How To Promote A Photography Blog

In a recent post on blogging tips for photographers, I covered the basics on determining WHAT you should be blogging so people actually care what you’re writing. Of course, writing great content does you no good if nobody knows your blog exists. Today, we’re going to look at ways to make sure your blog gets the readers it deserves (your blog does deserve to be read, doesn’t it?).

---

Actively Promoting…
It’s time to get to work. It’s highly unlikely that people will randomly stumble onto your blog. You don’t find yourself typing in url’s for random blogs do you? Most likely, the blogs you visit had a blog owner who took the time to promote the blog. So that’s your job with your blog – promote, promote, promote.

Tweet your posts
Any time you write a new post, tweet it to your followers. They’re following you for a reason. They’re expecting you to tweet about interesting stuff. Score! Your blog post is interesting stuff!

Facebook your posts
Just like you tweet your posts, you should put a link to your post on Facebook. I use Networked Blogs, so my new posts are automatically posted to my Facebook profile. Don’t forget to post to your fan page too.

SEO
Doing your SEO right will take some time, but it’s worth the time you’ll invest. I wrote an article for Professional Photographer Magazine on blogging SEO secrets that would be a good place to start.

Contests
An easy way to create some buzz is to give something away. Make it fun, and people will tell their friends.

Blog commenting
Commenting on other blogs is a good way to get visitors to your blog. Be smart about which blogs you’re commenting on. Consider who you’re wanting to read your blog, then comment on the blogs that your ideal customer reads.

Promote other businesses
Almost every time I’ve promoted other businesses, they’ve done most of my article promotion for me. They spread it to their network, and I get plenty of traffic the next few days. Don’t forget to tell a business when you’ve written a post about them or they won’t have the chance to promote your blog.

Sneak Peeks
Most photographers think about blogs as a way to post images from recent sessions. That’s great. The one thing that photographers sometimes forget is that they need to tell their customers that they put the sneak peeks on the blog. Your customers are usually excited to tell their friends that they made it on the blog. The best time to let them know about the blog is probably right after you post a few of their best images.

---

Passively Promoting…
What’s better than having to spend time promoting your blog all the time? Taking the time to set up automatic blog promotion. Most of these techniques take just a few minutes, so it would be a good idea to choose one of these passive promotion techniques to knock out per day. It will be time very well spent.

Social media buttons
For a long time, I didn’t want anything to do with Twitter. I couldn’t understand why people would waste their time (it took a while for me to come around). Either way, I had a retweet button for those who wanted to share an article I wrote to their followers. I also had Facebook buttons to make it easy to share my article on Facebook.

Email signature
Your email signature should include more than just your name. You should also have your website, your blog url, and arguably a phone number. Then every time you send an email, you’ll be subtly suggesting that the email recipient should visit your website and blog.

Business card
Including your blog url on your business card is another way to direct people straight to your blog. That may be where they want to start out anyway so they can see your most recent work.

Bridal show material
When you put your blog url on your bridal show material, it may be a good idea to also have some kind of special for people who met you at the bridal show. That will give brides a little nudge to take the extra effort to visit the blog.

Literature from the studio
You’ve got plenty of literature going out of your studio, I’m sure. I know we do. Why not add your blog url to your price lists, promotional packets, etc?

Forum signature
If you’re not participating in online forums, this would be a good time to start. In your forum signature, include a link to your blog (using your keywords for SEO).

Link on main website
We get most of your blog traffic from our main website. I’m guessing it’s probably the same for you. I wanted to include this just in case there’s one reader who’s overlooked this.

Fully fill out online profiles
I’m as guilty as anybody with this one. I’ll put in only the required fields when I’m signing up for a different website. Make sure to include your blog url in your profile for LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.

Email marketing
We use Constant Contact for our newsletters and email marketing. Whatever solution you’re using, you can include a link to your blog in the sidebar or footer to make it easy for visitors to get to your blog.

Big spender?
You probably spend quite a bit on your lab bill and your studio management software. Why not see if they have a blog-roll they where they’d be willing to add your link. For them, it’s a way to add value and to encourage you to stay with them. For you, it’s a way to let a bigger company promote your blog.

---

Get creative
I’m hoping your bored of reading my suggestions. In fact, I’d be excited if you didn’t get to the end of the article and decided you’ve got better ideas for how to promote your blog on your own. There are more ways than I could ever dream of that you could promote your blog. Did this article get you thinking? Any new ideas for how to promote your blog? Any tips for blog promotion that you’d like to share with the rest of us?

Tags: Blog promotion, Blogging for photographers

This entry was posted on Friday, April 15th, 2011 at 4:48 pm and is filed under Marketing For Photographers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.