This beginner’s guide will show you everything you need to know about starting a photography blog.
You’ll learn how to create a successful photography blog that attracts readers and generates revenue.
It gets better:
Starting a blog has never been easier. Follow this 7-step guide, and your photography blog will be up and running in the next 30 minutes.
And feel free to download our Blog Starting Checklist to mark tasks off as you go.
Ready? Let’s do this!
In This Guide:
Step 1: Pick A Specific Photography Niche
Step 2: Decide On A Blogging Platform
Step 3: Set Up Hosting & Register Your Domain
Step 4: Choose A Theme
Step 5: Personalise Your Blog Design
Step 6: Create A Content Plan
Step 7: Monetise Your Photography Blog
Step 1: Pick A Specific Photography Niche
The first step to starting a photography blog is brainstorming photography niche ideas.
Photography itself is too broad – you want to narrow down and target a more specific audience.
Why?
Because picking a more specific photography niche will help your photography blog to stand out from the competition so you can grow your blog and income quicker.
Choosing a blogging niche can be a challenge for a lot of aspiring bloggers. I struggled too. So to help you out, here are 3 questions you can ask yourself:
What Type Of Photography Am I Most Passionate About?
As you know, there are lots of different types of photography:
- Portrait photography
- Travel photography
- Astrophotography
- Family photography
- Wildlife photography
- Fashion photography
- Aerial photography
- Food photography
- Sports photography
- Boudoir photography
- Street photography
- Photojournalism
To name just a few…
And any one of these photography sub-niches would make a great focal point for your blog.
Other than that, think about what unique angle you can take when approaching your niche.
Will your blog teach beginners how to improve their photography skills?
Are you more technically minded? You could review the latest camera gear.
Maybe you’re all about post-production and want to blog about image optimisation.
Or maybe you’re just looking for a way to showcase your work and reach a wider audience?
Whichever approach you take is going to have a direct effect on your blog name, design and what you write about.
Is There A Demand For My Niche?
This one’s a little trickier. You basically want to see if there’s a big enough audience for your blog niche idea to be viable and worthwhile.
There are a couple of ways we can check:
Google Trends
Head over to Google Trends and do a quick search on your topic idea to get an idea of the level of interest.
You’ll be able to see how popular your topic is over time.
For example, with “Wildlife photography” as my blog niche idea I can see that there’s been a consistent number of people interested in this topic for a long time:
This graph tells me “Wildlife photography” isn’t a fly-by-night, here-today-but-gone-tomorrow – this is a good topic to start a blog on as this is something people will be interested in for a long time to come.
YouTube
Next, go to YouTube and do a quick search and see what comes up.
Look at the number of views and subscribers. Chances are if there are successful YouTube channels on this topic then you could start a popular blog on it too.
If I search “Wildlife Photography”, right away I can see a video with 3.4K views in less than 24 hours – that’s a great indicator that there’s a big enough audience out there to make this blog niche idea work.
Can I Monetise This Niche?
If you’re blogging for fun then feel free to skip this question, but if you want your photography blog to grow into an income source so you can quit the 9-5 job, work from home and spend more time with your family then your blog topic needs to have profit potential.
I’ll walk you through how to make money with your photography blog in just a bit but for now, just know if you can easily think of products and/or services related to your idea then you’re onto a winner.
Please don’t overthink this part! All we’re doing here is nailing down what your photography blog is going to be about. This may change and evolve as your blog grows – and that’s all good too.
Alright, let’s move on to step 2!
Step 2: Decide On A Blogging Platform
Now you’ve chosen a blogging niche, it’s time to start building your blog.
First, you have to decide what blogging platform you’re going to use to create your blog.
It can seem confusing because there are so many options…
You’ve got free blogging sites like Wix, Squarespace and Weebly which might seem tempting at first but the truth is these sites will seriously limit how far you can take your blog and impede your future earnings.
That’s because, with most free blogging platforms, you aren’t able to monetise your blog – a real dealbreaker if you want to make money as a photography blogger.
That’s why we recommend using WordPress.org as your blogging platform.
Over 835 million sites use WordPress.org for good reason – you start your blog on your own domain (vital for Google rankings!), keep complete creative control and can make money with it however you want.
Plus, with 1,000s of easily customisable themes, you can build a blog you can be proud of.
And the best part?
Using WordPress is 100% free – all you need to pay for is web hosting because I’ll show you how to get your own .com domain for free in the next section.
Step 3: Set Up Hosting & Register Your Domain
The next step is to choose a good name for your blog and secure your domain name.
Wealthy Affiliate is the best place to register a domain and set up web hosting for new bloggers.
Their easy-to-use website builder comes with WordPress and plugins already installed and setting up your blog takes no time at all. Plus, you’ll get your own free .com domain for a year.
Check out our SUPER in-depth Wealthy Affiliate here for more info.
How To Set Up Web Hosting
First, go to WealthyAffiliate.com and click the blue Sign-Up button and enter your name, email and password to create your account.
Once inside the member’s area, select Websites from the top menu and click Build a Website.
Next, choose the Register a Domain option to bring Wealthy Affiliate’s pricing plans:
As you’re just starting out your blogging career and only need hosting and a domain for your photography blog right now, I recommend the Premium Plan at just $49/month or $497/year.
How To Register Your Domain
Now you’ve registered your hosting account you can register your free .com domain.
To do that, hit the Websites tab in the top menu and go to SiteDomains:
Your domain name should be the same as your blog name. It’s simply what someone types into the address bar to get to your website, for example, photographyblog.com.
A good domain name would be something that’s:
- Short
- Memorable
- Easy to type
- Ends in .com
- Tells people what your blog is about
Here are 1,573 photography blog name ideas to get you started.
Check to see if your preferred domain name is available and click Add to Cart to register it.
We’re almost there!
Now it’s the fun part of actually creating your photography blog and getting it live on the web!
Step 4: Choose A Theme
The next step is choosing a WordPress theme. A WordPress theme is going to act as a template for your blog and determine the basic layout.
Though I know choosing a WordPress theme might seem like a daunting task (especially with 5,000+ themes to choose from!) but let me make this real easy:
Go with GeneratePress.
This is the theme I use across all of my blogs. Even the website you’re on right now uses GeneratePress and we recommend all our Commission Academy students use it too.
Why?
Because:
- It’s responsive so your blog will look good on any device
- It comes with a ton of customisation options
- It’s lightning fast
- And comes with amazing support
Once you’ve selected a theme, hit Build My Website.
In 30 seconds or less, you’ll have your WordPress logins emailed to you and you can always access your blog from the Wealthy Affiliate members’ area.
Step 5: Personalise Your Blog Design
Pat yourself on the back for reaching this far – seriously, you’ve just launched your photography blog!
And now it’s time to make it your own.
To do that, log in to your WordPress dashboard which should look a little something like this:
From here you can write and publish blog posts, change the colour of your theme, adjust fonts and sizes, add a menu and customise the entire layout of your blog.
From the left-side menu go to Appearance then Customise and work your way through the customisation options until you’re happy with it.
One of the first things you’ll want to do is add a logo. You can go about this a couple of ways:
- Hire a designer on Fiverr to create one for you for as little as $10
- Create one yourself for free using Canva
With 3,186 easily-customisable photography blog logo templates to choose from, Canva makes it super easy to create a beautiful logo even if you’re not a designer:
Follow our handy guide on how to make a blog logo for a click-by-click walkthrough.
Step 6: Create A Content Plan
Your professional photography blog is live on the web for all to see – now it’s time to start blogging!
Publishing content to your blog is going to achieve two things:
- Get you Google rankings and traffic
- Increase your earning potential
The key to becoming a successful photography blogger is having a well-planned content strategy and posting consistently.
So come up with a mammoth list of post ideas so you’re never stuck with what to write about and then use that to create your content schedule.
What Should I Post On My Photography Blog?
When you’re creating your content plan, it’s good to start with topics you’re interested in and have expertise in.
Then, consider what your target audience is interested in. If you want your new blog to take off then you need to cover topics you know they want to read about.
How do you find that out?
With a little bit of keyword research.
Keyword research is the process of finding out how many searches a given phrase has on average each month. You then choose one target keyword for each blog post you want to rank for that keyword.
When you’re just starting out, it’s best to target low-competition, long-tail keywords so your new blog has a better chance of getting the highly sought-after Google top spot.
For example, you’ll have a better chance of ranking highly for “best photography tips for beginners with a phone” than you would for “best photography tips”.
To do your keyword research, use a tool like Mangools and start searching for ideas.
For example, a quick Mangools search tells me “how to become a nature photographer” gets searched 320 times a month so this would definitely be a great topic for a blog post:
If you can write a high-quality, helpful post answering this question and your photography blog comes up first whenever anyone types this question into Google, that’s 300+ new readers coming to your blog each month.
And that’s just ONE blog post.
What if you had 100 or even 1,000 blog posts bringing in this kind of traffic?
You’d have a booming blog with 30,000 visitors each month.
I hope you’re starting to see the potential of this and why keyword research is so powerful!
So get busy and put together a list of at least 20-30 blog post ideas and set yourself a blogging schedule.
Here are some more photography blog post ideas for inspiration:
- 10 Tips for Capturing Stunning Landscape Photos
- A Beginner’s Guide to Shooting in Manual Mode
- How to Create a Unique Portrait: Posing and Lighting Techniques
- The Best Camera and Lens Combinations for Street Photography
- Shooting in Low Light: 23 Tips and Tricks
- Mastering the Art of Black and White Photography
- The Different Types of Photography and How to Master Them
- The Importance of Composition in Photography
- The Business of Photography: How to Make a Living as a Photographer
- The Impact of Social Media on Professional Photography
- Creating a Professional Photography Portfolio
- How to Take Amazing Photos with Your Smartphone
- The Best Photography Destinations to Travel to
Step 7: Monetise Your Photography Blog
Follow the steps I’ve laid out in this guide and you’ll soon have a beautiful photography blog packed with really helpful content that attracts daily readers.
The time has come to monetise!
A lot of photography bloggers struggle to make decent money because they rely too much on ad networks like Ezoic to pay them for displaying ads on their blogs.
Displaying ads can be a potential income source for sure, but by far the most lucrative way to make money with your photography blog is through affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is when you mention or recommend other people’s products or services on your blog and earn a commission every time you generate a sale.
Getting started with affiliate marketing is easy:
You simply sign up for an affiliate program like Amazon, search for relevant products to promote and include your unique affiliate links within your content.
For example, you could:
- Join Canon’s affiliate program and make 2.5% commissions every time readers buy a camera
- You could promote Jimmy Chin’s Master Class on adventure photography and make 25% per sale
Camera gear, straps, bags, caps, tripods, lenses, memory cards, lighting, reflectors, stabilisers…
You could promote any of these to earn 6 figures a year from your blog.
The possibilities really are endless!
8 Tips To Become A Successful Photography Blogger
1. Focus On Helping People
The most successful photography bloggers are those who first, know exactly who their target tribe is and secondly, work on helping that group of people as best they can.
Your job as a blogger is to answer people’s questions and offer them the best solutions, so always put your readers first by creating top-quality, helpful content.
Offer as much value as you can and your blog will – no doubt – you’ll grow a loyal fanbase and your blog will be a success.
2. Build An Email List
One of the most common blogging mistakes is holding off building an email list.
So don’t wait – use email software like AWeber and you can build a loyal fanbase and keep them coming back for more.
3. Be Consistent
Be realistic about how much time you can put into blogging. If you can only write one post per week then do that. If you have more time, aim for 3-5 posts a week and you’ll see results quicker.
The key to success is being consistent. It’s carving out 30 minutes a day to get work done even when you don’t feel like it. It’s these small, daily, accumulative steps that will get you to where you want to be!
4. Just Be Yourself
This is your photography blog so let your personality shine through.
When you’re blogging, write as you’d talk if a friend was asking you questions about photography. Share your experience and expertise. Show your humour. You’ll connect with people better if you are your real and authentic self.
5. Don’t Be Shy
Don’t limit your blog’s earning potential by holding back when you’re promoting other people’s products.
If you’ve used a DSLR camera and you love it – tell people about it – they’ll probably love it too!
As long as you’re real and honest with people and believe that what you’re recommending is actually going to help them then do it, it makes sense.
6. Share Your Posts On Social
Promoting your blog on social media sites like Instagram and Facebook is a great way to expand your reach.
Just be careful not to do too many at once as this could become a distraction that takes you away from the work of actually growing your photography blog.
Maybe pick one social media site to start with and take it from there. Pinterest is a great starting point as it’s geared towards more visual-based topics like photography.
7. Mix It Up
There are a lot of different types of blog posts you can write, so don’t be afraid to mix it up.
You could write:
- How-to or tutorials: These posts provide step-by-step instructions for completing a specific task or achieving a particular goal.
- Opinion posts: Where you give your expert perspective on a particular topic or issue.
- Product reviews: You can review photography gear and help readers make informed buying decisions.
- Top lists or round-ups: For example, “10 best cameras for beginners on a budget.”
- Response posts: When you’re answering common photography-related questions.
8. Be Patient
Starting a photography blog is easy but making it successful takes time.
Rome wasn’t built in a day.
You’ll feel like you’re blogging for free at the beginning but I promise you, follow the steps I’ve laid out in this guide and the traffic and income WILL come and you WILL reap the rewards of your efforts.
Great Photography Blog Examples To Inspire
Let’s take a look at some of the best photography blog examples out there to inspire your own photography blogging journey.
Behind The Shutter
Behind The Shutter is a popular photography blog created by Salvatore Cincotta that offers tips, training and how-tos on a wide range of topics from taking portrait photos, to lighting and wedding photography.
Aside from the blog, she has a free photography course, a book and a store where she sells photographs.
Expert Photography
ExpertPhotography.com is a blog by Joshua Dunlop aimed at beginner photographers.
The blog covers topics like getting the right equipment, how to take better photos and how to edit photos.
Joshua makes money from his blog by promoting affiliate products and selling online courses and cheat sheets. He also has a successful YouTube channel with 16,000 subscribers.
Fstoppers
Fstoppers is a well-known photography blog that’s been featured in publications like Tech Crunch and Buzzfeed.
On the blog, they publish a variety of photography, videography and Photoshop tutorials. They monetise the blog with product reviews and ads.
Frequently Asked Questions
How To Start A Photography Blog For Free?
You can follow this guide to start a photography blog for free. When setting up your hosting and domain (Step 3) simply choose the free domain option. That’ll give you a free subdomain and free hosting.
While starting a free photography blog is fine if you’re on a tight budget, I’d recommend upgrading your hosting and getting your own .com domain as soon as you can.
The truth is, blogs on a free subdomain (i.e. yourblog.siterubix.com vs. yourblog.com) have a hard time ranking highly in Google and you don’t own or have full control over your blog.
Also, having your own domain makes your blog look more professional and trustworthy to readers.
How To Make Money With A Photography Blog?
The 3 main ways to make money with a photography blog are:
- Display ads
- Selling your own products
- Affiliate marketing
Display Ads
For display ads we recommend Ezoic.
They’ll put ads on your site and pay you per 1,000 views. This is a passive way to generate income from your blog as it doesn’t take any extra work on your part.
Ezoic is a better alternative to Adsense because they pay bloggers a lot more.
Selling Your Own Products Or Services
If you want to create an online photography course and use your blog to recruit students you can do that.
Or if you want to reach a wider audience with your work you could direct people from your blog to your photo portfolio on 500px or Alamy to generate sales and earn royalties.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is the best way to turn your passion for photography into a full-time business because your readers will already look to you for product recommendations.
Simply add affiliate links to your posts in a natural way and you could soon find affiliate marketing becomes your main income source and allows you to go full-time.
And, of course, you can promote camera gear on Amazon but don’t stop there – look at Amazon alternatives for higher commission rates.
There are literally 1,000s of affiliate programs you can join for free that are going to give you the ability to promote millions of photography equipment and courses.
How Much Do Photography Bloggers Get Paid?
Photography bloggers make $45,000 per year on average. How much you make as a photography blogger will depend on how much time you can invest, your monetisation strategies and traffic levels.
- Eric Kim makes $200,000 a year with his street photography blog
- Darren Rowse is a photography blogger who makes 6-figures a year
- Elana started blogging in 2014 and just celebrated her first $1 million year
All I do know is the sky is the limit. As a photography blogger you get to set your own income goals and take your blog as far as you want to!
Is It Worth It To Start A Photography Blog?
If you have a drive to succeed then yes, it is definitely worth it! Starting a photography blog in 2024 is a great way to share your passion for photography and turn it into a full-time income.
Start A Successful Photography Blog Today
There you have it, a comprehensive, step-by-step guide on exactly how to start a photography blog!
You’ve got web hosting, chosen a WordPress theme, learned about how to get a ton of traffic and even how to earn good money with it.
Have you started your photography blog?
Let us know in the comments so we can take a look. We’d love to see your progress so far and hearing about how you’re getting on, what you’re writing about and hearing more about your experience.
