Online slideshows and how they skyrocketed my referrals and website traffic!

If online slideshows are not part of your wedding photography workflow then hopefully this post will open your eyes to the free marketing opportunity that you’re missing out on.

I have been running my wedding photography business for about 10 years and these days I shoot roughly 60-70 weddings per year. I have tried almost every marketing technique out there. Some marketing techniques have worked a lot better than others so I want to share all the the best ones with you guys!

Personally, I have found that Online Slideshows have been an amazing marketing tool for my business! Especially because they are free to create and as a result, Online Slideshows generate about 10% – 15% of my wedding business, so read on if you want to learn the ins and outs of how I do it.

So, online slideshows had 2 amazing effects on my business:

It created WAY more referrals!

When I finish editing a wedding I always upload a slideshow of my favourite shots to my website. I share the link with my couple and simply ask them to share it with all their friends and family! This is an amazing way of getting 100’s of people and potential clients to your website!

My Google ranking increased dramatically = more leads!

Let me give you a super quick lesson on how Google determines where to rank your website. There are a number of factors that come into play but the 6 main elements you need to get right are:

1. On page SEO.
2. Lots of unique relevant content.
3. Backlinks to your website from industry related websites.
4. The number of people visiting your website.
5. The amount of time people spend on your website.
6. and lastly, do they navigate around.

Today we are going to talk about the bottom 3 points. Simply improving these 3 factors will DRAMATICALLY improve your chances of getting up the leader board to page 1 of Google.

So, let’s put these 3 factors into context when it comes to Slideshows!

4. The number of people visiting your website.

If your couples are sharing their slideshows with all their friends and family you could be getting 100’s or even 1000’s of additional unique visitors per month to your website, which is amazing!

Google loves to see that people are visiting your website, it proves to them that you are popular!

5. The amount of time people spend on your website.

Fact: On average people spend less than 1 minute browsing a website!

So, if you can beat the average then you’re doing really well. My wedding slideshows go for about 7 minutes, so my goal is to get as many people to watch the full slideshow as possible which gives me heaps of Google juice!

Since I introduced online slideshows my Epic Photography website has an average time spent on the website of roughly 4 minutes which is AWESOME!

Google loves to see that people are spending a lot of time on your website because it proves to them that people are interested in the information on your website and find it relevant and useful.

6. Do your visitors navigate around?

Lastly, a little trick that I do is embed my wedding slideshows three pages deep into my website which means people have to navigate to see them. This improves Google’s ‘Bounce Rate’.

Bounce Rate is super important because it tells Google if people visiting your website are navigating around or not. For example, if someone goes to your website homepage, and then decides to leave before clicking around, Google gives you a higher Bounce Rate, which is bad! If people land on your homepage and then decide to click on the About page, and then check out your Gallery and lastly click on Contact us, Google will give you a much lower Bounce Rate, which is AWESOME!

Here is an example of how I do it:

1. Please go to www.chrisgarbacz.com.au
2. Click on Client Login located in the main menu
3. Click on Jenna & Matt and use the password: 25092015 to login
4. Enjoy the show 🙂

Google loves to see that your visitors are navigating around your website, this tells Google that your website is relevant and that people want to find out more information about you, which results in a better Google ranking!

If you’re interested to know how I put together a slideshow and what my process is then read on…

As an overview, you need to make the slideshow, add it to Vimeo and then embed the slideshow onto your website. I can write another 1000 words describing exactly how to do this, but for now, here are the basics.

1) Choose the shots

Firstly, as soon as I finish editing a wedding I will go through and choose my favourite 60 – 80 images, showing an awesome overview of the whole day, including the groom coverage, bride coverage, ceremony, locations and reception. I also choose images that I know the family and friends will want to see, for example family shots.

2) Add the first and last slide

Then I add two additional photos / slides to the list. The first slide is the couples name and wedding date and the last slide is my logo and contact details. Now my folder of photos are ready to be created into a slideshow.

3) Create the Slideshow

Jump into your Windows or Mac movie making software, which usually come included as standard. Next, import all the photos into the software and add a fade transition to all the photos. Feel free to choose which ever transition you like, but I personally think fade is the least tacky!

4) Add the tunes!

After you have imported the photos, it’ time to add an awesome soundtrack. If you’re really good and organised, try and add the song that the couple enjoyed their first dance too! This will give you bonus points!!

Otherwise just choose a couple of songs that you think they will love. Sync the music to the slideshow and you’re good to go. Export the movie to web.

** We have paid for a commercial licence with APRA AMCOS which allows us to use commercial music for our business purposes **

5) Upload to Vimeo

The next step is to go to www.vimeo.com and upload your slideshow. Vimeo is one of the best video hosting websites on the internet and it’s free. Simply upload the movie to Vimeo and now your movie is online and ready to embed onto your website.