Most photographers know they should be blogging. They’ve known for a while. They’ve probably started once or twice, written something, not seen any immediate results, and quietly shelved it.
If that’s you, this post is for you.
Not because I’m going to convince you blogging is essential to your survival as a photographer. But because if you’ve been putting it off, it’s usually for one of a small number of very fixable reasons – and it’s worth knowing which one is yours.
Why blogging for photographers actually works
A photograph on Instagram disappears from feeds within hours. A blog post, if it’s written around the right phrases, can bring someone to your website years after you wrote it.
That’s the core reason blogging matters for photographers who want to be found online. Social media is a broadcast. A blog is more like a shop window that stays lit even when you’re not in it.
It also does something else: it lets you explain things. Instagram doesn’t give you space to talk about why you work the way you work, what your approach is, or what the experience of booking you is actually like. A blog does.
For photographers who want to attract clients rather than just followers, that explanation matters.
Why you’ve been putting it off
Usually it’s one of these:
You don’t know what to write about.
This is the most common one. You sit down to write and nothing comes. Or everything that comes feels either too basic or too niche to be worth posting.
You don’t think you’re a good writer.
Blog posts don’t need to be well-written in a literary sense. They need to be clear, useful, and written the way you actually talk. If you can have a conversation with a client, you can write a blog post.
You wrote a few and nothing happened.
Blogging takes time to work. Search engines don’t rank a new post the day you publish it. If you posted three times and stopped because nobody came, that’s a timeline problem, not a blog problem.
You don’t have time.
A blog post that takes three hours to write isn’t a well-optimised process. Once you know what you’re writing about and why, most posts take considerably less than that. The problem is usually the decision-making, not the writing itself.
What to write about
Start with questions. Not abstract questions, but the actual questions your clients ask you – before they book, during the enquiry process, after they’ve booked and are preparing.
‘What should I wear for my brand shoot?’ is a blog post. ‘How far in advance should I book a photographer?’ is a blog post. ‘What happens if I don’t like my photos?’ is a blog post.
Every one of those is something someone is typing into Google. The fact that you know the answer puts you in a position to be found.
The other category is your own expertise. What do you know about photography – specifically your type of photography – that your ideal clients don’t know and would benefit from understanding?
How to actually write it
Pick one question. Write the answer. Add a short introduction that says who the post is for and why it matters. Add a short conclusion that points them toward the next step.
That’s a blog post.
It doesn’t need a dramatic hook. It doesn’t need a listicle format if that doesn’t feel like you. It doesn’t need to be eight hundred words if you can say it in four hundred.
What it does need is to be findable – which means you need to think about what phrase someone would type to find it, and make sure that phrase appears in the post title and a couple of times in the text.
A note on SEO for photographers
Blogging and SEO are linked, but you don’t need to become an expert in search engine optimisation to get results from blogging. The basics are enough to start with: write around a phrase people are actually searching for, use it in your title and naturally throughout the post, and make sure your website is set up to be indexed properly.
If you want to go deeper on this, I’ve put together a guide specifically for photographers called The SEO Edit – a practical PDF that walks you through the SEO fundamentals without the jargon. You can find it at MaryanneScott.co.uk.
The only thing that actually matters
The photographers who see results from blogging are the ones who kept going past the point where it felt pointless.
Not indefinitely, without strategy. But long enough to let the work accumulate. Search results compound over time. The post you write today might not bring anyone to your site for six months. The post you write in six months might bring people in for the next three years.
If you want to build a photography business that doesn’t depend entirely on referrals and social media algorithms, blogging is one of the most reliable ways to do it. You just have to start.
For more on building a photography business that works without burning yourself out, take a look at how I work with photographers at MaryanneScott.co.uk.
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