If you haven’t already stopped by Burns Autoparts I would highly suggest that you make a point of visiting, it’s a really great site which is focused on providing marketing information to photographers. This morning I decided to check out the podcasts that Leslie is kinda enough to make available on the site and was not disappointed! The latest podcast is about photoblogging, and everyone who has a photoblog needs to listen to what she has to say. I took away two main themes from this podcast,
- The rise of the photoblog as a marketing tool to other creatives,
- The importance of separating the blog from the main site
As I was listening I scrawled down a few notes and wanted to make a few comments, so here it goes,
Writing on your Photoblog
One of the comments that jumped out at me immediately was when Leslie recommended using “…some words…” on your photoblog. I’ve touched on adding text to your photoblog before, and still believe that search engines are going to be responsible for the majority of your traffic, so you had better make sure you give them what they want – words! Just make sure that you’re targeting what you say to a specific audience and that it’s relevant. One other thing, Leslie mentions that technical jargon, i.e. f/stops, aperture, lighting, etc., typically appeals to other photographers and as I’ve mentioned many times on this site, those folks shouldn’t be your target market! The morale is, keep the jargon to a minimum.
Frequent Updates
Leslie mentions to “…update often…” and I couldn’t agree more. I see it on this blog as well, the more I update the more traffic I get; you need to be updating as much as possible on your photoblog. Nowadays, folks are swamped with information, and if you don’t provide a continous stream of new updates your photoblog is going to fall to the bottom of a person’s reading list very fast!
Separation of blog and portfolio
Again I agree 100%, make your photoblog the place where you have fun, and show your creative side, save the best work for your portfolio site, but make sure that visitors to either site can easily find the other!
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2 responses so far ↓
I agree that you must curate carefully a portfolio while a blog is a conversation, but it is not important that these are different sites. In fact having different sites is detrimental. The idea of different sites only works to dilute branding and diffuse traffic, making marketing more expensive.
Look at the success of the newer hybrid blogsites combining portfolio and blog like Jessica Claire’s.
-Marc
http://www.ProPhotoBlogsite.com
@Marc:
Thanks for taking the time to comment, while I see your point, I tend to disagree about not seperating the two. I should clarify that what I mean is a single domain with “two sites” which are distinct. Most folks use their photoblogs as an area to experiment, while a portfolio site should be more polished.