Blogging Tips for Photographers

Since I started this blog in January 2018, I’ve kept it up pretty consistently. In the time that I’ve been blogging, I’ve learned a lot through both posting consistently and through research and analysis. I’ve taken notes on my most effective learning points from blogging over the last couple of years.

People love freebies

My most popular content at this point is undoubtedly freebies. People absolutely love freebies. Giving out free content and free downloads is a great way to get traffic to your site. It’s also a great way to get eyes on your content and introduce people to your brand. Giving away free content allows people to check out the quality of your content for when you’re ready to start monetizing content.

Not every post is going to pick up

Sometimes you’ll write a post and think to yourself “that’s my best work yet”. Spoiler alert: it may not matter. Unfortunately, not every single blog post is going to pick up. In fact, sometimes the posts that I’m less fond of end up getting more traction than those that I’m proud of. It totally depends on your SEO, competition, marketing and sometimes, dumb luck. Don’t be discouraged if a post you’re really proud of doesn’t pick up. The beauty of blogs is that you can try, try again with different words and see if that performs any better.

You need a niche

I realized pretty quickly that to keep up an engaged blog audience, you need to find a niche. I started this blog with the intention of blogging recipes, photography business, lifestyle, and so much more. I’ve ended up niching down to primarily photography-related content for the sake of consistency and audience attraction. I still love writing about baking and other personal things, but I know that my audience is less interested in that content than photography-related content.

Marketing matters

Hitting “publish” isn’t enough to attract an audience. The way you market your blog online matters. Social networks are a great way to spread your content to your existing audience, so be sure to share your posts when they go up. If the content is evergreen, make sure to share over and over. Sites like Pinterest are also great resources for marketing blog posts to a wider audience. Pinterest is more of a search engine than a social network, and it’s easy to introduce new viewers when you learn to master Pinterest SEO.

Email lists are important

Building your email list is important when you’re maintaining a blog. At the end of the day, email lists are your only native audience. Your audiences on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook are all owned by the networks and their algorithms. You never know what could happen that puts you lower in their feed. With email lists, however, you have full control over your communications with that audience.

Sharing is caring

Sharing what you know is truly valuable in someone else’s life. Not everybody has access to the information that you may be very educated on. Allowing others access to your knowledge and expertise can change someone’s whole workflow or professional experience. It will also gain you very loyal readers who want more of what you have to say.

It’s worth updating your content

If some of your older content is still getting traction, it’s worth updating. Add links to relevant posts for more traffic to your recent content when you’re updating your copy. As well, you can add any other relevant information that you feel may now belong in the post. Updating your posts will keep new readers coming in and discovering fresh content, and will benefit your recently posted content.

I hope you’ve learned a little about blogging as a photographer from this post. It’s not always the easiest feat, but I’ve really enjoyed keeping a blog. Not only does it allow me to share knowledge with my current and potential audience, but it also allows me to keep a sort of “time capsule” of content. Have any thoughts on blogging as a photographer? Let me know in the comments!