Sometimes I get bogged down with the frustrations I have with Google. Exploiting its power and lack of transparency are a few that come to mind.
I was reminded of the positive interactions it can drive when looking for a newborn photographer one week after my son Jake was born. Lizzie asked me to look for someone, so I went to Google. Being a new dad of course I was on the go so I did a search for “newborn photographer near me” on my mobile. I checked out results in the Local Pack and did some price comparing. Once I got over the prices for newborn sessions, I finally sent a few options to Lizzie.
We reached out to and ended up going with Cara Soulia Photography. I was reminded of the human to human commerce that Google can help drive. We were new parents looking to document our sons first few days, and Cara runs a small photography business looking for customers.
As long as Google still drives connections like this, I will continue to be happy working on the internet.
While Cara was doing the shoot, I told her I worked in SEO and how I found her via Google. She then told me about how she started The Front Steps Project at the start of Covid and that resulted in a lot of backlinks from major publications and other photographers around the world. A truly great example of a serendipitous cause-marketing campaign that ended up driving high value links too.
Here are a few photos from the shoot:
