Ready to learn how to start a photography blog? No problem! The internet is the perfect place to share your unique vision with the world. Whether you're an amateur or pro, we'll show you the best way to start your photography blog in 2021.

4 Compelling Reasons To Start A Photography Blog

2020 was a rough year for photographers. Imagine being fully booked with wedding and engagement clients for the whole year. Covid hit and bam! Your calendar gets wiped clean in a week.

Here's what happened to many photographers:

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Losing all of your income in one swoop is devastating. For photographers who didn’t have any diversification in their income streams, they found themselves in a lot of trouble.

A well-monetized photography blog isn’t guaranteed to fix all of your problems, but it can certainly help you to:

• Bring in additional income
• House your portfolio
• Learn income-generating skills that give you a lucrative side hustle
• Reach more possible clients

Start A Photography Blog: Video Walkthrough

Starting a photography blog can seem daunting but it really isn't!

Follow along with me and I'll guide you through it every single step of the way:

Start A Photography Blog Today In 4 Steps

Starting a new blog is easier than it has ever been which means spending less time worrying about the technical stuff and more time so you don't need to spend any time snapping pictures and sharing your expertise with the world.

STEP 1:

STEP 2:

STEP 3:

STEP 4:

The most successful people will tell you to find one thing and be great at it. When it comes to photography, many pros got to be the best in their local area. They were big fish in a small pond. 

With the introduction of the internet, the industry changed. Now you need to strive to be the best possible photographer. The good news is the web has given you more ways to earn extra cash.

If you don’t want to build the site yourself, you don’t have to. There are websites like Fiverr where you can find freelancers with expert skill sets. Need a logo? Website? Writer?

Fiverr has you covered. All you need to do is start a free account and search for what you need. However, many photographers enjoy creating. It’s ingrained into their souls. Below, we have information on how you can accomplish a website build on your own.

DIY

If you want to build a properly monetized website, you’re going to need a web host, a theme, and a domain name. It’s also a good idea to educate yourself on content creation and promotion.

Hosting

A web host is the company that physically hosts your website on their servers. When searching for a host, you want to carefully weigh the pros and cons of all of your options. The best ones aren’t cheap, but you have better flexibility and a variety of options.

Some hosts will allow you to pay monthly while others want to hit your account for the full amount right off the bat. Two of the most popular web hosts are Hostinger and DreamHost. 

Hostinger offers quality hosting at a reasonable price. Their premium plan gives you a free domain, SSL certificate, email, and many other perks. This will only cost you a few bucks a month if you’re willing to be billed for four years. 

They offer a monthly plan at a hair over $10 a month. This will renew every month unless you stop the payment. Our recommendation is to sign up for at least a year. A year will only hit you for about $60, which is a pretty good deal.

DreamHost will give you many of the same perks as Hostinger at a similar price. What sets them apart is they have their own website builder, which you’ll have access to completely for free.

We recommend Wealthy Affiliate. WA will give you all of the great service just like the brands above. However, they offer training and a full community of folks just like you in various places in their blogging journey. Check out our full write up on Wealthy Affiliate here.

You can start today with exactly $0 and scale up at your own discretion. It’s a deal that is unparalleled with other services on the web.

Themes

A WordPress theme is a tool with the purpose of changing the overall visual elements of your website. There are free ones and premium ones.

So what’s the difference?

Free themes are put out into the world and rarely touched afterwards. They aren’t updated and they carry little, if any, customer support.

Premium themes like GeneratePress (recommended) enable you to design a professional blog you'll be proud to show your friends and family, are updated regularly and have outstanding customer support.

If you choose to go the Wealthy Affiliate route, they have a ton of themes that would be great for a photography blog. We’ve included a few themes below to give you an idea of what you can expect in your search.

Photocrati: This is our top pick. It offers an incredible amount of design options as well as a variety of ecommerce integrations. The Lifetime package is $349. It covers an unlimited amount of sites, gives you professional support, every theme design they offer, and any type of e-commerce setup you desire.

Framed: This is a ThemeForest theme designed for the minimalist photographer. When you just want to show off your work and not much else, this is a great option. The theme is $59 and comes with updates and 6 months of support. You’ll receive multiple gallery options and this theme integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce.

Pixgraphy: If you’re dead-set on using a free theme, then check out Pixgraphy. It offers a completely free option, though it is somewhat limited. You will receive a responsive theme with blogging capability and WooCommerce compatibility. However, if you want to use all of the tools the theme offers, go with the premium version.

Once you’ve picked a theme for your new website, it’s time to move on to the fun stuff.

Content Creation

Creating content for your new photography blog can be a breeze. You’re already snapping pictures all the time, right?

You may need to slow your roll.

Creating content for a blog is more involved than classic photography. You also need to consider things like writing blog posts and keyword utilization.

Keywords are how Google finds your content. The more authority the search engine gives your blog, the higher you rank in the search engine results. 

Unfortunately, photographs run a little light on keywords. This is where blog posts come in. This is a two-pronged attack.

First, work on journaling for your blog. Talk about challenges you had during shoots, all the while sprinkling your photos throughout the blog. You can also discuss what you loved about a particular landscape and why you decided to shoot it. Focus on what will bring value to your readers. If you wouldn’t read your blog post, then why would anyone else?

The second prong of this attack will be in the form of monetization. You can leverage your audience with your content. Write about equipment and services you use. Ideas for this kind of content include blog posts like, “The best camera for portrait photography” and “The best tripod stands for shooting sporting events”. You get the idea.

Now let’s talk about how you can make money with your new website.

Monetizing a Photography Blog

When photographers research how to start a photography blog, making money is rarely the reason why they are on the hunt. But the fact is, it can be lucrative and a great way to diversify your income streams.

Affiliate Marketing

In the examples above, we talked about generating content discussing equipment and services that you use to be successful. Affiliate marketing is when you promote a product. You are given a link to this product for your blog. A reader clicks on it and if they make a purchase, you receive a commission at no charge to the customer.

Here are some of the best affiliate programs for your new website.

Amazon Affiliates

Amazon is a go-to for many affiliate marketers. They sell pretty much everything. The commission varies depending on the products, but it’s a name most people trust. So if you send your audience to Amazon, they won’t think about getting scammed or ripped off by you or the affiliate program.

Adobe

It’s not just physical products that can get you paid. Software and services have some of the best affiliate commissions in the game. Adobe’s commissions range on a percentage scale depending on what your reader purchases. But if you’re using an editing program like Lightroom, you should consider some tutorials or a review. The commission for their software starts at more than 8%, so it’s definitely worth it.

These are just a couple of examples of popular programs and there are always perks. You and your audience can also receive special discounts and deals on services as well as physical products.

Sell Prints

As we mentioned above, many themes offer some sort of e-commerce integration. You can create a store to sell your prints and connect said store directly to your blog.

How do people see these items?

This is where generating Google friendly content comes into play. Use calls-to-action links to get people from your blog to check out your store. You can use this method anywhere in your blog posts.

It can be as simple as something like “Hey, if you enjoyed some of the photos in this post, I have prints available. Click here to see my store.”

You don’t want to use this tactic in every single post. You will come off as overly-salesy and that isn’t the purpose of your website. More often than not, having a “store” button at the top of the page will suffice.

Find Work

Nothing is going to help you find more in-person photography work than having a blog. When people see your photos in your posts and read your passion-filled words, they won’t have any other choice but to throw money at your face.

And your camera.

To pick up extra work this way, you should work on promoting yourself through other online avenues.

Promotion

Promoting your work is going to be paramount to two things: Receiving paid work and making more money from your website. This is how we recommend going about it.

Unsplash

Unsplash is best known as a stock photography website. You may be thinking, “How do I make money by giving away my work for free?” And that’s a perfectly reasonable question.

When you make an account, Unsplash will let you make a bio. You can include a link to your blog in this section. They also now offer a “hire me” button, enabling you to meet new clients online. Check out how this photographer used Unsplash to change his entire career.

However, if you really want to make a few bucks, there are stock photo sites that will pay you. This isn’t going to make you rich but it’s something that may be worth the effort. Check out iStock and Adobe to see which site is going to give you the best rates. There are a ton of others but those are two of the most widely used.

Instagram

No other social media site is going to let you show off your work, your blog, and your photography prowess quite like Instagram.

Instagram also offers some potential for income as well. Brand deals and potential to meet new clients completely for free is not an opportunity you want to pass up. 

Post often, engage with the people you want to work with, and make sure you’re posting quality pictures. If done well, Instagram’s potential is unlimited.

Wrapping It Up

We think we answered all of your questions on how to start a photography blog. We covered everything from creation to promotion.

However, there is no way we can cover it all in one post. If you know of other great ways to monetize a photography blog or great reasons why a professional should have one, let us know in the comments.

We’re here to help. If you need any assistance, reach out and we'll do the best we can to help.