Tips for Developing Your Weblog or Photoblog

Tips for Developing Your Weblog or Photoblog
Author: Carol Schiraldi

Blogging has become a hot topic for many photographers. Even established “old school” photographers have jumped on the blogging bandwagon. As an early adopter of weblogs, a blogger who has been blogging since 2002, I get asked about blogging and photo blogging a lot. How do you make a blog? How do you decide what to say? How do you get traffic to your site? If you search the Internet, there’s already a lot of information about this, but there are a few pointers and tips that can help you establish and cultivate a successful weblog. Here are some simple tips you can follow to get the most out of blogging and to really develop your weblog into something magical that supports your photography and your vision.

Tip 1: Don’t fuss over templates-too many people spend too long worrying about how their site looks to create content. My biggest suggestion is to slap something simple up, start writing posts and, after you get 15 or 20 good, solid posts up, then re-do your template. Once you are happy with your template, don’t think about it too often, in fact, only rework it once a year if you feel the need. Focus on content and keep the templates, the look and feel of your site, as simple as possible.

Tip 2: Twenty posts a month (or more.) People want to actually read a blog, and they want to come every day to see what you have to say, so plan on writing twenty posts a month. Now, there are many websites, like NaBloPoMo, which are wonderful-they’re designed to get you to post each and every day. That’s great, if you can do it. The problem is, there’s really no value in what I like to call “empty posts.” You know what I’m talking about here-nobody wants to click on your site and read something like “Sorry I didn’t have time to post today. Here’s a picture of….” If you can’t generate 20 solid posts a month, consider moving your website to a weekly site (“picture of the week,” that sort of a thing) or make it a static website, not a weblog at all. Move to Facebook, Twitter, or one of the other social media outlets to update your peeps, you’ll get better results and you won’t waste your time trying to do a blog that nobody is going to read anyway. If you feel you must, you absolutely must run a blog anyway, consider teaming up with a pool of others who can generate quality content, but maybe on a limited basis, so you won’t feel as pressured to generate so much content.

Tip 3: People visit photo blogs for one of two reasons. They either want to be informed or they want to live vicariously through you.

If you are providing information, try to provide as much information as you can, while keeping it brief, relevant, and to the point. Somebody who posts the latest in equipment reviews, and is honest, for example, will always get a lot of hits. Write about what you know, become an expert in your selected field, and the traffic will follow.

For those doing the “slice of life” style weblogs, don’t forget who you are as a photographer and who your audience is as a reader. People want to live vicariously through you and your travels. We no longer farm for food, we are a nation (and globe actually) of office workers. People sit in cubicles and fantasize-they want to be you. It’s an escape of sorts for them, almost like watching TV or going to a movie. So, the next tip is simple-give them what they want. In a way, modern photographers have become almost like monkeys in a cage with cameras, but that’s what people want to see when they visit a weblog so that is where they will flock.

Now, your perspective on being a photographer might be about being in the trenches. You might be one of those photographers who hustles a lot, always pulling in new clients and promoting your work. For you, photography is about working as hard as you can and taking the best shots you can get-it’s all about professionalism, and you do not have time to support beginners. To run a successful weblog, you have to stop thinking like a workhorse and start thinking like a reader. People reading your blog want to read it and think, “he’s making it! He’s doing it!” What keeps people reading blogs and coming back to your site is that attitude that they can do it too. They want to be just like you, in terms of producing consistently high quality photographic work. As people start to follow you, they start to live through your adventures. It’s why blogs and blogging in general has become so popular. Photography almost doesn’t exist today, as it did decades ago. Everybody wants to view the “behind the scenes” work, even more than they want to view the finished product. They want to feel a part of the action, not view from the sidelines. You need to stop thinking that the gallery or the frame is the only home for a “finished” product, and start recognizing the value of the behind the scenes visibility. Susan Sontag once said that “everything exists to be photographed” and the web make this so. If you want to be successful, you need to fuel that. You need to feed it and milk it. Go ahead, do a “slice of life” blog, show us your daily shower, your morning coffee, but make it interesting. Make somebody sitting on the outside look at it and think, “I want to be like that” or “I want to do that too” and you’ll be a success.

Now, some of my smart (and regular) readers out there may now be thinking, “you’re crazy. You don’t do any of that on your blog.” And, I’d have to admit, they’d be right, I don’t. My blog is different. I’m not trying to help you live vicariously or even pass along relevant information. My blog is a third type of blog: the personal journal. The personal journal is different altogether. I don’t write it for you, I write it for me. When I write my blog, I’m not trying to generate traffic, make “monthly numbers” or any of that. No, what I’m trying to do is something completely different. I’m trying to express myself with words and images. The goal of my blog is simple really. I want to enjoy myself. It’s an expression of who I am, much like an extension of my photography. I’d have to admit it, if you’re this type of blogger or not, there’s only one real rule you need to live by and that’s to have fun with it.

If your blog feels like a chore, or you feel like you have a monkey on your back everytime you miss a post, maybe blogging isn’t the medium for you. There’s no harm in admitting that. In fact, it’s probably better to skip the blog altogether if you aren’t going to put the time and energy into doing it right. But, if you’re the type of person who can step up to the challenge and follow these simple tips, blogging can be a successful and profitable endeavor. I hope you can put some of these tips to use in making or continuing your weblog. It’s important to realize that your weblog is just part of your brand as a photographer-it’s a small extension of you-your vision, your aesthetic-so you should treat it this way, but have some fun in the process.

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