Welcome to part one of my mini series on running an awesome blog. For the first part we’re going to talk about content and then, we’ll get into the technical side of things! So here we go.
Be Yourself
One of the most important things I can tell you when it comes to your blog is be yourself. There are certain ‘rockstars’ in the photography industry that people often compare themselves too. Don’t feel that your blog has to be full of poetic references and flowery language to be a successful blog. If that really IS who you are, then go for it, but if not, don’t stress over it. I have had so many clients comment on personal things I posted on my blog that they connected to, so you can’t dismiss the value of showing your personality on your blog. If you’re just not a big talker, then don’t feel like you need to force it. Just be honest and natural.
Post, Post and Post!
One of the biggest keys to a successful blog is regular posting. You should aim to post three times a week at a minimum. You want to provide a reason for people to come by your blog. Plus, you get more love from search engines when you are providing new content on a regular basis. Having a dead blog also makes it look like your business is dead! That’s never a good thing. I believe that if you’re not going to update your blog, you would be better off not having one.
It Takes Too Much Time!
A lot of people talk about the fact they don’t have the time to blog. Trust me, I can understand that one. I’ve got a couple of suggestions that can make this much easier. One is that I actually keep a calendar of planned blog posts. That way I can see my frequency, and plan on when I want things to hit the blog and keep it nice and fresh. I can also see stretches of time that might be empty (less sessions) and plan on to fill them up with some sort of ‘filler’ post (I’ll address that next). The second thing that helps is what I call ‘pre-blogging’. This still requires a time investment, but instead of stressing out everyday going ‘I need to post!’ you sit down once a week, or even once every other week, and get your entire week queued up and forget about it. I will also address several technical things you can do to speed up your blogging workflow in the second part of this ‘how to’ series.
What Do I Blog About?
I know that not everybody has three new sessions a week to blog (including me!) so here’s where you want to get creative. This is also a real chance to show off your personality to your blog readers and potential clients. Here are some ideas to jump start your brainstorming.
Weekly segments: A regular themed post you make once a week. Some ideas are what to wear posts, your personal top ten of the week, a blog post from your dog/cat, places you’ve traveled to and what you loved about them or whatever it is that might be in your wheel house.
Editing before and afters: Share some of the behind the scenes magic that shows clients why it’s important to hire a professional photographer. I’m not talking about ‘salvaged’ photos, but a good clean SOOC image that you apply your editing to, to really make it shine.
Session and/or wedding tips: Sharing your expertise not only shows how knowledgeable you are, but helps your clients have more successful sessions as well. This could be things like, how to get ready for a newborn session, or tips on making the most of your portrait time on your wedding day. Just think about the things you’ve learned, and pass them onto your clients!
Recipes and DIY projects: We all have interests and abilities outside of photography, so take a look and see what you can cross over and blog about. Do you love to cook? Take photos as you cook one of your favorite recipes, and blog about it. Are you crafty? Do the same for a DIY project. These are great ways to not only entice people to your blog, but gives you ways to connect to your clientele.
Hopefully these ideas have got your brain going on some of the things you could do for your own blog to keep it updated and interesting.
The Grammar Police
Here’s one that’s a bit less fun, but still important. I will say that I certainly don’t have perfect grammar and punctuation, but I do try to keep it pretty clean and correct. If you’re not a good speller, make sure you’re using some kind of spell check. You can write your blog posts in Word first, and then paste them into the blog (just make sure you paste into the HTML area if you’re using blogger, or the code will go all crazy). Be careful with things like excessive exclamation marks. I see this one on blogs a lot. Sometimes we really love the session we’re posting, but too many exclamation marks begin to come across like you’re yelling or jumping around and waving your arms excitedly. You should always reread what you’ve written, and if you find that you’ve ended every sentence in an exclamation mark, change a few of them. Watch your capitalization and make sure you’re not over capitalizing and not under capitalizing either. These are just a few things I’ve seen from other people that could be changed to improve the quality of their blog text. Just be sure to keep the spelling and grammar aspect of your blog in mind when you’re writing your posts.
Do you have any questions about what you’ve read so far? Feel free to ask me and I can address them in the future posts. 🙂 Until next time!
