Photographer's blog

[fstop57]

Some great discussion here! I think blogs can work really well for some photographers but they aren't a magic bullet and as some comments above have alluded to they need to be worked on and marketed themsleves to be effective.

I've seensome great photographers sites that are essentially just blogs. I think this can work really well for social / wedding photographers but does require a lot of effort to keep it actively ticking over. The seo / social media etc benefits can be worth it though in these sectors.

I did have my site running on a blog type cms for a while but came to the conclusion I wasn't make the best of it so switched back to a fairly static site for my main portfolio site. I'm still niche blogging on my stock photography blog though.

Alex

[listenthenspeak]

I've been considering the points made here over the past couple of days, and I think I'm leaning towards the "Let your readers/clients get to know you a bit" side where blogging plays an important part of your business. Here are some interesting articles:
PHOTO LOVECAT: What Can Blogging Do for You?
PHOTO LOVECAT: Why Blog? Making the most of your blog

Food for thought.

[Walkere]

Originally Posted by Xposurepro

My primary concern with updating my blog is for SEO.

This is the key point that you should consider - what is the blog for?

If the blog is there to help raise your visibility to get you new clients, then it's basically an extension of your portfolio. In fact, it would be wise to integrate the two. Use a CMS like Wordpress to create a static site (the portfolio) and include a blog section where you update with recent events, galleries, etc. This will increase your search engine visibility, and potentially bring in more customers.

On the other hand, you could treat the blog as a business unto its own. In that case, go for the gusto, but know that your blog would be about photography, not necessarily about your photography. It seems odd to me that no one has mentioned one of Darren's other sites, ProBlogger... but maybe that's because I was a ProBlogger reader first and I found DPS through that.

Going the second route would take a much larger investment of time and effort into the site. Potentially, it could bring in more photography customers (people do like to know that you're experienced and an expert in your field), but the real benefit would be if you could monetize the site in a different way (advertising, selling e-books about photography, etc). If your only concern is netting more local customers, it probably isn't a great investment of your time and effort.

- Brian

[egirsht]

I accept with information: Blogging is really important,this can made tons of connections with other photographers through it. It's a great way to see other photographer's works and get their commentary on it.