It was a hard pill to swallow at the beginning of our photography journey when we realized that 10 percent of running a photography business is taking photos and 90 percent is behind-the-scenes, business-related trench work. Everything we learned came from experience and trial-and-error.

Blogging was one of those things that we were clueless about. We knew that having a blog could be an essential aspect in our field of work. After finding our groove with it, we can say that our blog has contributed to the success of our six-figure wedding business.

Before I dive into this topic, I feel like I should have a disclaimer: Not everyone enjoys writing as I do. I totally get it. Blogging takes time, and the commitment to stay consistent can be a real struggle. This article is not to make you feel bad because you are not good with your blog. Nor is this meant to push that you need to start a blog and that blogging is the only way. There are several successful photographers out there that do not have a blog. 

To run a successful business, you have to find what works for you, what you are good at and focus on those things. We found early on that blogging does work for us, and we have seen monetary returns from our blog. I’m going to share what has worked for us and how the blog has helped grow our business to new levels.

Use your blog to reach your “ideal client.”

I genuinely believe that if you market to everyone, then you are marketing to no one. The first thing we recommend doing is figuring out who your ideal client is. The more specific you are in this, the better. Knowing who you are speaking to will help define your voice and give you clarity in your blog. This information will guide you to write a better blog post and target the right audience. Here are a few things you can ask yourself regarding who your ideal client is:

1. What is their name?

2. What is their profession?

3. How would you describe their style?

4. What are their hobbies?

5. What are their morals and beliefs?

We decided to create a customer avatar. The clearer we got with our avatar, the easier we were able to speak to them through the blog. We knew exactly what our ideal client wanted to hear and how they wanted to hear it. 

I encourage you to take an afternoon and brainstorm who you are speaking with through your blog and even other avenues. Write it down and save it. Get as specific as possible, because this information is invaluable.

Focus on the content, not the frequency.

One of the pain points about blogging is that photographers believe they have to blog so many times a week to stay relevant. There is also a misconception that every session they shoot needs to be on the blog. While this might work for some, this is not manageable for most. 

Explore what level of frequency works for you and stick to it. If that means three times a week, once a week, or even once a month, figure out what is manageable with your schedule and commit to putting the time into your blog.

When getting your content together, you want to ensure you are giving valuable information to your reader. When I get stuck with writer’s block, I ask my audience: What is it that they want to hear from me? What kinds of questions come up that I can answer through the blog? 

I created a post for my clients about how to prepare for a engagement session, with details on outfits, locations and more, and it’s gotten quite a bit of traction. This post goes out to all our clients who are thinking about their engagement photos, and it is valuable information that they want to know.

Another tip that helps me when I get stuck is having my client write a majority of the post. Doing this is gold! Before their session or wedding, I send out a questionnaire asking them key questions: How did they meet? How did he propose? What do you love about him or her?

These questions are then used in the blog post to tell their story in their own words. Having these questions answered on hand before I write their blog post saves me so much time!

Make the blog work for you.

Running a business takes strategy. The same goes for your blog. We were guilty of just throwing a blog post up without having a plan behind it. This led to little results and a big waste of time on our end. We learned quickly that a blog has the potential to drive traffic to our website and generate new leads.

To do this, we had to put in a little extra work and thought into each post. We had to start making the blog work for us instead of us just working for the blog. This meant we had to learn all about SEO. Understanding SEO took a little time, but the results are worth it.

We use our blog to help us rank for specific keywords. These keywords drive traffic to our website, which, in return, brings in more clients. When putting together any blog post, I encourage you to do some keyword research first.

Moz is one of the many great tools to do this. You want to target a new keyword for each post and write your blog post around that specific keyword. Then, when someone searches that particular keyword, hopefully they will see your post and click on it. 

Since implementing a more specific SEO strategy, we have increased our bookings by 50 percent. That is an incredible success rate and worth the time, if you ask me!

Again, not every photographer needs to have a blog to run a successful business. However, our blog has helped us reach our goal of a six-figure income, and we continue to see new leads come through because of our blogging efforts.

Like anything in life and business, it takes time for something to grow and flourish. If you want to see results from your blog, I encourage you to start implementing these tips today. Before you know it, you will see the fruit from your labors.

Ashley Beasley and her husband, Luke, are a photo duo based in Virginia who run their own education platform called Luke & Ashley Education. Each month, Ashley is breaking down the stepping stones to becoming a six-figure photographer. She last wrote about the building blocks of branding for your ideal client.

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