My goal in this blog post is to try to convince you to consider blogging for your wedding photography business as a viable marketing strategy that can skyrocket your sales.
When you devise and stick to a consistent blogging strategy, and provide more value than simply uploading a few pictures of all your recent weddings, you can start seeing some extraordinary things happening.
Wondering what to blog about as a wedding photographer? Whether blogging is worth your time? How to blog?
The key to blogging is to provide valuable information.
That’s right. Valuable. Things people are actually searching for. It’s fine to blog your weddings, but make it useful to future couples who are searching for the particular wedding venue.
They don’t want to know every detail about the couple in the photos – they want to know what the venue offers for them and whether your services may be a good fit.
So, when you blog, stick to providing information and answering the question at hand. Prefer to watch this post as a video? Check out my video below, called ‘Why You SHOULD blog for your Photography Business’. While you’re there, be sure to subscribe as this is exactly what I educate about on my channel!
Let’s dive into the how’s and why’s of blogging for wedding photographers!
The actual SEO benefits of blogging and how it compounds
Blogging for your wedding photography business – I know you’re asking whether it works . And what does it actually mean when people say blogging is ‘good for SEO’.
Blogging has many great benefits, which is what I’m going to dive deeper into here. The good news is that your efforts are going to compound over time. You can continue to gain on content that you posted YEARS ago. That’s what I mean about the compounding effect.
The longer your website has been around, the more trusted it becomes. So, old posts tend to rank better over time (especially if you continually update them!) Also, be sure to optimize your website as a whole over time.
Blogging for your wedding photography business also helps to build authority in your niche. When crawling the web, Google is always looking for something called ‘EAT’ – which stands for expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness.
Let’s discuss more how blogging is actually good for this nebulous term of SEO.
It’s a strategy that has quite a few spokes to it and there’s not just one answer when you blog regularly. As I mentioned, Google is more likely to see you as an authority and an expert. Also, Google is happy because you’re creating more content. Content is what it wants to show to its users – particularly for local search! Why? There’s always going to be less competition for locally-applicable terms, than those that are targetedby marketers across the world.
If YOU are the one that blogs consistently about your topic, then of course Google is going to start sitting up and taking notice. While your competitors are sleeping, you are building trust with the biggest search engine in the world. You’ll be repaid for all your content with higher rankings.
Another part of the SEO puzzle is that you should think of every piece of content as a doorway an entryway to your site. 300 blog posts? Awesome, that means you have 300 doors into your site! Of course there are some caveats to that. Like for instance that topics you’re writing about is actually being searched by your target market… But that’s where keyword research comes in.
The importance of keyword research to your blogging strategy
I think some small business owners have the wrong idea about blogging. I certainly did just a few years ago when I started out. I held on to an old-fashioned notion about business blogging. I honestly thought that people would just fall in love with my blog and bookmark it and just keep coming back.
This couldn’t be further from what’s really going on. In reality, it is keyword research that is going to get you the eyeballs to your site.
So, every piece of content that you create (with maybe a few exceptions) should exactly match the searcher intent. That just means writing content that matches with what are people typing into Google.
Sure, there’s a little more to it than that. But there’s no there’s no black magic or dark arts to SEO. Beyond a few other technical considerations, the heart of SEO is creating content people are asking for.
It’s about stuff that’s boring and unsexy to talk about! But so important. Like a lot of hard work and consistency over a prolonged period of time.
Personally, I was blogging for two or three years before I found that I was at the top of Google for the search term ‘my area’ plus the word ‘wedding photographer’.
Another reason why you should blog as a photographer is for social proof.
Gain social proof through blogging consistently
I don’t know if you’ve ever done this but I am guilty. Sometimes when I’m looking at a new business or someone that i want to engage with, I go to their blog section and have a look at what they’ve posted and when the last blog post was.
Don’t ask me why – I think I am just genuinely quite a curious person.
Maybe the irony is that the business that’s doing really well is probably NOT going to have time to post on their blog. Especially for photographers, who are largely solo business owners with no employees to delegate to.
However, in Google’s eyes, it’s looking at those signals as a sign of expertise authoritativeness and trust (EAT). To some people who are looking at your site, they are likewise judging your business if they see that your last blog post was a couple of years ago.
Questions are going through their minds, like wondering whether you’re even still in business.
If you can devote just two hours a week to blogging, you will likely see some really great results. Don’t make yourself publish a certain number of posts per week or month. This is often quite unrealistic and people can be hard on themselves when they don’t make their quota. Then they give up.
Instead, put aside say two hours every week. Maybe you’ll get one post done. Maybe you’ll get half a post done to begin with. The important thing – beyond the actual publishing of the post, of course, is the commitment.
You’d be surprised how small a commitment you need to make in order to have some great results. You may choose to devote more time to it later down the line once you start seeing how many clients find you because of your blogging efforts. Also, you’ll get faster and more efficient as you develop systems and strategies.
You just need to be consistent and turn it into a habit.
Express your brand values and connect with your audience
You can express your personality and your brand values very effectively through your blog. There may be things that you want to talk about or issues you’re deeply invested in. You want those pieces of content to have a bit more of a shelf life than a social media post (typically buried the day after publishing).
Personally I’ve had many couples and many clients reaching out just to say, ‘hey i really loved how informative your blog was – I learned so much!’
They’re not necessarily aware of ‘learning about my brand values’ – no client will say that, but you are subconsciously shaping the way your audience is viewing the topic at hand. You’re even shaping the way the industry at large is viewing your subject matter!
If clients are going to dig around on the internet for answers to their problems, wouldn’t you be the one to provide that information, and mold it the way you want to?
People always want to feel a connection. Learn to write in your brand voice and to use a style of communicating that matches who you are as a business. That will resonate and vibe with the right people.
Your blog is a great place to refine your brand voice! For more information about the subject of finding your brand voice, check out the video here or linked below:
It’s not going to be perfect. At the beginning, it may be terrible. You write a blog post, and then a week or a month later, you cringe. That’s totally fine and is part of the process.
Answer your frequently asked questions
Do you ever feel like you’re just typing the same information into an email over and over again? Maybe so much so that you have the information saved in a Word document or a template email! But how much better, more professional and more convenient would it be to have all of the information in a blog post? It would be totally comprehensive, covering way more than you would ever feel comfortable copying and pasting into an email!
Also – a blog post isn’t personal. You write something in an email and it’s possible the recipient may worry that this part relates to them. When you write it out in a blog post, you address and preempt all of your frequently asked questions.
You’re removing that personal element. Which is great especially if you’re answering questions that are a little tough to answer. You know the type I mean: ‘hey can we have a discount?’, ‘can we have all the raw files?’ I have blog posts about so many topics I felt nervous about answering.
You should create detailed articles that you can send out to anyone and will eliminate any uncertainties your potential clients are having. And just like that, your professionalism goes through the roof!
Interlinking and the compounding effect
It doesn’t take much to start blogging for your wedding photography business. Soon, if you stick to the 2-hours-per-week beginners’ groove, you’ll get into a good flow. You’ll find that you’re just naturally seeking out other blog topics that are a great fit.
One great idea that doesn’t even take much effort is to interlink all of your blog posts together. All that means is that in one post, you’ll be talking about a particular topic. Somewhere on that post, you link to another post about a related topic. And the second post in this example also links to the first one.
For example, a venue of a certain style in a particular city may have a lot in common with another similar venue you’ve shot at. So, in both the blog posts, link to the other post!
This has numerous benefits. It shows your expertise, number one. Secondly, it increases dwell time and page views on your site. Anything you can do to keep people on your content is a plus, right?!
On the search engine side, interlinking (also called internal linking) is awesome. They can see how your content is contextually related. It also helps with understanding semantically what the content is about.
Your blog posts aren’t just random, like islands scattered in an ocean. They’re more like cities on a map that have roads linking between them. The more important the city, the more roads link to it. Search engines are taking note of all of this!
Blogging helps you become an industry voice and a thought leader
If you’ve ever wanted to become an educator in the photography industry, a blog is an absolute necessity! Have you ever noticed how [insert your favorite photography educator here] started getting noticed because they were active on their blog?
Savvy industry leaders know that this is where it all starts.
You could do this on social media solely (and many expand to dominate their social platform of choice, make no mistake).
But I worry that when you build something on social media you never know when the rug could be pulled from under your feet. Case in point: businesses that used to rely on posting to their Facebook. They had hundreds of thousands of followers, and then that all essentially went away unless they paid.
I wonder if the same is going to happen to all of the social media platforms, given a long enough timeline!
When you create expert content on your blog, it attracts the RIGHT kind of attention. It may not get hundreds of comments (and it probably doesn’t even have a ‘like’ button.)
But personally, I’ve had some great experiences. That’s why I’m passionate about teaching blogging to fellow wedding photographers. Here’s something that happened very recently. I’m dying to share this with you!
So, I published a post in December 2019, about a year ago. It is linked below if you want to check it out!
Featured by Brides
The well-known website, brides.com (Brides Magazine) reached out to me recently letting me know they had linked to my post in their post that was all about wedding photography pricing!
Obviously that was a real win, getting a backlink from a HUGE content house/ industry voice – and recognition in my industry!
Featured by Redfin
Here’s one more quick example of how my dominance on Google has helped me with other opportunities. Redfin, the real estate company, reached out to me asking if they could use a quote from me about having a having an at-home wedding, and in return they’d not only cite me as an expert but also provide a backlink to my site.
Click the image below or check out the article!
You can have really cool things like these happen! And you know you deserve it because YOU have put in the time, the effort and the grind which is now being recognized in an appropriate way!
When you blog, you increase your chances of features, attention and opportunities coming your way by expanding your sphere of influence.
A quick bonus photography blogging tip
Always have some kind of plan that you’re working from. Avoid at all costs the ‘blinking cursor syndrome’ – truly the enemy of blog content creation.
Your content plan doesn’t have to be complicated. A Google Sheets with a couple of columns honestly works find. You have the name of the post (keyword-optimized and researched, of course!) and the date you want to publish.
Another tab has a bunch of ideas and topics to look into more for the future. Something of a brain dump, so you don’t lose those half-formed ideas.
You don’t want to get in the habit of writing the post today that’s coming out tomorrow. Work off your plan and you may even get into a position where you have a bank of content in reserve. You can even make blogging for your photo business something fun and even relaxing!
Little things like creating a plan can make blogging that little bit easier and remove that bit of friction.
In conclusion
We may have split our focus more these days to social media, but there’s something about blogging that can’t be ignored.
Nobody these days says ‘I read such-and-such photographer’s blog because it’s awesome’.
Instead, blogging is about discoverability. It means providing the information people are searching for. Because when they’re typing something into Google, something like
- How much does a wedding photographer cost?
- Ruby Hill wedding photos
- Intimate wedding ideas in the Bay Area
- What to wear to engagement session
it’s a blog post that they’re finding. Let’s hope that it’s yours : )
A blog post has longevity. It’s always going to be searchable, even if you choose to stop publishing new content. I know it sounds crazy, but people somehow trust what that they read in blog posts! It’s like they respect that someone has actually bothered to create what others could have, but didn’t.
Your potential clients are more likely to take you seriously if they know that you’re the one that’s taken the time to create and disseminate information that stands the test of time – as cheesy as that sounds. I hope this was helpful in some small way when it comes to blogging for your photography business.
Zoe Larkin
I’m Zoe, a wedding photographer based in San Francisco! My style is candid, capturing authentic moments for my couples all over the Bay Area and Northern California. Creating content is my passion! Follow along the blog and Insta!
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