Need to blog a recent wedding gallery? I’ll tell you exactly how to blog a wedding for wedding photographers!
Quick introduction before we get started! Hey there new internet friend, you found me! My name is Nicole and Wedding Photographers hire me to >blog for their business!<
So what do I know about blogging? I’m glad you asked because I have a whole bag of tricks up my sleeve! I know how to make your Yoast score go green for SEO & readability, I know how to consistently create SEO optimized, keyword-rich, fresh, organic content. And I know how to get your blog to outrank competitors in your local market.
Here’s what you need to know in order to successfully blog a wedding as a wedding photographer!
1) Images
I know that you’re a visual creative so let’s just take it from the top, shall we? Your photos! Here’s an area that >most of my clients get hung up, and also a truth that they will never admit out loud. They overshoot. Oh yes, they do! But when it comes to your blog, less is more! As a general rule of thumb, I keep my client’s blog posts to a maximum of 35-40 images when we blog a wedding gallery. And here’s why! Your bounce rate.
Your readers don’t want to scroll through an overabundance of photos to get to the part where they can find out how to work with you. Thirty-five stand-out images that best represent your point of view as a photographer and encompass the aesthetic of the wedding you shot, are more than enough to do the trick. Here’s another big one, ditch any photos that do not include the couple or members of the bridal party! Your potential clients are dreaming big when they plan their wedding and they need to envision themselves in the scenario of the photos you are sharing.
2) Copy Matters
A past >client of mine once told me on a call that she had just returned from a big-name photography workshop. Blogging came up at one point during the marketing segment of the workshop. And the hosts told the attendees that they didn’t need copy on their blogs because they are photographers. Eek! I had to take a minute to compose myself on that call because the four-letter words were at the tip of my tongue. That advice couldn’t be farther from the truth. Your copy holds so much! It does the heavy lifting of your brand voice, it carries your keywords further, it contains the sentences with your calls to action, and it educates your reader. Strip that all away and you have a gallery of photos with no direction.
3) Links do too
Link it up, my friend! Your blog post should contain inbound links, >outbound links, vendor credit links, calls to action, and links that are an invitation to read other posts on your blog. All of these links are important for your overall SEO strategy!
4) Titles Don’t Have to be Sexy
I’ll admit, even as a seasoned blogger, it’s hard not to get hung up on this one. But the titles of your blog posts don’t have to be ‘sexy’. They don’t have to contain any click-baity type of descriptors, and they don’t have to promise something to your readers. Your titles should be SEO optimized and straight to the point. If your potential clients are Googling ‘Nameofvenue Wedding in Your Location’. You want to keep your titles as close to that as possible. While, of course, assessing the competition and the likelihood that your post will rank under that title and keyword!
5) CTA’s
Calls to action! These are the magic phrases that guide your readers into taking the next step with your business. You can include one call to action in your post, or you can include several. I’m personally a fan of including one big bold call to action in each post for my wedding photography clients. And subsequently adding in 2 or 3 other more >subtle calls to action<.
6) SEO Optimization
Aside from writing the actual copy, SEO optimization is the thing that trips up most and prevents them from actually producing blog content. Where do you even begin? It’s like opening Pandora’s Box and unleashing a curse of falling into a rabbit hole of googling SEO Optimization. I’m a huge fan of reverse engineering when it comes to marketing in general.
For your blog, take a look at the content that you have available to blog and the keywords that you want your business to rank for. Then do a quick competitor analysis to see what’s out there. If you need to have a friend help you with that part, I totally get it! Once you have an idea of the actual keyword that you’d like to use in your blog post you can estimate the probability of ranking for them with a tool like SEMrush or Ubersuggest (two of my personal go to’s) From there your optimized keyword has a few different places that it needs to be plugged into when you blog your wedding gallery. Including your image alt tags and titles, your slug, your meta description, your focus keyphrase (if you’re using Yoast!), your title, your first paragraph, and that all too important call to action!
7) Categories & Keywords
These small but mighty checkpoints are key in getting a blog ranked for wedding photographers. A setup of categories should be produced on the back end of your blog so you can appropriately ‘tag’ each blog of your blog posts. This will give your readers an indication of what to expect and whether or not they’ve landed in the right place for the content they were hoping to find. This will also help keep things a bit more organized on the back end of things for you!
The categories you create will be 100% dependent on your business. For example, if you shoot in a few different areas you might decide to name your categories accordingly. Here’s a quick example: Miami Weddings, Fort Lauderdale Weddings, Key West Weddings. If the bulk of your blog is your wedding galleries you’ll want to divide these categories up a bit more. If you are only ever rarely blogging engagements, anniversaries, elopements, and other celebrations, you can keep the title of these categories more straightforward!
