While blogging has been around for a very long time, photoblogging is a pretty new concept. Blogging is for those who love to put their stories out on the web in word form while photoblogging is a different entity entirely.
Why Begin Blogging Photography?
Whether you’re a professional photographer or an amateur, there are many ways to blog about your photography. While a picture is worth a thousand words, you can also share the stories behind your photographs. It can be as much or as little as you like. Many people begin blogs to show their growth over a specific period of time. You can use it to catalogue your progress from amateur to professional, or you can use it to start your own business. The reasons for blogging are as varied as the people who pick up a camera.
So sit back and grad a coffee, we’ll teach you how to start your photography blog…
Blogging Calendar – What to Blog About?
The Photographs
Blogging experts suggest that your blog be centered around a theme. Fortunately, the photoblog itself is a theme. You’re blogging about photography in general or your pictures specifically, so you can center your photographs around landscapes, portraits, street photography or car photography. The purpose of your blog is to show off your photography skills. Choose a topic that interests you. You might decide to post a photograph per day, or pick a week where you photography nothing except micro shots of insects. You’re only limited by your imagination.
Behind the Scenes
While you can let the photographs speak for themselves, there might be times that you want to include commentary or blog posts that give information to your audience. It could be lists of vendors you like working with on projects, behind the scenes of your next photo shoot or ideas of locations you’d like to try next.
Before and After Shots
Potential clients like to see the before and after shots, so they can assess your skills as well as your style to find whether you’ll be a good fit for their event or project. When you are able to show potential clients how you’ve taken a shot from good to magical, they’ll feel they absolutely need you for their next event.
Photo Blogging with WordPress
Domain Name and Hosting
You’ll need to choose a web address for your blogging platform. You could use your name as a dot com, or you can express your creative side with the type of photography that you do. Make sure the name is easy to pronounce and spell. You don’t want clients to fumble with the spelling of your website.
After brainstorming name ideas, you’ll have to make sure the address is available for purchase. You can buy your address from a site like GreenGeeks.com. This is also where you’ll host your site – this where we host this very site you’re reading now; you can read this GreenGeeks review to find out why.
The process of buying your domain name and hosting your site is different. First, you’ll need to purchase the domain or, to be technically correct, register the domain name. After purchasing, you’ll need to set up the hosting, which is where the domain is parked. If you use GreenGeeks, they’ll walk you through the steps to do both – domain name registration and web hosting – at the same time.
GreenGeeks.com – this is the web host we use for our site and that we recommend for your photography blog. We respect their renewable energy commitment. With these guys, not only do you get a %20 discount on your hosting price, you will also be able to get a free domain name with your hosting account. Yay!WordPress Setup
Once you’ve set up the hosting aspect of the domain, you’ll need to set up your WordPress site. If you use GreenGeeks or a similar web host, you will be able to log into cPanel (GreenGeeks, or the host you’ve chosen, will send you an email explaining how to do it). From there, you can go into a program called Softaculous.
In Softaculous, you’ll need to choose WordPress and follow the directions for setup. After the setup is complete, you can log into your WordPress dashboard to start tweaking your site. Your dashboard will be located at yourdomainname.com/wp-login/ where you need to change yourdomainname.com for your own domain address. This is where you’ll add plugins, widgets, blog posts and pages.
Themes, Plugins and Widgets
The plugins and widgets are what set your website apart from everyone else’s site. In your dashboard, you’ll need to click on Appearance then Themes. You need to add new themes from the marketplace. Many of these themes are completely free, and there’s an option to pick themes that are specifically created for photoblogging.
If you want to go with something more unique, we recommend the guys and gals at StudioPress. We use one of their themes for this site. Their WordPress theme Expose is particularly well suited for starting a photography blog.
Many themes can be personalized and customized to fit the intentions of your blog. After you’ve chosen your theme, you can add plugins to increase functionality within your site. They provide custom features and functions based on what you need them to do. Plugins like Soliloquy showcase your photos in slideshows for visitors, and it will help your photos load quickly.
Promotion – How to promote your photography blog
Setting up your blog, uploading pictures and creating content is just the first step when creating your photoblog. You’ll want people to be able to find your site. Once you hit publish on your posts, people won’t flock to your site. There are millions of websites created each week on the web. You have to stand out among all those sites.
Join Groups about Photography
There are plenty of photography groups on sites like Facebook or Flickr. You can easily join groups where people share their photography sites and blogs. It’ll help you gain traffic, which is great for search engine ranking.
Pinterest and Instagram
These platforms are great for sharing images. Make sure your photographs are watermarked and begin sharing them. While you should definitely share your own images, you should pin and share other images too.
Examples of Popular Blogs
Many photographers set up their blogs to add images, share with customers and garner the attention of potential customers. Whether you’re an amateur photographer or a professional trying to promote your business, there are a few photoblogs that you can use as inspiration.
Rose Hardy
This teenager became a sensation when the music group Maroon 5 contacted her about using her picture on their album. She leveraged her Flickr stream to garner attention for herself and her work.
Stuck in Customs
This photographer, Trey Ratcliff, turned his travels into a photography blog where he talks about his favorite gear, free photography tips and tutorials as well as providing workshops and eBooks to others.
Nowadays, it’s easy to have a website online – if you’re a photographer, you have no excuses for not having your own photo blog. Start now!
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