Some photographers love blogging. Others hate it. Personally, I enjoy crafting blog posts, but I there is definitely an element of “we are photographers, not writers” at play and so I’ve drafted my favourite Blogging tips for Photographers for you here today.
These tips are relevant now, and form part of my blogging strategy as we start to think about 2013. These Blogging Tips for Photographers are written with Panda and Penguin in mind.
#1 Content is “always” king
A dilemma we all face as photographers is whether we build our websites to gloriously display our images, or build them to be useful for search engines. Sadly, Google et al don’t make a very good job of indexing images and this is one of the primary reasons that Flash based websites are on the decline. Google, really, wants to gobble up your textual content. Yes, there are mitigating circumstances, and your off-site SEO will always play a major part in how you rank, but ultimately you need to put text into your website. And a reasonable amount too.
#2 Keep it fresh
Having a blog that is rarely updated is almost as bad as having no blog at all. If you go to the effort of having a designer build an SEO friendly blog for you, then you really need to put the effort into feeding the blog.
Just like I’m a firm believer in these blogging tips for photographers, I’m also a firm believer that 95% of the photography business, is business and only 5% is taking photographs. Blogging, and in fact all your marketing, is part of that 95% which should be so important.
The more you blog, and keep the content fresh on your website, the more Google will be interested in it. Keep feeding the Google monster.
An analogy I heard once was that Google is like the postman. In the UK we learn not to check for the post on Sunday’s. Google learns to check your website in the same manner. Keep the content coming and Google will keep its interest in your photography blog.
#3 Keep it original
Assuming you are blogging often, then the content must be original. This is absolutely essential. If you are wedding or social photographers then the images, presumably, your images will be at least. Make sure you are keeping Google happy by giving it fresh, original content (see how points 1,2 and 3 all come together there).
#4 Keep it substantial
Simply blogging a single picture, or a set of pictures isn’t going to be enough from an SEO point of view. Yes, with a decent off-site SEO strategy that single image blog post may blow the rankings apart, but by and large, it won’t and you will need to give Google enough substantial fresh, original content (see the pattern here?).
You can get an idea of my blogging pattern in the metrics data shown.
#5 Who are you writing for?
A cardinal sin in post Panda and Penguin world of photographers blogging is the seemingly irresistible urge to write content for Google, rather than your clients. Don’t.
We’ve all seen sites where it says things like: “I am a wedding photographer in Wiltshire, I am also classed as a Wiltshire Wedding Photographer and I can photograph weddings in the county of Wiltshire”. This is playing with fire these days. Google has wised up.
My rule of thumb is this:
Write substantial, fresh, original content that my clients will find engaging…..and Google will do the same.
In fact, I often encourage people to think twice about everything they are blogging. If the thought process is : This will be good for SEO, then it probably won’t be. If the thought process is : This will be great for my clients, then it probably will be good for your SEO.
#6 Encourage engagement & sharing
In this fickle world we live in, people often consume information without doing much more with it. When we write a substantial, fresh, original blog piece that is great for our clients (see what I did there?) we want our clients to read it but we also want them to share and evangelise on our behalf. Embrace Social Media; Twitter and Facebook (you do have Facebook Business Page for your photography business right?).
We need to encourage people to share, don’t be afraid to ask people to do so or leave comments. This a basic rule of marketing; calls to action. All successful advertising will have a call to action.
If you are a wedding photographer, you want to be encouraging your brides and grooms to shout from the roof tops how awesome you are (you are awesome right? that’s what everyone says on Twitter anyway…). Get them to spread the news and use other visitors to your website as different marketing tribes. If you can get people to engage and share you are empowering people to partly facilitate your off site SEO.
As a business, especially if we are just starting out, a challenge is to build the audience on the blog. Get others to do it for you wherever you can by utilising the social networks.
#7 Remember, we are photographers
Make sure your photos shine in your blog post. Whilst we need substantial, fresh, engaging, well written content that is easy to share (see…) we musn’t lose track of the fact we are photographers and the majority of people visiting the blog will be there to look at the photographs.
This article is about Blogging Tips for Photographers so I’m not making any assumptions about image quality and subjectiveness, but do make sure the photographs are easy to see (you’d be surprised how many people get confused by thumbnails and pop-up images), make sure they are sharp, make sure they are awesome(!) and make sure they are relevant to the content that is surrounding them. Key-wording and titling images correctly, surrounded by the write contextual content will do you good stead in Google Image search too. Using these Blogging Tips for Photographers will help of course, but its only your photographs that will sell.
#8 Embrace & Respond to comments
Many photographers don’t like the idea of other (usually other photographers) leaving comments on their website. There is a huge debate about this, but from an SEO point of view its very good to encourage commenting. At it’s basic element allowing commenting is empowering others to add content to your site on your behalf (freshness remember).
If your blog becomes large enough to see return visitors you are likely to start getting a relatively decent amount of comments. If the comments ask a question – answer them. If someone called you up on the phone and asked you a question, you would answer – so do the same in your photography blog and you will encourage return visitors and social sharing. Plus, it’s polite. Take a look at Damien Lovegrove’s ProPhotonut – it’s a wealth of knowledge and he is very engaging with his audience through the comments – which is a good thing!
#9 Keep Going
Blogging is not a short term thing. Marketing strategy is not short term. Your whole online (and offline) marketing strategies should have short, medium and long term strands. Bloggin sits firmly in the long term category. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. You may enjoy it, or you may not, but one thing is for sure – photographers who keep an active blog will put themselves in a better position in the Search Engines which can only lead to more business. I hope these 10 Blogging Tips for Photographers help you to enjoy it more!
#10 Have I said this before?
Really, it’s nine Blogging Tips for Photographers. This tenth one is just to remind you to keep it fresh, keep it original, keep it substantial, keep it interesting, keep it engaging and……it will work.
Good luck!
As always, I really hope these 10 Blogging Tips for Photographers are useful and help you in your photography business. Please do leave a comment and share via Social Media if you can. It’s greatly appreciated.
Kevin
Yeayy – good to see the site back Kevin – always good for giving us a kickstart – New Year resolution – must blog more! Do expect a comment by the way
I hate blogging with a passion, but I understand the need to have relevant text to go alongside my photos. My solution has been to send out a questionnaire with the wedding photos asking the couple about their day… favourite moments ect.
As long as it gets returned, I don’t have to worry about writing pesky words
Nice idea Simon.
Now that is quite a clever idea because it allows a good consistant approach to your blogs and laos lets potential clients know what previous ones say. The secret is getting the balance on the number of questions short enough for couples to be willing to reply, but long enough to be interesting.
Great stuff as always Kevin!! I try to blog a lot, but go in spurts…5 blogs in 2 weeks, and then 1 a month. Need to be more consistent I think!
Great article Kevin. You’ve got me all psyched up for blogging now! Bring it on!!
Looking forward to meeting you and the others at the convention.
You too Dan. See you in January,
Great to see the site back, great tips as always. I personally enjoy blogging but as I’m not a natural writer it’s sometimes hard to put it all into words. Definately going to keep at it though.
Nice article Kevin, but I have recently been led to believe that Google has changed its logarithms and is looking for not so much content, but content that a child could understand. By that I mean short sentences that are very much to the point and very much relevant to the subject. You kind of point that out to some extent but from what I gather between three and four hundred words is enough these days so long as it keeps on track and is relevant to our business. I find it quite difficult to wax lyrical about a wedding I may have done months ago without wandering of the subject here and there. Maybe I should make notes at a wedding the next time I photograph one?
You are absolutely correct Barry – but it’s nothing new. Google has always wanted grammatically correct content. It uses elements of the Flesch Reading Scale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_readability_test) to help understand the structure.
An ideal blog post should be between 250-500 words in my opinion. Static pages considerably more depending on the content.
The whole thing about a “kid being able to read” is a bit misleading, but in essence you are right – they want to be able to see content that is easy to digest and understand by humans.
A great article, Kevin – I will share on my facebook page. It applies across the wider wedding industry as well: as a calligrapher my work is very visual and I find it difficult to write a 300 word post about my latest commissions etc. on a regular basis. The same applies for stationers, jewellers, cake designers… as with wedding photography, product photography is what leads our blog posts and so your advice will be useful for so many people I know.
I’ll add a word from a wedding blogger’s point of view as well – Google’s focus on content means our real wedding features which include questionnaires for the bride and groom rank well in search. It’s a nice way of finding the 300 or so words you need – I’ve seen more and more photographers in 2012 asking their couples to answer a handful of questions about the wedding day so they can share details (and content) on their own blogs. It’s a nice touch.
Claire
Thanks for the comment Claire and yes, I’ve seen that trend too (it’s a great idea). Thanks also for the share.
Have a great Christmas,
Kevin
Thanks Kevin! So glad to see this blog active again now that you have some time to devote to it, it’s really my holy grail when it comes to my website. Right – must go and do some more blogging!
Thanks Kevin, great post and very timely for me as I’ve been trying to make more of an effort on SEO recently.
Great article and sound advice, thanks Kevin, I do blog but I do need to do more and ‘keep it fresh’ the right day for a New Year’s Resolution I guess!
Hi Kevin, thanks for the reminder about how important it is to blog. I’ll stay motivated for both my ski teaching blogging and wedding photography blogging. Regards, Martin. Oh, and Happy New Year.
A timely reminder on blogging reguarly… off-season is just the time to get back on top of it! Good read Kevin.
Hi Kevin, some great advice here. I know a little about SEO but I’m sure I would benefit enormously from one of your sessions. Once funds permit I wAill try and book a place on one of your 1-2-1 courses.