Building a blog community

rgphoto

I'm sure this topic is pretty much a dead horse by now, but could anyone give some pointers on building a good following for my blog. I know I haven't been posting very long, but I haven't had any comments left, nor am I drawing very much traffic. What have you guys done to build your following?

Thanks!

ColoradoSkier

It takes time. Lots of time. If you use Twitter and Facebook, link to your entries from there. If your blog posts include equipment reviews, DIY stuff, etc, post links to the articles from places like here, flickr, etc as appropriate. I rarely get comments, but I do get traffic. It took a while though.

denisegoldberg

Who are you trying to connect with on your blog?

It appears that you are trying to sell photos and services on your smug site but your blog seems to be focusing on photography technique. That's a totally different audience than your web site. If you want to attract the same people to your blog who you want as customers on your web site, then I dont' think your blog posts are relevant.

That said, it does take a long time for people to notice your blog and to be attracted to it enough to come back again. Even then I believe comments will be few and far between.

--- Denise

rgphoto

denisegoldberg wrote: »

Who are you trying to connect with on your blog?

It appears that you are trying to sell photos and services on your smug site but your blog seems to be focusing on photography technique. That's a totally different audience than your web site. If you want to attract the same people to your blog who you want as customers on your web site, then I dont' think your blog posts are relevant.

That said, it does take a long time for people to notice your blog and to be attracted to it enough to come back again. Even then I believe comments will be few and far between.

--- Denise

You hit the nail on the head Denise. Overall, the purpose of my website/blog is to simply show my work and get my name out there a bit. Photography is just a hobby for me, so I dont try to push the sales thing too much. Yes, my website is geared towards selling prints and services; and yes, my blog is geared more towards technique and general photography talk. I understand that it would be better if the two were more aligned, but I like being able to use lessons and technique discussions to show off my work a bit.

Thanks for the advice!

ColoradoSkier

I have a mix of things I post in my blog, and that seems to be working the best for business generation as well as search engine stuff. Whenever I do a comissioned shoot (portraits, products, etc) I post about it. Whenever I do some experimenting or try a new product, I blog about it too.

rgphoto

ColoradoSkier wrote: »

I have a mix of things I post in my blog, and that seems to be working the best for business generation as well as search engine stuff. Whenever I do a comissioned shoot (portraits, products, etc) I post about it. Whenever I do some experimenting or try a new product, I blog about it too.

That's what I had in mind for my blog as well. A place for me to talk about anything photography.

ColoradoSkier

Just make sure you also talk about shoots you do for people, and be sure to include keywords in the copy that are relevant to your locale to help boost local search results.

denisegoldberg

rgphoto wrote: »

That's what I had in mind for my blog as well. A place for me to talk about anything photography.

It's fine for you to talk about photography, but I still don't think your possible future customers will be interested - I believe they will want to see samples of the type of photos you can create for them.

--- Denise

rgphoto

denisegoldberg wrote: »

It's fine for you to talk about photography, but I still don't think your possible future customers will be interested - I believe they will want to see samples of the type of photos you can create for them.

--- Denise

Agreed, which is why I have several galleries with example photos taken during shoots. However, I haven't been offering shoots for very long now. Most of the people who follow my site, follow it for the art portion. Right now, my blog is geared more towards those people. I can post photos taken recently, and talk a little about the technique behind those shots.

I would rather post a couple times a week about what I'm up to, then have to limit my posts to customer-oriented posts only. While I agree that potential customers would like to see example work, I also believe that potential customers would like to see that the photographer is active. Not to mention that people can pick up a lot about a person's personality based on their writing.

Hikin' Mike

FWIW, Most of the "fireplace" photos are titled (on your blog). I'm sure this was just to show the difference between flash and lower exposure etc, but pay attention to the details....level it. If you want to be an authoritative figure, then you need to act like it.

zoomer

Yeah I think this blog thing is a marathon not a sprint.
I started mine almost a month ago and I think I am getting some traffic, not a lot hard, to say.
My google analytics tells me that no one has ever clicked on my blog on my website header. I know that is not true because I have clicked on it myself.
I know my traffic will slowly grow because I have pictures of a lot of pretty girls on there......who doesn't like pretty girls?

As other posters stated link everywhere you can and hopefully you create a trail of bread crumbs which drives traffic to all your sites. I think that will eventually happen as long as like Denise said, you have a consistent theme.

Right now I think doing a blog should be thought of as more of a hobby, something you do because you enjoy it.
Mine has had no impact on either traffic to my website or my SEO status.

rgphoto

ColoradoSkier wrote: »

Just make sure you also talk about shoots you do for people, and be sure to include keywords in the copy that are relevant to your locale to help boost local search results.

Great advice -- I had forgotten about tagging local posts with local tags.

denisegoldberg wrote: »

It's fine for you to talk about photography, but I still don't think your possible future customers will be interested - I believe they will want to see samples of the type of photos you can create for them.

--- Denise

I definitly agree that future customers want to see samples, but I only do a couple shoots per year, which would correspond to only a couple posts per year. I like the other sides of photography as well, and I like talking about those sides, so I figured I'd use them as filler.

I really like how you can organize your posts into categories with a wordpress blog. I'm going to try to do a similar thing with my posts, which will make weeding out the 'example photo shoot' posts much easier.

Hikin' Mike wrote: »

FWIW, Most of the "fireplace" photos are titled (on your blog). I'm sure this was just to show the difference between flash and lower exposure etc, but pay attention to the details....level it. If you want to be an authoritative figure, then you need to act like it.

I'm not really sure what you mean by this, but am happy to take any advice. Could you clarify what you mean by "level it"?

zoomer wrote: »

Yeah I think this blog thing is a marathon not a sprint.
I started mine almost a month ago and I think I am getting some traffic, not a lot hard, to say.
My google analytics tells me that no one has ever clicked on my blog on my website header. I know that is not true because I have clicked on it myself.
I know my traffic will slowly grow because I have pictures of a lot of pretty girls on there......who doesn't like pretty girls?

As other posters stated link everywhere you can and hopefully you create a trail of bread crumbs which drives traffic to all your sites. I think that will eventually happen as long as like Denise said, you have a consistent theme.

Right now I think doing a blog should be thought of as more of a hobby, something you do because you enjoy it.
Mine has had no impact on either traffic to my website or my SEO status.

Couldn't agree more that blogging takes time to catch on. Personally, I enjoy keeping a blog. Coming up with a post is a good incentive for me to get out and shoot when I may think I am too busy to do so.

Thanks for the advice everyone!

Hikin' Mike

rgphoto wrote: »

I'm not really sure what you mean by this, but am happy to take any advice. Could you clarify what you mean by "level it"?

I was looking at the vertical chimney and I thought it was crooked, so that's why I said to level it. So I opened up CS2 and took a look, but from what I can see it is pretty level. I guess my eyes are going south!

chrisjohnson

A short while back it was the case that a blog could draw people to your main site. Seems Google has reacted to this and when it thinks you are running this kind of scam you will drop down the ratings fast.

With blogging, content is king. People like to be entertained. Opinionated is good, but this might not be so good for business.

Your main site is to support the selling of your services - viewers are not looking to be entertained in the first instance. Every time you air an opinion on your main site you will lose some part of your audience.

As for comments, don't worry too much. Very few people like to respond.