Name of your website?Charles Binns - Landscape Photography, Nature Photography, Travel Photography
Your name?
Charles Binns
Your Location (city, etc)
Broxbourne, Herts
Please give us a short summary of your website?
The website is a collection of photographs taken by during the last few years. The web site is really a collection of images taken during my travels at home in England or abroad and really reflects my interest in travel and landscape photography. There are also some collections of experiments in macrophotography, still life and the like.
I am particularly fond of film, though there are many digital images on display and nowadays I never leave home without my trusty Holga!! The results of which are appearing on the website in ever greater quantities.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
I was inpsired to launch my website to share my images with family and friends - I found that I was taking loads of pictures and keeping them stored on my computer where nobody saw them. Once the website was up and running I decided to try to share the images with a wider audience and so I started to refine and optimise the content to get good SERP.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
This is it!! The one and only!
How did you decide on a name for your website?
Not hard to figure out that I named it after myself!!The title, Charles Binns - Landscape Photography, Nature Photography, Travel Photography reflects my interest in these branches of photography, in no particular order of course. Most of the website is dedicated to travel but I have always enjoyed landscape photography immensely.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
I have not monetised the website yet having concentrated on publishing good original content and on getting good SERP with Google. At the moment I have only one advertisement on the site but if traffic takes off then I will seriously consider trying to earn an income from the site, either from advertising revenue or from sales of my images.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
It doesn't cost much to publish the site and I spend three or four hours a week working on it. I enjoy doing it so I don't think the investment has been huge. As to the success, it hasn't made me any money (yet) so we'll see. the website is more about enjoyment of photography for me.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
I am not sure. I might buy a really expensive camera and post galleries of swanky hotels on tropical islands!! Or pictures of me in very expensive sports cars.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Learning about search engine optimisation, website design, servers, ISPs. Launching the website has necessitated a HUGE amount of edcation on my part. The good thing is that all the tools and information you need to publish a successful website are available on the internet and for free. Don't get taken in by internet "gurus" who want you to buy their latest e-book. Stick to trusted SEO sites and forums which contain some excellent tips.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Good content (at least I think it's good). Links, links, more links and then when you're tired of that, more links. That gives you exposure on other people's websites and Google likes links and good content so I have seen my pages climb steadily up the page ranks.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
I have become much more absorbed by the whole process of SEO than I expected. It also requires more patience than I thought. It takes a long time to build up a good site and alos to promote it.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
Four years if memory serves me correctly. I would scrap the site the moment I stopped enjoying it - enjoyment is the whole purpose of this site after all. I do get tired of it once in a while and take a break from publishing new pages, but I always come back to it in the end.
What is your website address?
Charles Binns - Landscape Photography, Nature Photography, Travel Photography
