Looking to sell yourself and your work online? Here’s our guide to getting started and the payoff could be a high profile for your business that crosses the continents...

We could dedicate an entire issue of the magazine to discussing the changes in society that have been brought about by the Internet, but all you really need to know for your photography business is that nowadays, people seem to prefer not to talk to other people until they really have to. This means you need a place where potential clients can learn all about your business, see examples of your images and maybe even hear testimony from previous clients, without having to talk to you. You need a website!

No, don’t switch off - this isn’t an article from 2003, and we’re well aware that telling professional photographers that they need websites is pretty similar to teaching grandmothers about sucking eggs. You really should already have your own website. But what can you do now? What about getting yourself a Twitter account? A Facebook page? A Flickr portfolio? On these digital networking sites, people love to talk to other people that they’ve never met and don’t let geography stand in the way of a quick chat. Welcome to the Web, version 2.0.

This article is about the online tools that you can use (besides a website) in order to get the most return from the Internet’s myriad possibilities. Primarily, you need to spread the word about your work and get your site linked to from as many locations as possible. There’s no magic to this: all you have to do is create a digital presence that extends past your own URL. This will require you interacting with others, winning friends and hopefully not alienating people. And the best bit? You can do all this for free, in one wet afternoon. Let’s get going.