Thinking about launching a photography blog?
Start now.
Blogging photography can be an excellent way for you to reach new audiences, establish business and personal relationships, and display the work you’re most proud of in your very own unique way.
Many photographers think starting a blog is a complicated process, but here’s the good news: it’s not as hard as you think.
All it takes is to get a domain and find a host; then, you can start blogging immediately!
In this guide, we’ll help you discover the perks of having your personal photography blog, how to start one, and how to make it grow.
Contents
Benefits of Blogging for Photographers
Here’s how blogging as a photographer can benefit you professionally.
1. It Helps You Build Your Personal Brand
As a photographer, having your own website/blog is fundamental for your personal brand.
It sort of acts like a modern-day business card.
If someone is thinking about hiring you, you’d need to let them know more about what you do and showcase your photography portfolio.
A professional blog would be an excellent way to do that.
2. It Presents Multiple Monetization Opportunities
Starting your own photography blog can help you build an additional source of passive income.
As a photographer, there’s a good chance you work on a freelance basis, so you don’t have the luxury of paid time off.
By having a passive stream income in the form of your photography blog, you can take vacations and still make some money.
3. Build Your Own Platform
Your blog is yours and only yours; no one else has any control over what’s posted or not posted on it.
Social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, can control who can see or not see your content.
You could put a lot of effort into your content, only for it to be buried.
If the social media platform thinks that people won’t be interested in your content, it won’t be discoverable; simple as that.
Additionally, your social account could get banned or deleted, and you’ll have little to do about it.
Sometimes, it’s not even your fault.
On the other hand, no one can delete or ban your photography blog.
Putting in the effort to market your blog will pay off as long as you post valuable content.
4. Learn Digital Marketing
As you try to grow your blog, you’ll gain valuable digital marketing knowledge and skills along the way.
You’ll expose yourself to an entirely new industry that can open new doors for you down the line.
How to Start a Photography Blog
To launch your own photography blog, follow these steps.
1. Niche Down Your Photography Blog
The first thing you need to do if you’re thinking about starting a photography blog is to choose your sub-niche.
The photography blog niche is pretty competitive, and keeping your blog generic can significantly hurt your chances of ranking for keywords in search engines or growing your blog into a business.
Targeting a narrowed-down audience can help you establish yourself as an expert in your niche and grow your blog faster with less effort.
Here are some topic ideas for your photography blog sub-niche:
- Event photography
- Portrait photography
- Wedding photography
- Product photography
- Social media photography
- Real estate photography
- Fashion photography
- Wildlife photography
- Landscape photography
- Nature photography
- Travel photography
- Food photography
- Mobile photography
- Street photography
- Stock photography
You can also create a photography blog that specializes in photography gear reviews.
Some photography bloggers even focus on photo editing only.
Need more help with a niche? Check out our guide on How to Choose a Blogging Niche to learn more about this process.
2. Pick a Domain Name
Once you’ve picked a niche, it’s time to choose a name for your photography website.
There are many ways to approach this.
Some photographers prefer to use their name as a domain name for their photography blog, while others like to get creative with a unique name.
There’s no right or wrong here, but it depends on your photography niche.
For example, if your photography blog will mainly include content about camera gear or editing software reviews, using your own name won’t really make much sense.
On the other hand, if you’ll mostly be using your personal blog to showcase your photos and post photography tips and video tutorials, using your name would be a nice idea.
The key here is to make the domain name relevant to your niche.
For example, if your photography blog’s niche is wedding photography, choose a simple domain name like weddingphotographytips.com.
Some people even say that including your blog’s niche or target keyword in the domain name can give you an SEO boost, while others claim that it has no effect.
If you’re still not sure, you can think about what your photo blog offers and write down a list of words related to what you offer.
Then, try to combine these words to come up with a unique domain name.
You can even use an online word mixer to do that for you.
3. Register your Domain Name
After deciding on a domain name, you need to search for its availability.
There’s a chance that the domain name you chose is unavailable or absurdly expensive.
In that case, you could try searching for variants of the name.
Once you’ve made sure that the domain name is available, you must register it before anyone else takes it.
There are several domain registrars to choose from, like GoDaddy, Namecheap, Bluehost, and Hostinger.
The platform you register your domain on won’t make much of a difference, so just look for the lowest price.
Domains are renewed every 12, 24, or 36 months depending on how many months you chose when you registered your domain name.
However, you might want to skip registering your domain name until you decide on a hosting service.
This is because many WordPress hosting providers offer a free domain name for new customers.
4. Choose a Hosting Service
Once you’ve registered your domain name, you need to find a hosting service to make your website go online.
Choosing a hosting provider requires a different approach than choosing a domain name.
While your choice of domain registrar won’t likely matter much, your hosting provider will make a difference.
Ideally, you’d want to pick a hosting service with reliable uptimes and speed.
Website downtime and poor speeds can drastically hurt the user experience, wasting any potential opportunities for growth.
However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to look for the most expensive host.
After all, since you’ll be starting a new blog, the amount of traffic you get to your website won’t probably be significant.
As your blog grows and you attract more followers, you can upgrade to a more reliable host that can withstand your high traffic requirements.
Some of the most popular hosting providers include Bluehost, GoDaddy, Hostinger, and Hostgator.
However, we suggest going with a managed WordPress host, which will save you TONS of time and frustration in the long-run.
5. Set Up a Content Management System (CMS)
Content Management Systems such as WordPress and HubSpot make it easier for people with no technical background to manage content on their websites and make adjustments to their overall look and feel, even if they don’t have any coding knowledge.
So, if you want to save yourself months of learning how to write code, your best bet would be to install a CMS.
The most popular CMS for bloggers is WordPress, but you can pick any CMS you prefer.
However, installing a CMS can be time-consuming, but many hosting providers include a one-button WordPress installation process that simplifies the whole thing for you.
6. Pick a Theme for Your Blog
Your photography blog’s theme should be consistent to establish a brand for yourself.
Luckily, you can find lots of free themes on whichever blogging platform you pick.
If you want to spice things up a bit, you can also opt for a premium WordPress theme.
7. Use Plugins
WordPress plugins are easy to install and use.
There’s a plugin for everything, so if you want to make your website faster, set up a form or payment checkout, or add affiliate links, you’ll definitely find some plugins that don’t require any coding.
Many plugins are free, while others require a monthly subscription fee.
8. Create the Basic Pages
Once your blog goes online, you can start writing the first few pieces of content, which should include an About page, a Contact page, and a Privacy policy page.
Your About page should include information about the blog and the purpose behind its creation.
In other words, you need to help people understand what’s in it for them.
To add authenticity, it’s important that you tell your audience who you are and why they should trust you.
Putting a picture of yourself on the About page is pretty important as well.
The contact page should be designed to make it easier for your audience to reach out to you for questions, business collaborations, or other purposes.
Ideally, it should include a contact form with 2-3 form fields at most.
The person’s name, email address, and message would be enough.
As for the privacy policy, you can approach it in two different ways: Hire a lawyer or use a privacy policy creator.
Most bloggers don’t really need to hire someone to draft a privacy policy for them, especially if they’re still starting out.
Your best bet is to use an online privacy policy generator.
As your business grows, you might want to consider writing a professional privacy policy by hiring an expert.
The privacy policy is meant to make the way you use, collect, or protect your website visitors’ data clear, so make sure to include it.
9. Start Publishing Content
Now, you’re all set to start publishing the first blog post on your blog.
Before writing a blog post, it’s important that you conduct keyword research to find out the search volume and competition for the search keyword you’re targeting.
There are free tools that help you do that, such as Google Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest.
Answer the Public is also a strong tool that basically lays out what people are searching for in your industry based on the topic you enter.
After getting some creative ideas for your photography blog posts, you can start creating content to attract visitors to your website.
10. Monetize Your Blog
After your blog has started gaining a relevant amount of traffic every month, you can start thinking about monetizing it.
As a photographer, your blog can be your #1 source of new clients, but that’s not all.
You can make more money from your blog by running ads, adding affiliate links to photography product recommendations, selling digital or physical products, and even launching paid online photography courses and tutorials.
If you’re into it, you can also offer free one-on-one photography lessons for amateur photographers.
Tips to Succeed as a Photography Blogger
Now, let’s walk you through some solid marketing tips that can give your new photography blog a boost:
Optimize Your Blog for Search Engines
If you want to gain visibility in Google and other search engines, you must make sure that your website is optimized for search engines.
Here’s what you can do:
- Make your website mobile-friendly
- Boost your website speed by using modern web photo formats like webP
- Optimize your meta tags
- Structure your website’s content into categories and sub-categories
- Internally link related blog posts to help users navigate your website
- Build external links to your blog from relevant sources
Promote Your Blog
Growing your photography blog won’t happen overnight, so you need to slow things down a bit at first.
You’ll keep posting blog posts, photos, videos, and other materials, and almost no one is going to see them, but that’s OK.
This doesn’t mean your content is poor; it just means it hasn’t been found yet.
There are various ways to promote your blog and grow your audience.
You can create social media accounts for your blog to increase the chances of it being found.
Another highly effective way is to look for guest posting opportunities from related blogs that have a similar audience to yours.
Simply search for” [Enter your photography niche] + guest posting,” and you should be able to find some blogs to spread the word.
Make Every Piece of Content Count
If your content has nothing to offer to your audience, your blog is surely set to fail.
Whether it’s a blog post, video, or infographic, your content must have something your audience can walk away with.
This can be anything from teaching them a new skill, making them learn about the good and bad aspects of a particular product, or helping them grow their photography business.
Don’t Be Afraid to Display Some Personality in Your Photography Work
As a professional photographer, you don’t need to go by the books with your photos.
Think about it; if your audience sees what they already see on everyone else’s photography blog, you won’t stand out.
Experimenting with different photography techniques and photo compositions can help you develop a unique style that your followers can easily identify.
Support Your Blog With a YouTube Channel
Launching a YouTube channel for your photography site can be a great way to build a relationship with your audience.
It gives your readers a chance to meet you and learn more about you.
It also adds a good level of authenticity to your blog.
When people see you talking confidently in your videos, they’ll get the impression that you’re a real expert who knows what they’re doing.
Lots of photography blogs offload their content efforts to marketing agencies and content writers, so no one can tell for sure who wrote that content on your blog.
With videos, things are different.
After all, you can’t get someone to pretend it’s you unless maybe they’re your twin brother or sister.
Accept Criticism
Not everyone is going to be impressed by your photos.
If some people point out issues with your photography, don’t take it personally and think of it as an opportunity to improve your skills; it’s what professional photographers in the photography industry do!
Blogging Photography for Other Bloggers
One way to expose yourself to photography blogging is to capture photos for other people’s blogs.
You can look for blogs you’re interested in and pitch your gig with cold emails.
It’ll take some time to get responses, but it’ll pay off in the end.
Final Words
Alright, so that was everything you needed to know about starting a photography blog.
All you have to do is choose a narrowly-defined niche, set up domain name and hosting, and start publishing quality photography content for your audience.
It can be a long journey, but if you put enough time and effort into it, your photography blog can turn into a huge lead magnet, as well as a good source of passive income.
