Episode 86 How Chuck Norris Hired Me with Kylee Ann Maughan

<music> welcome to the wordpress photography podcast the podcast for photographers who want to learn how to get the most out of wordpress to grow their photography business. You don't need to be a geek to understand. Wordpress settled back and listen as we show you. How now here's your host scott. Widen kipah wits mm-hmm ever since buying a digital camera. I can only think of its positive points. There aren't any negatives welcome to episode eighty six. My name is scott wine. Giveaways and i'm joined by my guest kylian. Welcome kylie. I'm we've been trying to get you on so i'm glad you're on yes. I'm so glad sorry it took so long. I'm glad i think this works out best for both of us. Here does so kylie started kylian photography eat years ago and has since grown grown from a one woman amateur show to a full associate team which is really really fantastic after a year of teaching intro to photography at a local technical college she discovered that helping other entrepreneurs create thriving businesses is what fires her up. She owes a semi. I annual kellyanne sleepovers all over the u._s. Speaks at conferences and teaches on line coaches courses. I can't <unk> speak today. So how do you like the new joke intro. I'm going to be toying around with doing these four for this season season. Four of the podcast jokes like this the one you just heard are quite cheesy and i think that's when you talk about business and marketing and things like that we need to lighten the mood with a good cheesy jokes on time so i want to hear what what you listeners think of the joke doc <hes> introduction and if you think we should stick with it if you have an idea for a joke just tweeted at us at imaging and i will do do my best to include it in one of the episodes so kylie what is going on with you. 'cause we've both been. You're quite busy lately so i want to know what's going on in your world while you're redoing your studio. My studio was getting finished so i have been building a home the last year and we actually moved into it just this last month and i got to build a backyard studio so it's just a little house. That's where i'm right right now in my backyard and shoe brands out here and i record podcasts out here and it's been so much so you say it's a little house is is it literally house or is it like one of those sheds. That looks like a house that you not technically a house. It's it's like a miniature version of a my house though it has a bathroom it has trysofi has heating so it's i mean it's kind of like a you know those small rbm. It does have a shower so i feel like it could be an airbnb without shower. You can always do now an outdoor shower so you humaid match your house like siding roofing stuff and all matches and all matches it for. It's called the blush door studio so the doors pink. My husband went. Let us paint the front door pink majett so besides that it's completely like an identical mini house of my my first house so it's been so did you in put in any garage style doors to bring in big items or is it just normal door to for house so we have really tall. I guess for the youtube people you can see this. We have really tall windows. You're out the back so it's like a whole wall of windows on that side and then over here is just a big whitewall thirteen feet now outlets which is the best because we hate phony shopping so and then i have a pink while the captel pinks kind of my color so lots of pete gone on in here. It's been good just to geek out on on home studios. Ah what did you do for your floor speaking of water dropping on the floor. It's light lampitt dislike a light cream color which is super nice because it's really good for flat but then it's really lights that doesn't like distract. I used to have a great in my home studio and so it was a little darker so i like that. It's like a light laminate rugs all over to good good yeah so when i as everybody heard in the last episode code of last season last season i had a flood in my home studio so i had to redo my my my entire home studio the walls the floor got rid of carpet and i now have vinyl laminate that is gray. It's sort of like that dirty gray so nice. It's beautiful. You can't really tell when it's dirty. Unfortunately i guess but it has its texture. If feels like would that's not cool on yeah so anyway okay so today we are going to be talking about something that i think is going to be really really interesting two different topics that i definitely want to get to the first of which as a karate students. I'm very excited for this topic. You booked chuck norris or shall. I say chuck. Norris booked you because chuck. Norris does everything right yeah yeah yes so this was probably one of the most surreal moments in micro. It's one of my favorite stories because it's one of those like no. You didn't like this is a joke. You know it's like like your joke in the beginning like all the jokes the dad jokes. There's just a joke for everything bug now really chuck. Norris booked me so yeah. I'm excited to get into this too because i think it's a fun story but also like good like life lesson on blogging so you get into it. Okay so it. I have been blogging backstory. I've been blogging sense twenty thirteen three times a week. Now it's a little bit more regularly because when you start book or when you start blogging three times a week for six years then you get busier and busier and busier so now we're blogging five or seven times a week just to keep up with the content. Obviously i have a big team now so we have to block all of that work so when i started blogging the goal was to boost my s._e._o. So that's why i chose a wordpress blog because wordpress oppressed not only is it super customizable and easy to use. I mean easy is a relative term because i'd be like probably a lot of people think it's the worst thing ever but once you get used used to it. It's the easiest thing to use. It's easy to customize. It's easy to change but i wanted to use wordpress for the plug in s._e._o. Joost it's like ben. The biggest help been learning s._e._o. For me so i started blogging i started using s._e._o. Joost out. It's called yeah. I think it's but it's okay. Y'all says yes just s._e._o. And it was telling me like what i was doing right and what i was doing wrong for s._e._o. And that's kind of how i got into getting my name came to the top of google for those of you who don't know about s._e._o. It's basically like getting your research organically google. They find you so i started started blogging three times a week and twenty seven january and six months later i had boosted to the number one spot for our local area so fast forward a few years shock. Norris came to town which was a big deal like people were lining up came to town and apparently had not booked decided like oh last minute. We need a photographer to follow lowest on this tour and i was actually in salt lake in the airport leaving on a trip to california and i get this text. That's like hey chuck. Norris needs a photographer for day. Are you available. We found you on google and of course unlike shoe. Do i get off this planet. Like what do i do and and also instantly. I'm like yeah me and my photographer next to me. She was actually they're taking me to. The airport was like that is definitely. A scam sounds like chuck. Norris doesn't like totally like yeah. What are you talking about. She's like this isn't skim. You need not reply and so i said how fast can you get back to logan gin and she went and got in. My minivan drove as fast as she could. She was supposed to be started working in an hour and she got their ran. There was like a huge is lines. If you had a park like a mile away run with her camera and then she spent the rest today photographing chuck norris so that our story so so do you know. Do you know what blog content that he that he or his team was looking at when they found you on google and decided to call you or text you yeah so it definitely wasn't romantic wedding photographer that he was looking at but i think that i think that he i just searched logan utah photographer and since we had blocked so consistently with that keyword or similar keywords around there and kind of optimize our blog for the key word we were the first phone call and i don't think he really was looking for a specific style. Obviously that's the great thing about. He's not really looking for a style or you're like the chuck. Norris tarifi's not googling thinks he's googling his location which i think is awesome because if we can all get to the topic legal locations the doors are open for some opportunities. I i don't know what the statistic is anymore. I used to know a few years ago but like it was like the first spot it was like sixty percent more chances to to get a click then the second which was like thirty eight percent and the you know so <hes> if you get the first spot there's a there's more chances for for a lot more leads and a lot more clients end <music> as you found out even more notable clients like somebody like chuck norris who you know you don't wanna mess with chuck norris what he says get when he says come through my phone cutting photos you go take his photos exactly even if you have to get off the plane if that's your only option so okay so that's great i kinda geek out on elevate because first photography business wordpress but then martial arts martial arts students somebody who actually has martial arts clients <hes> yeah so that's fun. Okay okay so let's talk about something that comes up a lot a lot in corey potter's fuel your photos group people wanting learning to switch from wordpress or squarespace to show it or and you switched your website to show it but your blog is on wordpress and <hes>. I know why your blog doesn't work show. It doesn't offer a blog. They offer wordpress blog but i want to hear from you. Why you switch to show show it what your main reasons were and how that could be addressed on the wordpress side not to you know convince you to come back to the to the dark side but more just to educate people who are thinking about the switch you know dear really have to go through that process or can can you just do wordpress so what was your main reasons for switching to show it okay so there's a couple of reasons so first of all if you've ever been to show it united conference <hes> <hes> that is their main conference. I'm actually speaking at this year on building an associate teams at all we find but the people show united are dislike really awesome them down to earth amazing people and when i go to this conference you just kind of feel like family. Everybody hugs. It's like a thing and i'm not really a touchy person but you just feel like you have your family so i went to this conference learned about show and initially i had a show at website in a wordpress website the years and years ago when i i was on show it like in the beginning when they work combined and i realized i gave up my show at site and i went solely to work because it was more beneficial and having two websites wasn't really working because you don't need a website and a blog you can do a website and a block together so i use wordpress solely for years and years and years and had a website and then when show it combined signed with wordpress. I was like match made in heaven because i loved. I know you're gonna explain that. You can do this and other. I love that you can build build. A website with dragon drops like features out of your fawns. All these things that we're a little more complicated when i was trying to customize a theme like i got pretty good that like learning code like little snippets of code and stuff like that but when i wanted to like add a font it just depended on the theme or if i wanted to move the things around or make things full size each was different and i didn't know how to create something with so one of the advantages of the show it <hes> page builder is that it's it's a grid system which is something that <hes> as far as i'm aware of only two page builders on the wordpress. I'd have this capability. <hes> there is there. The art van just to this is that you're not limited to sort of a great which is basically columns. You're not you're not limited to to a bunch of columns the disadvantaged n._j._i._t. Though is that photographers <hes> once they start messing around with a grid system they could. They could potentially make their website. Look look really bad. You know you start it. It's like it's like a photographer trying to make their marketing materials in photoshop photography when they suck at making their suck graphic affixes nine you know so <hes> the same thing could happen if if you start trying to overdo things when you're not one hundred percent comfortable gorilla system so <hes> but with that said if you look at some of the grid list designed that is available for show it from places like tonic site shop they're amazing. They're gorgeous but again it could be done in wordpress so i'll get back to that anything else before. We want to share about about this southern. I also love that. I could build a blog site now with the new the new show it you can build the blog site with your show it so you can make all plug in which i loved that it integrated and then i also loved just yacht the templates and everything we're so so pretty through their show through tonic through a lot of different designers and then i also love that hold on my sister to swim in the window making faces. She's dropping for children. Okay let me think what was i saying but you also like that. Oh yes i also love that. I can easily add pages wordpress but i could add pages and copy the same design and dislike restart a new page and just i feel like duplicating things and copying piecing things was so much easier as far. I like the design side of things okay so let's start in the beginning with first of all. Do you remember what theme that you were using when on wordpress i'd before you decided to switch to show it out of curiosity now i used their three themes themes that i kinda three theme companies rotated through angie makes blue chick and restored three sixty. I think it was what it was called so they're kind of like girly sites. If you've ever looked ah like early things so those places i could find stuff that matched that brand okay so if if i if i recall correctly none of those have a page builder option now here's the funny the fun thing with wordpress is we're pressed now now as of <hes>. I think it was right after christmas right after december two thousand eighteen yeah it's so weird to think about that and we're ready getting close to this again but so so so in december they came out with what caught what the codename was was called gutenberg. It's basically on brand new visual editor and oh yeah we're press now has a page builder built in <hes> oh it's a grid integrated system but there are actually some some extensions that can actually make it griffis if you wanted it to be realist- but <hes> you can actually do full page builder designs including in with templates so that you could save and reuse them on other pages all built into wordpress. You could even do it without without added. Plug ins now but you could add plug into means enhance it so if this is your conversion. Was you know over a year ago or or less than a year ago. Rather you know <hes> that alone. You could be doing what you're doing. Now right <hes> just gritted versus grid lists but there's also a plug in. That's very popular page builder plug in called element or this plug in which it's there's a bunch of different page. Builder plugs have been popular over the years visual composer which i'm not personally fan of but it's quite popular divvy which is probably with the most popular page builder plugged available beaver builder which is very popular for developers an element or which is really overcome a lot of the others and is giant now being used by a lot of web designers and element or added a grid 'less option into their do a grid work relist with basically you would drop in and element you drop in. Let's say a contact form and go into the settings and you would just check off. If you wanted to be absolute positioning for basically free flow like where you can put it where you want it so now. Let's say for people people thinking okay. I want to go to show it because i have complete control over the design where i want things to be. Now that that that option they with wordpress whether you do with the built in page builder the call the block editor or you do something like elementary so can you find themes specifically like four elementary after that help you like design aspects yes so element or has their own starter theme just call i think it's called element or hello and but element or worked with any theme gene that you want and they have they have a template system built in so the free version has a bunch of templates as in the paid version gives you templates for like full site designs so <hes> and then of course there's there's people who just like <hes> like melissa love people who sell designs for element or for other peace builders something like that yeah so and there's the ability that you could create a page and literally just copy paste or duplicate to another <hes> another page just like you can show it. One thing that we're press does not have which were press does have word camps these conferences but they're not just for photographers. You know they're there for anybody. Using wordpress from developers designers to end users whereas ratio united united so that is the big difference is the community is is not as tight as a side because it is yeah yeah yeah. That's a big advantage. If you're a photographer who wants that tight community built around your website and what it does for you then you know maybe show it is oh direction ago. I work for us but if you know there's pros and cons to everything of course so does elementary cost extra money like monthly or is it a one time fee so element element or the free version which is actually very powerful for a free and then there is a paid plug in that you can pay annually to get and there's different different levels of it to get additional features and things like that and it's not expensive. Actually i think <hes> i think it's like one hundred dollars a year or something like that so it's not not bad <hes> we'll see that image the we're also coming out with their own stuff including an entire turnkey photography website platform <hes> built around the block editor so something <hes> equally equally as powerful as show very soon awesome. That's really cool. Let's see if we could squeeze in <hes> this last topic that i wanted to bring up and in the beginning of this discussion we talked about out how chuck norris found you through your blogging. Could you dive a little deeper into how how you got consistent and and what the strategy was and how you how you keep up with it like i used to be consistent. Listen to you on my own personal photography site <hes> these days. It's it's becoming harder and harder but i'm curious how how you wind up being able to do it in in the strategy besides just the s._e._o. Which you talked about of course yeah so. I think that the key to having great s._e._o. Zeo and having the blog actually working for you is to be consistent. I think if you blog like once a year or every six months or like you blog one like one month consistently and then drop off for six months. It's just not even really working for you as a tool because it's not doing what needs to push to google and stuff like that so i decided decided if i'm in a blog it has to be consistent and i have to keep up with it so in the beginning when i started blogging six years ago three times a week. I didn't have a ton of content so i kind of made a pattern for myself. I would do like an educational type post one day on like on monday on wednesdays i would do like a client feature feature and then on friday as i do like a personal post so i could get at least one client a week and if i could i would go shoot like a neighbor or friend so i'm consistently showing up posting client photos and then the education ones weren't necessarily photography like four photographers. It was like what to wear for family pictures. What you expect when you go to your session location guides stuff like that because my at that time my market wasn't photographers my market was clients and and what do clients want. What can i add value to their sessions so having that consistent counter helped me kind of share your content and then be able to you keep up with that schedule because if you're blogging clients three times a week that gets hard especially during slower seasons or when you don't have enough content but i think everyone can probably she'll once a week so i kept up with that and now my businesses just like exploded from that from s._e._o. From word of mouth you know once you grow like that you just grow grow grow and you don't stop growing so now. I actually don't do it all by myself. So every photographer that shoots the session has to you write the blog posts. They have to write what the session was about and stuff and then we have actually a member of our team that does all the collages all the s._e._o. All the scheduling of the the blog and then she writes like the bright tips and the wedding tips and all those things for our rights so i think once you get to a point where you're you've blocked so much that it's working you you keep it up by outsourcing it right yeah. That's good to do <hes> you know. They're originally started this podcast. I i guess by the time that this episode airs is going to be about four years. At this point. <hes> mike coast was rachel who owned photo scribe and that's what she did she she. She was a a ghost writer for photographers. The company got acquired by shoot at so it's still exist so i completely agree that that a great strategy the you've got sort of this filler content which the you know the this was the session and this was this wedding stuff that the pretty stuff that everybody's gonna see and then you have the more are strategic stuff which is the how to's and the you know what to wear and how to style and that stuff that is the stuff that's going to get you. The lead need more than the filler stuff the filler is this there to fill so evergreen content so stuff that i blocked six years ago is still uh-huh floating around pinterest share with clients. I can send an email. It's just like so valuable. Where's that stuff goes away after a week and you just posted clients so it's been it's been great in fact a strategy to potentially. I don't know if you do this now. But it's something to consider is a <hes> s._e._o. Wise you can actually edit the content that you posted five years ago and <hes> just modernized it a little bit whether it's adding some new photos changing some texts adding new style whatever and then just change the date to now and that is going to help it go back up a little bit on google because now we're going to think it's new like seeing new content <hes> even though you're not changed the u._r._l. You're not you know it's just gonna make it look fresh not only to the people looking at it but two so yes yeah <hes> and repenting repenting of course yeah yeah <hes> that's something you with wordpress by the way and a plug in called w._b._z. To buffer wpro extract put this in the show notes you can <hes> actually automate that completely you can automate re sharing your content through buffer to your social media which is which is really nice thing so there's one thing you can't antoon. Show it <hes> yeah plug into powerful. There's you know <hes> so <hes> okay. Eh anything that you want to share before we close up the show. I don't think so just i learned a lot about things i mean. I know wordpress the press. I think there's a plug in for everything mccaw resist. I searched for it and can finance. I think i guess my tip would be if you think wordpress is missing a feature even scott searched the flagging annual find that you can join the wordpress photography facebook facebook group that i started and asked there <hes> there's a whole community is over two thousand people <hes> photographers that want to help other photographers do more with wordpress so if anybody does have questions that you could email me direct. You can comment on this podcast episode. You could join the facebook group and you'll get an answer that is for sure <hes> so i wanna thank you for joining today. It's been it's been a nice conversation. I was really looking forward to is this one so i'm glad we got it. Thanks john was super fun so maybe if you get back to your blogging chuck norris will be in your town yeah yeah yeah actually so as a just as a side note related to that one of my big martial arts clients is actually a very big name. I'm in in in karate just not like a movie star <hes> but <hes> he actually is <hes>. There's there's a form of karate called gojra ru which was chinese and actually starting okinawa was was brought to china and then a a guy from the u._s. Military named peter urban he went to china and he studied this. He was actually in china for the military. He studied go drew and then he came to the united states started his own school and my client who is now now. I think he's in his mid seventies. Who still teaches key was one of peter ribbons. I students so the school that i attend that i learn from that i also photograph for is four degrees from the original okinawan star. That's amazing. That's cool seeing some martial arts were already but the guys that you don't you don't see but yeah but anyway it's on my website go to scott wine dot com to search for karate of the whole bunch of content with him and some of the other credit guys so so you can find the show notes and where to find kylie and to <hes> subscribe elder places you can subscribe at imagery dot dot com slash podcast slash eighty-six. Don't forget to subscribe to this show on apple podcast spotify google play wherever you listen to podcasts you've been listening to the word press photography podcast odd cast to listen to other episodes and to subscribe to the podcast by i tunes stitcher google play and more please visit image -ly dot com forward slash podcast odd cast.