tyson crosbie photography

Google has a job

Google’s job is to give you what you want when you want it. It would be completely contrary for them to give you organic results to anyone that hadn’t earned it in real life. The goal of becoming the #1 person for any industry is a great goal, even one I strive to obtain and maintain, but google doesn’t want to tell people you are the best choice unless you are. No company can change that without cheating.

the call

I got a call yesterday from an SEO/SEM company, “usaseopros.com” that immediately wanted to explain SEO to me. They stated that they had found me online and there were some things wrong with my keywords that they could help me with. In fact they would guarantee #1 results on all search engines, read what google says about this:

No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.

This was ironic considering that it was also the first day I had achieved first page results for a competitive keyword on google, “phoenix photographer” organically. I had lots of help in this endeavor and it wasn’t too long ago that this sales call would have probably caught my interest.

Then again I am so critical of sales that I still wouldn’t have bitten the bait.. They made two glaring mistakes right away. First was they introduced themselves under a different name than the URL they wanted me to visit. Second when I googled “usaseopros.com complaints” Check out the results coupling them with a scam.

When I called them out on this they became angry and hung up on me. I might have been a little abrassive (oops).

how I know

I am lucky because I have many friends and clients who I would consider SEO/SEM gurus. From architecture and building it right the first time fame Chuck Reynolds to the whole content/adwords/keywords package client Chase Granberry to SEO product manager for OrangeSoda based out of SLC Utah Rian Fowler. In fact now that I think about it I am surrounded by resources that I’ve learned from.  A former client Pearly Writes and Bump Interactive are active in the #phx community and specialize in organic search engine results.

So I definitely had the upper hand in this sales call, Chuck had already shared the google page on SEO with me prior and his work on my website was a huge part of me ranking in the top ten yesterday. This prior knowledge meant that as soon as the salesman stated the #1 guarantee I knew something was up.

avoid scams

If you want to get into the competitive race to the top results on google please read the article above and educate yourself about what is truely going to help your company. Remember it is googles job to serve relevant results. Once you understand that take the time to choose a company that understands the benefits and limitations of SEO/SEM. And maybe, just maybe being known in your community is more important than being #1 on google.

It’s about the personal brand.

There is a certain language that we are developing around business and our expectations as owners and customers. They include terms like relevancy, authenticity, and accountability. The days of hiding behind a logo or a companies policies are waning as more information, and the speed and accuracy of that information, becomes accessible not only to your customers but the whole world. It is more important than ever to look to the local community to build trust and develop relationships based on openness. Why? Because it can save your ass when you mess up, and you will mess up. These relationships will be that attachment to the human part of you that will allow for your customer to forgive you as a person. Really, lets face it, it is easy to hate a compnay (or a person) that claims no fault and easy to forgive your friends.

It’s about you.

As a photographer, it is the purpose of any portrait to capture that moment when you are most human, most yourself and exactly like you imagine yourself at your best. A good portrait will develop trust and convey meaning beyond what you can tell people about you or your brand, in this way a photo is a 1000 words. The avatar is this concept times a million, especially if you are involved in the communities on twitter, facebook, linkedin, etc. With people actively tweeting on average 10-20 times a day, that is a lot of seeing your poorly chopped and shopped photo for your followers and it makes a difference.

The deal.

I am the best portrait photographer in Phoenix and I want to photograph your avatar. I think it is vitally important to your business or personal brand especially if you are using any of the tools mentioned above. The normal price for personal portraits is $300.00+tax (see pricing page on tysoncrosbie.com for full details) and you get one image for use across all media from the session. I am offering an avatar session and one avatar image for use across all digital media for $150.00+tax. This isn’t entirely a discount, just a product I don’t normally offer. I am offering this product through the summer, it will end 08/31/08.  This is a chance to get a photo session from me at 50% the normal starting cost. Obviously if you want more of the images from the session they will always be available in whatever format you would like.

Ready? Call me at 602.254.2880 for an appointment.

Not ready yet? Check out the soft edits page if you want to see what the Phoenix community thinks about avatars.

If you are a past avatar session client please leave a comment on this post incase others need help deciding. Thanks.

As a reward to those who comment and participate in the soft edits I built this badge that you can proudly display on your site.

Thanks to @denthewise and @stevebelt For encouraging me to build this badge.

The new badge:

Just copy and paste this code into your widgets/blogs or anywhere else you would like to:

Thank you to all who view, comment and participate in the soft edit process. I am certainly grateful for your help and all those who have participated in crowd sourcing their own avatars have all loved the feedback. You have made a difference, and isn’t that the point of participating?