How To Blog as a Fashion Photographer
Ah blogging… something that I’ve been doing pretty much on a weekly basis for about 6 years. Who knew I had so much to say?!
Jokes aside, blogging is one of the most incredible tools for photographers. A lot of people will tell you that “blogging is dead” but that is one of the biggest lies that gets thrown around. Why am I so passionate about blogging? Because blogging is one of the main ways to drive traffic to your site, and it’s a sure way to get people to STAY on your site too. If you want your website to work hard for you in the background (isn’t that why you have one?!) then you want people to be landing on it. Blog posts are one of the ways that Google crawls through your site looking for keywords. If you’re intentional about your blogging (which is what we’ll be talking about in this very post), then it will be a way for you to increase your ranking in Google, and potentially lead to more work in the long run.
Sound good?
So, how should you actually be blogging as a fashion photographer? Let me break it down.
Be Intentional:
I think I start everything off by saying this, but I encourage you to be very intentional about the blog posts that you create. Before you begin to write a post, ask yourself: “What is the purpose of this post?” The answer should probably be one of these two things:
To inform a potential client about my style or work and who I am
To drive traffic to my site and improve my SEO
If your new blog post isn’t going to be doing one of these two things, then I’d question whether you really need to write it.
Be consistent
Blogging really pays off when you do it regularly. It’s not really any use to just write two posts, click publish, and never write another post ever again. The reason for that is Google values fresh content. It will like you when you first publish those posts, but if you never add to the blog ever again, Google assumes that your website is dead!
But being consistent doesn’t mean that you need to post once a week. Even I don’t post on my portfolio website that often. I recommend finding a schedule that works for you, and sticking with it. For me, on my portfolio site, that tends to be once or twice a month. But it also tends to be whenever I have new work to talk about, which is usually twice a month.
Take a look at your schedule and ask yourself how much you think you can do. If you hate writing, maybe set yourself a target of writing a short 500 word post every month, and see how you get on from there. If you’re really passionate about writing, and want to tell stories, then maybe you’ll be more inclined to write twice or three times a month.
Whatever you decide, the key word here is consistency. Stick to a schedule consistently, and you’ll reap the rewards in the long run.
Be professional
Seeing as your website is basically your professional hub, always be professional in these blog posts. This isn’t the place to share the photos of your partying (unless it’s relevant… but… is it?!). And as much as I love to encourage photographers to share themselves with their potential clients, I’d encourage you to keep your blog posts about your work and your career.
Be Patient
I think a lot of people get frustrated with blogging because they expect things to happen too quickly. They set up their analytics, check it every day, and get frustrated when they only get 5 visits a day in the first month of blogging. The truth is that seeing results from blogging takes a long time. It takes a while for Google to recognise you as a site and push you up in the rankings.
Like anything, good things come to those who wait (and show up constantly). So don’t give up when you don’t see huge results immediately. Keep going.
Share Your Posts
Once you’ve gone to all of the effort of writing these posts… don’t just let them sit there! Share them! Post about your new blog post on Instagram stories, share it on Twitter, post it on Pinterest, republish it to LinkedIn and The Dots. Get that blog post out there as much as you can to maximise it’s reach!
What To Blog About?
I know what you’re thinking… what on earth do I blog about?!
Here are some prompts for you:
Tell the story of the last shoot you did. Take the reader behind the scenes
Talk about your lighting set ups and your process
Share how you come up with concepts
Share photo diaries and personal work
Share images of trips that you’ve been on that have inspired a new body of work
So there you go… a blog post about blogging!
If you’d like to see how I personally blog on my portfolio website, you can do so over at www.oliviabossert.com/blog-bts
