Found a nice testimonial today in my feeds- Jim Crotty, who took the seminar when I tried to pack it all into half a day, pumped my little speaking engagement Thur July 17.

Calm Photos » Websiteology: The Best Way to Market Yourself on the Web
On Thursday, July 17th, the Greater Dayton Advertising Association is featuring guest speaker David Esrati who will be talking about web 2.0 and his Websiteology program. Non-members can attend the program for just $20 simply by registering on the association’s web site.

David’s half-day course on WordPress blogging for business and his hosting services was the impetus for CalmPhotos.com. David even suggested the URL name for my blog – “Calm Photos” – after considering the visual impact of my nature and landscape photographs.

If you are an Ohio-based photographer (or just about anyone else with a small business) who is serious about marketing yourself and your work on the web, David Esrati’s Websiteology seminar is the first resource you should turn to. I know because after five years of being a full-time photographer I’ve tried just about everything else when it comes to advertising and “getting my work out there.” My best results routinely come from my WordPress blog (what you’re reading right now) and at a fraction of the cost of a typical Yellow Page ad (a total waste of money for commercial and fine art photography).

Want proof ? For the month of June 2008 I had over 91,000 total hits on CalmPhotos.com, with top key search words that referred directly to my site in the following order:

1) photography
2) pictures
3) calm
4) ohio
5) photos
6) dayton
7) pics
8) photo
9) flickr
10) model
11) landscape
12) nature
13) portraits

Jim had 3 other sites before we set him up with WordPress. I think he’ll agree, that not only were the other sites harder to maintain, they didn’t get him near the hits.

Jim will be there on Thursday- will you?

Register here: https://greaterdaytonadassociation.org/pdseries08rsvp.php