How a Blog Can Help Your Photography Business
Photo by Hamed Saber.
If you are a photographer and have a website, you need a blog. A blog can be a huge supplement to your website and can offer more for the viewer than just viewing your portfolio online. You can post new work to it and describe a little bit about your recent photo shoots, and add keywords to your copy which in turn will bring the search engines coming back to your site looking for new content.
Website Structure
I post the work I want prospective clients to see on my main website. This is where I host my updated portfolio for viewers to see. The stronger images are posted here so that clients see a range of work. I don’t show everything I shoot — just the photos I want people to see and those that represent my business’ look and feel. Remember the saying: less is more.
Here is where the blog comes into play. When I set up my blog, I wanted to use it as a journal for quick updates so the viewer can see what I have been working on, where I’ve been shooting across the country, as well as anything else I feel like sharing. I like to post behind the scenes photos from recent shoots. By doing so, the blog becomes a little bit more personal, and it allows the viewer to see my studio space or the type of lighting setup I am using. The most important thing about having the blog is that it allows me to post photos that might not make it to my main website. Basically, it’s an online portfolio of constantly changing work, and a great way to refresh the content on your website.
What to Blog About
For all of us photographers, I have found that a great thing to post to your blog is a couple of quick images from a photo shoot that have just been completed. It can be personal work or something you shot for a client. It can even be an article relevant to your business. All of these things are great ways to keep fresh content rolling through your blog. I do a lot of editorial shoots for publications so they get dibs on first run, but as soon as they hit the newsstand I will post a few shots on my blog. This is also a great way to plug a website and show the viewer who you have been shooting for. Don’t forget to link up if your client has your work posted on their website.
How a Blog Benefits You
The benefits of adding a blog to your site are numerous. I can speak from experience and tell you that I have had clients call my portfolio in for review simply because they looked at my photoblog and liked what I was doing. It shows a different side of your work. I am a big believer in getting fresh work on your site as often as you can, so that it will show your prospective clients and viewers what you have been working on.
It’s amazing when looking at your website traffic through Google Analytics or through your own website server how people are finding you and the keywords that are bringing them into your site. Because of the photoblog, I have gotten traffic from places I normally wouldn’t have on my business site, and I bet you will have the same result if you get started and keep the content rolling in.
Getting more inbound links means better rankings in Google without extra costs involved. It will take a while to see results but you will see your website gain ground gradually.
As far as posting frequency goes, I think a good number to shoot for (bare minimum) is three to four times a month. If you think about it’s not that much time dedicated to helping your photo business move along, and the more you post, the more success you will have.
How to Get Started
There are hundreds of ways to get your blog rolling. Personally I use WordPress.com but there are many options out there. Do some searching and see what works best for you. A self-hosted option like WordPress.org is often the best choice for business. If you decide to load software onto your server space and you’re not too sure about technical matters, find someone who is willing to help you get it set up, whether you’ve got a knowledgeable friend who will do it for free or you hire a professional.
I don’t have a single reason why you shouldn’t blog. The benefits are staggering and any negative consequences are rare and few. It’s a truly great thing for your photography business.
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Great advice! A blog will definitely help any consultant or a freelancer! It will build your brand, showcase your skills, get you ranked in Google and other search engines and differentiate yourself and your business from the crowd over at Elance and other job boards.
Great Article!
I have created a number of websites for photographers (www.arlinemalakian.com , http://www.yuridojc.com) and I think this article is great advice for any photographer.
Blogs help show off the human side of you and your business and can make you more appealing. With photography people are often hiring someone who they are going to be sharing themselves with on a personal level more, than they might another service. To get to know that photographer personally beforehand through a blog can make their choice much easier.
Great post, Aaron! Dan Boud is a Sydney based photographer who’s blogged for years at http://www.boudist.com/ – easily one of my favourite blogs, he captures Sydney beautifully through its events and people (both locals and visitors)… No doubt he’s earned a lot of work out of it. A great case study for photographers.
yaa this is true i m doing the same thing it helps…..
Thanks for the encouragement, as I just started my own blog along side my photography portfolio at http://www.chrislanephoto.com. I was planning on doing both the things you talk about with latest updates and such, but also teaching people how to be better photographers themselves.
Alavari’s comment is definitely true about bringing out the human element in a business.
Thanks for the post!
While I was searching for my blog’s template, I tumbled through some terrific blog templates for photography blogs, and that too free…. There are a whole set of designs out there and any good photographer can make one hell of an impression by uploading stuff on a photography blog.
can you share the link with us
De-ja-vu – Nice Post!
Here’s a template that I use from webrevolutionary.com called Sharpfolio. It features a great description of your work; photography or website. Overall it is a great clean template to use or start with.
After posting it to my site I then push the link to another social media network to blog on.
You know, I’ve always wondered about whether to promote my blog independently or within a portfolio. This helped me answer that.
This is such a short brilliant way to explain it. Very handy to persuade some of my friends. Cheers!
Great advice here, I fully agree that blogging helps freelance photographers.
Five years ago I started publishing my photos on a blog, eventually it became a daily photo blog and now gets hundreds of visitors a day that a static website wouldn’t have got from Google.
Through blogging my photography developed from a hobby to now being a full time freelance photographer. I still have a long way to go but many of my clients have told me they enjoy reading and seeing how my work is developing.
Thanks again x
Excellent…photogs who don’t blog are cheating themselves, same way writers who don’t shoot their own photos do . (Sorry, photogs.) Cross pollenization used to be what I called this sort of thing, but now being a jack of many trades is almost a necessity. It’s less about crossover and more about making yourself as marketable as possible.
Thanks for the great comments everyone, glad you liked the article.
Good article, but it needs to be taken further. Here are five tips:
1. Don’t just do a blog post and let it sit there. Tell the person/people involved in the post about it. I like to send a short e-mail with the header, “You have been blogged.” The body of the message includes a clickable link to the blog post.
In some cases, I don’t hear anything back. But, in other cases, the response is quite warm. There are plenty of people and organizations who love being blogged about. And, I’ve found, if I ask them nicely, they’ll link their website (or blog) to my blog.
2. If you have an e-mail newsletter, make sure that your best blog posts are included in each issue. Month after month, I’ve found that my “Best o’ the Blog” feature has been my e-mail newsletter’s most popular.
3. Does your blog have an RSS feed? Make sure that the feed’s on your portfolio’s home page.
4. Does your blog link to your website? (Yes, I know. My bad. My blog doesn’t do that at the moment. But I’m fixing that problem, so stay tuned.)
5. What do you want people to do after they’ve read your latest blog post? I don’t know about you, but I’m interested in money, honey! That’s why I included a short pitch for assignments after the posts that relate to the areas in which I’d like to get assignments. For the areas in which I’d like to sell stock photography, well, let’s just say that I’m in the process of building a stock selling site, and when it’s done, my blog will link to it.
“4. Does your blog link to your website?”
Excellent comment! But instead of linking to your website, it should be part of it. I don’t understand why so many photographers have a completely separate site for their blog: since the blog is going to be getting more traffic because it’s updated regularly, doesn’t it make more sense to incorporate it as part of the main site?
Really good article, and smart comments of course.
What would help even more is to think of your online presence as a small universe and include more places in it.
Cross-link between Twitter, FriendFeed, Flickr, Facebook etc. By doing that you might catch the attention of more visitors that might not use read blogs actively (with RSS for example) but will be happy to follow you on Flickr or Twitter. It’s one thing to comment on Facebook (your friends) than commenting on Flickr (people there really like to comment) or on your blog (only the brave, I think).
As said above, writing about others, clients or competitors, makes your blog more interesting and open. And perhaps they link back?
Teaching is also a good way to go.
Waiting for your new precious articles ! thanks .
Great post, really helpful, this has helped me make up my mind to change from a static website! Thanks!!!!