautiful thing about working for Copyblogger is they give me a lot of autonomy. They give most everybody there a lot of autonomy. They tell you what needs to be done, and as long as you work, whatever you do to get that done, that's what counts. It's not about how many hours you put in. It's, you know, are you working on the right projects, and you're getting them down in time. And so, you know, we have responsibilities, and so around those responsibilities, we work to create success for the company. So like for me, one of my main gigs is just writing content for the blog. And so I come up with the ideas, I write the ideas, and they run with them. So I have a lot of autonomy that way. I may have to work in within the framework of content marketing, copywriting, you know, SEO, that sort of thing. But outside of that, I'm free to do whatever want, and then so in my spare time, too, with that, you know, I can work on a number of creative pursuits. You know, we're doing an essay contents contest right now on the blog. I came up with that idea, and there, you know, I'm working on another project now that allows me to support in a number of just, you know, sort of, I come up with the idea and I run with it. And so I do have a lot of autonomy. So yeah, and I don't have the, have to worry about, you know, "I need to pitch my next once this project ends, I have to pitch my next client." Can basically said, "Here's an idea I have. Do you like it?" "No, yes, you know, yes." And I can I get the green light and I go with it.

Andrew Hellmich: It sounds like there's a lot of similarities between being a writer or a blogger and a photographer. Because we're, I mean, we're under those same pressures to produce great images, and we still want to have our creative input, but we still have to shoot for the client at the same time. So it sounds very similar in a lot of ways.

Demian Farnworth: It is. It's same with, yeah, creative pursuits across the board, you know, whether it is photography, design, you know, writing. So, yeah, you're right.

Andrew Hellmich: Just before we dive in any deeper, can you just make sure you've got your email and anything else that might be sucking bandwidth turned off?

Demian Farnworth: Okay, yeah. Is that better?

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, we'll just say we go, that's that. I'm sure that'll make a difference, for sure. You threw out the term there 'copywriter' a few times. And I mean, I sort of see you. I know you as a blogger. Is there a difference between the two?

Demian Farnworth: Ah yes. So, the great way to think about a copywriter is a copywriter thinks about writing in a way to get results from somebody. They want, a copywriter thinks about writing to get action out of the reader, whether he's trying to get them to donate, to reply, to do something. And then, so a direct, the other term that we usually add to that is direct response copywriter. And what I, just all I mean by that is we measure the results. So a creative, you know, traditional advertising, just kind of created the ad, wrote the ad, and they just pushed it, and then, you know, sort of cross their fingers and hope for the best. Copywriter says, you know, "I'm not satisfied with that. What I want to do is, I want, you know, I want my reader to subscribe to my email newsletter. So I'm going to write in such a way to persuade them do that." And then, and so you work behind, so there are principles behind that. For instance, one of my favorite is, you know what I call problem-agitate-solve, or PAS. And it basically says, when you write, you write in a way where you identify a problem that's relevant to your reader. You agitate that problem so you get them emotionally worked up. And then you, you push them, you give a call to action, you bring in the solution and say, "Hey, you know, fortunately, here's this to solve that." "Do this and you can solve that particular problem." The copywriting portion of it allows you to think persuasively, and really all you're trying to do, what that means in the long run, is trying to get to know your target reader as best as you possibly can.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. So, talking then, say, it's your wedding photographer, if they could identify the problem that a bride might be thinking, "If it rains in my wedding day, I'm going to have all sorts of problems. I can't, I need a photographer that's going to know where to go, where and where the best spots are if it's raining." And then you offer those solutions. As the, as the right photographer, you have all these spots, and you could solve that issue.

Demian Farnworth: Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely. You would go through, yeah, basically you would go through, you just think about that bride, and what keeps her up at night? You know what, you know, and why does she get up in the morning? You know, what is her worst fears, her worst, you know, her best hopes and dreams. And those are the kind of things that you want to key into. Because in the end, it's, it's, it's emotional writing you want, you want to be emotional. That's why we talk a lot about, we tell stories too is because stories suck people in and pulls them along because they're emotional.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so when you're talking about using stories, we sort of jump straight in here. So when we're using stories, do we want to actually talk about, say, previous brides or clients that we've had, and talk about their stories and how we've solved their problems. That should be the same problems that the new bride will be facing?

Demian Farnworth: Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. So if it's, if it's a typical problem, then, yeah, it's gonna, absolutely, it will definitely work. So, I mean, you do have to, that's kind of, you know, when we, the nuances of it is, like, sometimes you could present a problem, but it's not meaningful to the broad audience, you know. So you have to think through that. What are its', what are the most common things that happen to the bride worries about. And those are kind of, you know, things. Of course not, you know, you could create content, you know, for all, all of that spectrum, and have kind of a really wide net of content, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. But from the forefront, you begin with the key, sort of the big gun type issues that they're dealing with. And then there you can kind of branch off and splinter off into other sort of micro problems and stuff.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, I think I've got a handle on that. So, let's take a step back. If you're talking to a whole bunch of photographers that all have their own businesses, nearly all of them will have their own website. Should they also have a blog?

Demian Farnworth: I think so, because the problem with just strictly images is that, I mean, Google is doing a job of indexing those. But I don't think most of us are trained to sort of catalog that metadata correctly so we know that content there. And besides, most people who are looking, so, so your bride, for example, is looking for answers. She goes to Google for answers. She doesn't go there necessarily for images. Unless you, unless she knows somebody particularly that she knows she's going to type in that you know 'Andrew Hellmich photography' and then find you. But outside of that, you know your bride is looking for, and if you can't, you know. So, the idea is true for anyone who has a business, like a photographer, is that you want to get in. You want to connect with that possible, like she may be searching something online, but her actual wedding day is eight months, nine months, ten months out, right? So, but if she connects, find something that you wrote online, likes what you wrote, looks through. You know, she's naturally gonna look at your photography, you know, your photographs, and then maybe, you know, make a connection with you in that sense. So I really do, I think that the wider net that you can draw across that sea of sort of potential customers, the better you are. You do that with a blog and not just with photographs. And plus, besides that, if you think about why do people, you know, hire photographers or any kind of service business, photographers, lawyers, dentist, like that. They do it because they like them, right? Or they get a good recommendation. And so a blog allows you that opportunity to be yourself and show your personality, not to show your work, but show you know who you are and what makes you tick. Because that's the question is, in their mind, is, "Am I going to get along with this person? Is this person going to be somebody that I would like doing business with?" And so you can accomplish that with a blog. So yes, I do think you need a blog.

Andrew Hellmich: Are you saying that they can get to know us better by having more articles, more posts, more, more things about us, and introducing our personality?

Demian Farnworth: Absolutely. Absolutely because, I mean, say, like in my field, as a writer, when I was working freelance, and, you know, even to this, you know, day people emails me and say, "I love your style, I love what you write. I've, you know, been through all of your articles." And so they feel like they kind of have connection, they know me. So, yeah, you know, and I try to be personal on it in that sense, so people get to know me, so they're comfortable approaching me and see that I'm not unapproachable, but actually someone who's good to work with.

Andrew Hellmich: So let's say you have two services. Could be two newborn photographers in the same area. One has a straight website and one has a blog, and they are, they're adding new articles, you know, once a week or once a fortnight. With a photographer with the blog, where they definitely get more traffic to their blog?

Demian Farnworth: I don't want to say without a doubt, but just everything else being equal, the blog, the website with greater amounts of content you're going to serve, Google is going to look at that right and say, "Here's a photographer trying to answer questions that brides have." So when a bride comes online and asks that question, you know, "What do I do if it rains on, you know, my wedding day?" The guy who doesn't have the article and the content there, there's no way for him to answer that question, because he hasn't attempted to answer that question. But the guy who did answer it, even though he may not be the best writer, he's still going to get that traffic because they're, you know, Google say, "Oh, there's the answer for that." They're going to recognize that she's in the same location as he is. She's asking a photography specific question, and he's got, you know, the most relevant sort of results on that. So he is going to get that traffic instead of the other guy.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, that's, that's great. So is there a good amount of content to have on a blog, or a good, a good number of posts we should be adding per week, per month? Or, does it not make a difference, as long as we're doing something?

Demian Farnworth: Definitely, the more content you have more, so a lot of studies that have just demonstrated the more, the more you publish, the more traffic you get. That's why you have some sites that publish multiple times a day. But maintaining that, that's just not sustainable for most people, right? So even one time a day is a lot, and it's still not sustainable. In some context, some people will say, just post when you have something really relevant to say. I think, though, from an, from a photographer who has a website but no blog, they do need to sort of run up the amount of content they have so they're, so they're answering the basic questions that get asked. You know, we'll just use the bright, the bright example, just if they're wedding photographer, those basic questions that those people ask. So, so they have that quote, unquote, "evergreen content" from there they can then move to like, you know, once a week, twice a week, even once a month. But you need that sort of base evergreen content you even want to compete in the space with, you know, any clients. Otherwise they're going to get those sort of fundamental, basic questions answered, not you. Does it make sense?

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, yeah, it does. So that means that if, if a bride is looking for an answer, and I have that answer in a form of a blog post on my website or on my blog, then she's going to be coming to my blog, not to the go down the road, and then I've basically got a captive audience. They're looking at my work.

Demian Farnworth: Exactly.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, that sounds great. So what's the process that that you go through when you sit down to write a blog? Is it something that we can copy as beginners?

Demian Farnworth: Yeah, I think so. It is something you can copy, because it's not anything really super magical. So what I do, I try to set myself deadlines, and I have, you know, because I just, I work better that way, you know, I know what I need to do. So, but before all that, really, I'm a chronic reader, I'm a chronic student, so I'm always learning. And I'm always sort of cataloging these ideas away, whether I actually write them down, record them on my phone, you know, Evernote them. And so I have these ideas, before I sit down and write, I try, try to, you know, I'm trying to think about what I'm trying to accomplish, what questions do I need to answer? What is a, you know, a topic that I could tackle that be useful and relevant? So I sit down and I have that data or those ideas for me. So once I choose that idea, though, then yeah, I just simply, hopefully I've done enough research, prepared myself in order to sit down before I actually write. For example, I did a series of articles earlier this year on author rank. What was that hypothetical, you know, ranking system by Google, and I did like about two days straight of research on that topic alone before I wrote one word. But once I had all the research done, I organized all my notes on a huge whiteboard, sat my, you know, laptop down in front of it, and then use that as sort of an outline, and started writing and so. And then I just wrote the first draft. After the first draft, and let that sit for probably about, you know, four or five days, because it was about 7,000 words at that point. Then I went back and started rewriting. And eventually those 7,000 words actually became five different, you know, articles at about, you know, 1,200, 1,500 words. And then I just over time, you know, revise and rewrote those. So the process is simple, is make sure you have a good idea that hasn't, you know, and that in, that it's a good idea. When I say it's a good idea, it's not, it's not used before, because you want to write content that's original, that's unique, unique to you. So, so you're not writing about obvious stuff. You're not writing about stuff that's already been written, you know, and if you do write it in such a way that makes it unique and new, and make sure it's your own work. And you're answering, you're fully answering the question. So it's sort of meaningful, it's rich, and it's just, it's not like, you know, sort of a shallow, paper thin 200 word thing you spit out in an afternoon, but something that you know people can actually walk away with. You know, useful. If you can get people to print or say, "I want to bookmark that", you know, you succeeded. So that's what you kind of need to look at, you know, in your own, when you're sort of looking out there and reading your own stuff, like when you come across an article you really love and like you save that, however you do that. Ask yourself, "Why am I saving that? What did, what is this writer done that makes me want to keep this and come back to it?" Because if you can do that, you've created something worthwhile for people.

Andrew Hellmich: I want to go back to the, your original sort of 7,000 words in just a minute, but you said something that I think will scare the listener a little bit. There, you said, to come up with something original and unique. Now, if there's a thousand wedding photographers listening right now, and they're all thinking, "Well, how can I come up with something original about rainy weather on a wedding day when there's a thousand other people going to be writing the same thing?" How do we tackle that? How do we stand out from the guy down the road?

Demian Farnworth: Yeah, great question. So, a lot of this just comes from your experience, right? Basically, you become sort of this observer, and you observe, if you've been in that situation before, how can you, in a, you have a unique story, then that in itself is unique. You know, you can carve that then, that sort of evergreen idea that's been covered before in such a way that people say, "Oh, that's interesting. I never thought about it that way." Or perhaps you just approach it like "10 things your photographer need, you know needs to do when it's raining on your wedding day." Then you could come up with 25 things you need to do. Or maybe you come up with five things, but it's, it's, it's not a regurgitation of that, but it's like five things you didn't think about. "Your photographer needs to think about that you haven't thought about." So, yeah, it's hard and that, and that's the thing that with it, is that it's not easy. I mean, it really is not easy coming up with good content that's unique and its original. And even in the work, in my body of work, I mean, I'm not completely original. I, you know, I try to look at something in a way that Demian Farnworth looks at it and say, "What can I do with this that makes it worthwhile?" And people will say, "I've not heard it said that way before." Because we all know there's nothing new under the sun, but we can say things in a way that people will say, "Yeah, I've never heard it said that way before", and pay attention to that. And so a lot of times, you just have to be patient too, and say, "Okay, I want to write that article about the rainy day. But, yeah, I've looked at 40 other articles that have been written about that, I'm not sure I know exactly." Because you'll have to do that if you want to write the unique one. Again, it's hard work. It takes time, but you might have to be patient and wait and just collect more information, collect more ideas and all sudden, and this how, this how it works, you know, it hits you. There's that inspiration, "Aha, there's my unique, my unique angle." And that's exactly what I did with that author rank series. I had all this content but, I was looking at it, I was like, "All this has basically been said before. I'm going to basically just bring it together and say it again, but I need a hook." And so I was like, but I don't know what that is right now. And I waited a couple days, and just reading a stupid Wikipedia article gave me my hook, which turned out, you know, to be about Hunter S Thompson. And I was like, "There it is." And then I was off running with that particular hook. So the hook is hard to find, there's no doubt about it. You know, writing good, unique content is hard, but if you're patient and you're persistent, you can do it. The same thing with the photography, right? Everybody can take a sun, you know, a picture of a sunset. But you know, what can you do to take a picture of a sunset that note that someone's like, "Oh my gosh, that's unbelievable. I've never seen it done that way before." Does that make sense?

Andrew Hellmich: When you say it like that, you make us realize how, how difficult it is to actually write, because it is difficult to get that sunset, sunset shot that looks different to everyone else's.

Demian Farnworth: Yeah, I'm always, I'm not a photographer, but I use my phone for shots, and I like, and I take, you know, pictures of sunset. I'm like, "That's pretty lame." Like, you know, I sure I could put some sort of, you know, you know, Instagram allows me to put a treatment on it. But I'm like, "That's, that's pretty lame. How do these, how do these, you know, real photographers do it?" So it's like, "Oh my gosh, that blows me away", you know, because there are things that, you know, angles, lighting, stuff like that, that coming, I doesn't, that you use and you put into that. The same thing with writing. So it's hard work. Being creative is hard work.

Andrew Hellmich: So going back to, well, you know what we should answer, even before we go back to your 7,000 words, is what we haven't really defined what content marketing is. So some, some listeners may not have ever heard that term. Can you? Can you tell us what it is?

Demian Farnworth: Yeah, so content marketing is just marketing is just, you know, whether it is blog articles, whether it is a podcast like this, whether it's a video, you know, podcast, whether it's an infographic that explains and educates your readers, your target audience. So in the business world, the way that looks now is basically the company becomes the publisher. Where before, you know, the arrangement was you had a company, they created an ad, you know, a magazine like Time had the audience, and so you paid them to get in front of their audience. Well, now companies are just building their own audiences through that content that they create, and then selling them something. For example of content marketing at work is Red Bull, you know, the energy drink.

Andrew Hellmich: Uh-huh

Demian Farnworth: Okay, Red Bull, if you think about it, Red Bull has this massive content marketing platform where they do videos. I mean, they have people falling 22 miles out of the sky. You know, they have great videos of just super athletes, and people consume these things like crazy and, "Oh, by the way, we sell an energy drink called Red Bull", right? So that's what content marketing is, entertaining and educating your target readers, so you pull them in. This podcast is a great example of what, of what you're trying to do. You have a target reader, you're educating them, you're building that audience.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, that's great. So going back to your 7,000 words that you threw down, which just frightens me, just the number of words if you put down there. Are you just basically shutting off everything else on your computer and just going for it, bang, bang, bang, bang, and just, like, in Word or something like that, just getting everything out?

Demian Farnworth: Yeah, absolutely, I have to, you know, work without distraction. So nothing, you know, mind you that, that's 7,000 words is rare. Okay, that's unusual for me, I don't do that a lot, but that's also, that was two days before, of just straight, like, eight hour days’ worth of, so, 16 hour full hours of research. And then like, another, I think, full day of just kind of, you know, rearranging all the notes on the whiteboard, kind of helping me to, kind of, you know, structure. Because, you know, yeah, I walked away from those two days of like, "Oh my God, you know, I'm dead. I don't know how I'm gonna do this", you know. And then I was like, I need to, you know, organize it. I need that chaos to be in order. And so once I did that, I was like, "Okay, I have a better handle of what I do." And then you just got to sit down and start writing, and trust the process. Trust your subconscious will do the work for, because it will do the work for you, because it's doing things that you can't see. And once you sit down and you just start typing, whatever it is, just start typing, that will start flooding through you, and you have your outline to sort of guide you through that. I kind of serve that process, you know, on a smaller scale, when I'm just writing, you know, 1,000 word article where I have the outline. I've done, you know, 2, 3, 4, 5, hours of research, and then I just sit down and I have to write. I mean, I had the same fears as everybody else does is like "I don't know how I'm gonna do this." I mean, probably go through that every time I sit down with an article, like, "I don't know how I do this", you know. And it's, and that's part of the, you know, I'm a sucker for a challenge, so I'm like, "Okay, well, this is just a puzzle, then you have to figure it out and just have to be patient." You know, do it and trust, trust the process. And mind you, too, I've thrown away probably two, three times as many, you know, ideas that I have actually published them and stuff like that. So it is, it is a process, not everything works. As a photographer, you take way more photos than you will ever use in your lifetime, so ..

Andrew Hellmich: Definitely. All right, so let's say we've cut it right down. We've got our text down. We're happy with what we've written. We've put together, it's a great article, and we've got to put the headline together or the title of the blog post. Now I know you're pretty big on this, and you've actually written on it as well. What are we looking for with our titles?

Demian Farnworth: A formula that I always think through when I'm writing a headline, it's, it's the four U's, and so it's unique, useful, ultra-specific, and urgent. And the more you can make your, your headline useful, unique, ultra-specific and urgent, the better it will be. I mean, for example, like say, you wrote a headline, "What You Need to Know if it's Raining on Your Wedding Day." You know what your photographer needs to know if it's raining on your wedding day. You can make that more specific by saying you know "13 Things Your Photographer Needs to Know if it's Raining, you know, on Your Wedding Day." You can make it urgent, you know. You know "13 things your photographer needs to know, if today is the day of your wedding and it is raining, so there's that urgency. So you sort of think through those things. And I'm also just to, you know, chronic, look out for what are, what it right now, you know, social media kind of dominates headlines. Social media has sort of changed the flavor of headlines too. So, you know, people are writing a lot of headlines that are designed to do nothing more than just get a lot of flicks, a lot of shares and stuff like that, but the content is not there, you know. My emphasis is always on the content, you know, but you need a great headline. But if you just sort of search out there, look through just tons of headlines. See, see what's gaining traction, what's the most popular kind of stuff out there. And how can you borrow those headlines? How can you kind of morph those headlines to your topic that you're writing? Again, a headline, writing a great headline takes work, but the effort you put into it is great, and you just got to experiment, too. To be honest, a lot of headlines that I wrote didn't work nearly as well as I thought they would, but you just learn. It's a process that you're always continually learning. I have a pretty good hunch when it, you know, when I write something, the headline like that's gonna work, you know, that's gonna work. But using that for use process, I think, is a great start.

Andrew Hellmich: Do you write your headline first and then rework it? Or you do it or you do it at the very end, once you're finished writing your article?

Demian Farnworth: I write it after I'm done. I kind of have, I guess, a working title to begin with, so I know that kind of helps me guide the article. But I found that, you know, nailing the headline up front forces me to sort of control the article in ways that I don't want it. Because it's, for example, if I see it running off another direction, I'm like, I can't go that direction because the headline doesn't stay that way. I don't feel like that's being faithful to what maybe, I may be, you know, the rabbit, the rabbit trail there that is going off that I should probably follow that. So I use to wait till I'm done, then I can say, "Okay, so what is this truly about?" And then sum it up that way, so. And if you think about it too, like sites like Gawker and Buzzfeed and Business Insider, which, you know, Huffington Post, they've got great headlines. And all they're doing is aggregating or collecting, you know, watching headlines from elsewhere, reading the story, and they're writing a pretty persuasive headline and a short snippet about that. And so they're in essence waiting to the content is already done before they write their headline. So it's the same, I think it's the same way. I find that, I know people who write the headline first and are capable of keeping it like that, but I can't do that.

Andrew Hellmich: Let's say the photographer has a great headline. We're really happy with the copy. It's persuasive. We've got a call to action at the end to call us, and we're doing the 13 things that your photographer has to know on your wedding day. You know, if it's today, if you wake up and it's raining, and we've got a bunch of photos to go with this blog post. How should we handle the photos so that they become searchable and useful for the blog post?

Demian Farnworth: You definitely want to be descriptive, you know. You want to just treat it like a short sentence. You know, who's in it, what are they doing, and that's about the extent of it. You know, if you can be specific about the location too, that would be great. Think about what you're writing about. So that you have those sort of keywords that you're, you have that pattern of keywords going through there too. So you want to be descriptive in them, but you also want to mimic, sort of, what is the article about. So if it's a rainy day, then, yeah, you sort of want to talk about, you know, a man and woman running, you know, in a rainstorm, wedding gowns soiled, something like that. Because all those things, all those things are going to trigger possible search finds, as people, you know, type that in, all that is potentially, you know, again, content, you know, part of that net that you're opening wide. So, but it's just filling up, you know, that meta description with descriptive copy. So you don't need to, you know, write a paragraph, but something that's descriptive talks about it and it, and it honors, you know, your keywords throughout the copy.

Andrew Hellmich: l'm a little bit lost here now, Demian. So are you talking about a caption for the photo that the viewer can read, or are you talking about the metadata that hides behind the image?

Demian Farnworth: Well, you can use both. So you could use both if you want. But yeah, I'm talking about the metadata behind the photograph. And the caption thing is perfect too, because it just, it gives you another opportunity to write more content. People read captions too. So if you're going to, you know, use the caption, you might want to talk about salient points in that particular caption. But I was originally just talking about the metadata behind it. So when you, so, when you load it into there, if you use WordPress, you can get it, you can just see behind that, and then add that alt tag there.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so where it asks for the alt tag or a description of the image, then you can add that there. And that's what you're saying, suggesting to use, possibly some keywords and tie it into the article, and what that's about.

Demian Farnworth: Yeah, but yeah, be descriptive. Describe what's going on. Because the other thing too, that helps with, if you use images, is for anybody who's using a screen reader, so he's blind. When you have images in there, they have no clue. But, and that was the original point behind the alt tags, is this idea of being able to read to the person so they understand, like image of, you know, two: man and a woman running through raining and there's, you know, her wedding gown is soiled. Otherwise, all they hear is, you know, that sort of cryptic data about the photograph, so.

Andrew Hellmich: What about the actual the name of the photo? Like, should we be calling it 001.jpg or should we actually give it a name that ties in.

Demian Farnworth: Again, yeah, give it a descriptive name that ties it in. So you're gonna nail name the file something that's descriptive, you know, towards a bright and rainy day. Maybe it's in a location. Maybe they're all location, basically, you might say, you know, "Rainy day bride, Melbourne", "Rainy day bride", whatever other towns are local to you, so..

Andrew Hellmich: Got it, okay, and that's going to help with the SEO side of things?

Demian Farnworth: Yes, Sir.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so, and I know you threw out the keywords, that the keyword word first. So if for you, you're, I mean, your ultimate aim is to be creative. And I know, I mean, you're a writer, and that's what you do for a living. And you told me that you want to be creative and free flowing. How does that work then, when you have to also be writing for this, for the search engines? What do you do to change your articles after you've written them?

Demian Farnworth: I don't do anything because..

Andrew Hellmich: Really?

Demian Farnworth: No, because really, yeah, you know to honor, if you write for the reader, you're going to ultimately write, and it's gotten so much more that way over the past several years. Just with Panda, Penguin, and now Hummingbird is that you know, if you just focus on writing for the reader, you know you're ultimately, because what, that's what Google is trying to do, is trying to create a search engine that it that mimics a human reader. So if you write for them, and that's what they tell you, too, is, in essence. So, so sort of answer the keyword kind of question there. Does that mean we write with keywords? Because when I think of keyword, when I say that, you know, say, for example, I needed to write an article on author rank, right? Well, there's my keyword right there. And so that's all I know. And so just naturally, as I'm writing that article, I'm going to use that term. I'm not going to use it like, you know, towards wouldn't, but use it in a very natural, flowing way. And I know that it's already there, and it's going to count towards that. To help, a Google, you know, evaluate what this article about, can be spot about author rank, but more, you know, importantly, it's about authority, because I use that word too. And so you just, you kind of want to create, create that, because the keyword research really should that what you do with the keyword should come before you actually write the article. So, if you're going to write, you know, about something technical, about photography, you would do a lot of research about that. And then you would just notice the terms that are getting used most often with that. And you make categories, you know, with that, with your outline, and you have that there. And then, when you sit down and write, say, you're writing something technical, and there's sort of four steps to it, and each, you know. There's, so there's Category One, Category Two, Category Three, Category Four, and there's your keywords right there, and you just have to write naturally towards those. So you're writing so that the reader understands it, and you are, then, in the end, reading, creating something for their searches. Now, I pay attention to what's going on, you know, with searches, how they do that for the most part, and this is what they tell you, over and over and over again, "Is this right quality, unique, original content?" If you can shoot for that, then you're good. If you wonder what that looks like, then sit down and look at top 40 best photography blogs in your area, right? What are they doing? How are they doing it? What can you do differently? And that's what you have. What can you add? Because that's what Google wants. Google wants you to create content that's not there yet, unique, useful content that's not there yet. But you need, and so this would be, you know, sort of writing for the search engines, in the sense that you need that evergreen content to begin with. So that you're capturing that traffic, so you could write that but as the authority of your website grows, that content will become more important down the road, you know, as far as becoming the top. Because if you have some photographer in the business who's kind of number one, he's got the best blog. He ranks for all these sort of keywords, and it's competition you can't be. Well, he's done that over time by building this body of work. And so in time, you can do that as you continue to blog. And that's, that's probably, you know, I was to give one piece of advice, it was just be persistent, hang in there. It could take you two years before you start to see the traffic sort of, kind of take off and stuff like that. But it will do that, and you will get that recognition that you want. You will get that. You just have to be persistent and consistent.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so just keep on plugging away and you'll get there.

Demian Farnworth: Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, now you mentioned there, Panda, Penguin and Hummingbirds and so they're all, they're all updates to the Google algorithm that basically penalizes people that are trying to rot the system. Would that be a good way to describe it?

Demian Farnworth: So Panda and Penguin, yeah. Hummingbird, not so much, because Hummingbird was not necessarily an update. Hummingbird was an actual replacement of the old engine with all of those updates they made, made-back and baked-in. So Hummingbird is not a penalty as much as this is the algorithm. This is the search engine. This is how we're doing things now, so..

Andrew Hellmich: And that's why content marketing itself has become so important.

Demian Farnworth: Right.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. Mate, just one last question before you tell us where everyone can find you and check out your work. The fonts that we choose in our blogs, does it make a difference?

Demian Farnworth: Design makes a great difference with your blog, and that includes our lead designer, Rafal Tomal, great, great designer. But he actually recently created a web style guide, and it's on, it's free. it's free, and it's available on site, you can download. But he, he starts off and says, "Talks about the typography you start with that because, because, ultimately, the web is a word driven platform, so you have to, you begin with the typography. So it does matter what your fonts look like. It does matter what your design looks like." And that's, you know, sort of the Copyblogger models. You know, we put so much emphasis upon content marketing, but we've also put an emphasis upon having, you know, a fast website. You know, that's what we offer, great hosting. And then, then all the design side of things, because you're making a first impression. When people come to your site, there's a first impression. But there's also an SEO side of things. If you don't have a, if you have a design that's code heavy, it's going to load slowly. And people hate pages that load slowly. So you want to make sure you have, you optimize the design of your site, the code of your site, so that it loads quickly and people get to that. And with, you know, photographers with, with image heavy sites, you know, you're going to want to keep that in mind, that you want to a site that loads quickly.

Andrew Hellmich: Demian, it's been a real pleasure. I absolutely love the stuff that you write, and I love the way that you write as well. Where can people, what's the best place for people to go and check out what you do and keep up to date with your work?

Demian Farnworth: The most up to date stuff is happens on copyblogger.com. I pretty much write every Monday for there. It's not always Monday, but 40 times of the year you'll see me there. I then also have my own website that I don't update all that much, but I still do, and that's Copy Bot, thecopybot.com you can find me there. And then, of course, you can find me on Google Plus 2. Demian Farnworth, D- E-M-I-A-N, Farnworth, F-A-R-N-W-O-R-T-H, W-O-R-T-H.

Andrew Hellmich: I"II add links to all of those, Demian, so people can find you easily. They'll be in the show notes. So, Demian, thanks again. It's been a real pleasure.

Demian Farnworth: I appreciate it. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you everybody else, too.
 
 
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