One of the most effective ways for wedding photographers to advertise for free is by blogging their work. There’s an old saying that goes something like “you can’t sell what you can’t show” and it couldn’t be more true when it comes to our services. If we don’t blog, or show our work, how would a potential client find us? And guess what the best part is? Blogging is absolutely free! There are many different strategies out there. Some will focus solely on SEO (search engine optimization), while some believe in buying Google ads. You can find a ton of different sources online on the topic of SEO. That’s not the focus of this blog post. I wanted to share how I maximize web traffic to my blog posts after a wedding or engagement session has been posted. For my business, I believe getting your work seen by as many people as possible is the most important way to advertise and getting your brand out there. When I blog, I absolutely LOVE it when my clients share their blog posts. It shows me that they loved their session so much that they wanted all of their friends & family to see the blog post. Which is great news for me as well. More hits to the blog post = higher Google ranking based on the key terms. Win win for everybody!
So exactly what do you do? How do you maximize traffic to your blog posts after you post a session? Here are the five things you can do RIGHT NOW to drive more traffic to your blog.
1. Timing Clients are the MOST excited about their photos immediately after the shoot. The longer you wait, the more the excitement wears off. So timing is everything. If your schedule allows you to blog a session, blog as soon as possible. I send my clients an email immediately after the session that explains the process to my clients, and get them excited about the blog post! 2. Centralize I see a lot of photographers have 2 or 3 different websites; one for portfolio, one for blog, and another online gallery. Maybe they will have a Facebook fan page on top of that, too. All of which are competing traffic for each other. Centralize & focus web traffic to ONE location. For me, that is my blog. I post only one image on Facebook, and my clients will have to share my blog post and not the FaceBook fan page. My website doesn’t get ANY SEO juice if my clients share a FB gallery over my website. I also don’t provide my clients with a separate ‘best of’ online gallery to share. If they are going to share images from the shoot, it will be from my blog post. 3. Incentivize Our clients really don’t have to help us with our SEO. It’s nice when they do, but they don’t have to. In order to thank my clients for doing so, I provide them with some sweet incentives to do so. There are a lot of things you can thank your clients with. The incentives are covered in my email templates for wedding photographers. And because I install an array of social media plugins, when my clients or their friends comment on the blog, it shows up on their own networks’ newsfeed! 4. Don’t forget the vendors! Don’t forget about all the vendors that worked out on the wedding or the session with you! Wedding planners, floral, hair/makeup artists, etc.. We all work together as a team to create the best results for our clients. They are just as excited about the session as you are. I send all the vendors an immediate email after the wedding or shoot, thanking them for their talent & involvement with the shoot. And I typically credit all the vendors that are involved in the shoot! The template emails I send to my vendors friends specify where and how they should share the images that will be mutually beneficial to everybody. 5. Be Social Make sure your blog post & images are readily shareable. That means installing Facebook “like” plugin, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest “pin it” buttons, etc.. When a viewer interacts with your blog post (commenting, liking it, pinning it), you want to make it easy for that interaction to show up on their social media network.
So those are my top 5 tips of getting more web traffic to your blog! The implementation of these strategies are all covered in my new email templates for wedding photographers. If you follow my email system, you will notice an immediate jump in your web traffic as well! If you have any other tip, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to share it in the comments section below. And since every blog post is better with a photo, here’s a loving moment I captured between Kasey & Andy during the recent training session for Jeremy Chou Photography Associates!
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