Every photographer needs a blog to promote their photography business, interact with clients, get more clients and build a reputation. Learn how…
A few years back every photographer was encouraged to have a website and showcase their work to get more clients, but as time passed we learned that technology advances and marketing practices have changed. As a result, every photographer should have a website, but more important than that, every photographer should have a blog. Why? well let me start by giving you guys a little online marketing lesson.
Google doesn’t like static websites. Static Photo websites are websites that do not change. This means that your website has 10 of your favorite photos and a contact page but it doesn’t change at all, there is no new information posted often. Your photography website might be very nice, photo slide shows created in flash, yes its very nice, but you probably won’t get a lot of organic visitors. Why? well, Google likes new and fresh content and will put all those websites and blogs that have that continuous content before your static website on their search results.
Commit to Starting a Photography Blog
So committing to create a photography blog is the first thing you should do. Don’t be afraid, setting it up is the easy part… finding photography content is the hardest part of all. There are two ways you can go when creating your blog, you can get a free blog through word-press, blogger or any other free blog site. Or, you can host your own blog. My preference is to host your own blog, with your own domain because the look of the photography blog will be branded with your business. The second option is not free but is the best way. Why? for two reasons, the first: Google likes hosted blogs better than free ones therefore giving you higher rank which is a greater possibility to get found by your future clients or prospects as they are called. The second: it makes you look more professional in front of your photography clients as you have your own brand and with all the information and tips you are giving them on your blog you seem very knowledgeable giving them confidence and trusting you.
Don’t worry if you don’t know html or php code or how to actually craete the site, that’s why they invented web designers. You can try to do it yourself but is always good to have a web designer to help you when you get stuck!
What do I write about?
Once your blog is created you have to start thinking what you want to write 
about. For this, you have to put your business hat on. You want to give Google fresh photography content and you want to give your clients a reason to come back often for more photography tips and information. Photo tutorials, how-to’s and any advice blogs are all very good ideas to start.
You can also create contests or even you can teach them how to pose for better portrait photography; basically anything that is related to the photography industry is okay to write about.
Industry news are also a good way to add content. You can take some pictures and talk about it, how did you take the picture? why did you choose that shutter speed? where did you take it? all that stuff that you know, share it with the world and clients will come.
I don’t see a lot of visitors, now what?
At the beginning you might get frustrated because you don’t have 45,000 visitors a day and 1 million subscribers a day. You have to be patient. At the beginning the only thing that you have to be worried about is creating content, lots and lots of content. Google will find you and visitors will start showing up, eventually some will stay if what they find is interesting to them.
A word of advice, don’t get frustrated if you don’t see a lot of comments, usually that takes a while too. there are other ways you can help your blog get more traffic. You can read about those tips in my SEO section.
Network and promotion are keys to success.
Once you have your photography blog created and created lots of content, then you are ready to start promoting it. Your new photo blog is your new portfolio, is your business card, so promote promote promote everywhere you go, clients will be able to see your work and get to know you better and give you their business because they can see what you are capable of doing.
