Photography Blogging: How to Blog Your Photo Sessions the Right Way

If you’ve been blogging your photo sessions by dropping a bunch of photos into a post, writing three sentences about how sweet the family was, and hitting publish, I need you to stop. Right now. I know that’s how a lot of us have been doing it for years. Some of us have been doing it that way for over a decade. But it’s not working anymore, and honestly, it never really worked the way we thought it did.

In this post, I’m going to walk you through how to turn your session blog posts into content that actually helps people, gets found on Google, and brings in new clients. Because photography blogging doesn’t have to be boring or repetitive. It just needs a little shift in how you think about it.

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But before we dive in—Hi! I’m Melissa—an SEO expert helping portrait photographers get found by dream clients on Google, without the tech overwhelm. Whether you want done-for-you services, coaching, or blogging strategies, I’ve got you covered. Ready to stop being the best-kept secret in your market?

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Want the full conversation? Listen to the podcast episode with Alison & me. Prefer to skim? This post breaks it all down step-by-step so you can start implementing right away.

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What Not to Do With Your Photography Blogging

Let’s start with what I see every single day. A photographer takes a beautiful session, uploads a ton of images into a blog post, writes something like “I had so much fun with this sweet family,” sticks their main keyword in the title, and calls it done.

Here’s the problem. That kind of post isn’t helpful to anyone. Google had a whole update about this. They want you to provide helpful content to your audience. A session share with a few nice sentences doesn’t do that. Your past clients might glance at it and think, “Oh cool, our photos are up.” But future clients? They don’t know that family. They don’t care about that family’s photos. So you’ve got to figure out how to make them care.

And if you’re just putting photos up with a couple of sentences, there’s no point in even trying to optimize it for search. Google’s going to look at it and see thin content. If you don’t have enough to say about a topic, Google assumes you’re not an authority on it. You want a minimum of 600 words to avoid being seen as thin content. Those three sentences aren’t cutting it.

Write Blog Posts That People Actually Want to Read

So what should you write instead? Think FAQ-style posts. Think about the questions your clients ask you all the time and use your sessions as the backdrop to answer them.

The goal with photography blogging is to create posts that you’d be happy to send to a new inquiry or out to your email list. If you got an email from your photographer that just said, “Hey, go check out the Jones family’s photos,” would you click on that? Probably not. You don’t know the Jones family. You don’t care about their family photos.

But if that email said something like, “You won’t believe how this mom coordinated her family’s outfits for their session. Here are her tips so you can do the same thing,” you’re way more likely to click on that. Maybe you’re trying to figure out what your family should wear for photos. Maybe you’re just curious. Either way, it’s interesting. It’s helpful. And it gives people a reason to read.

How to Find the Story in Every Session

Here’s my favorite blogging photography tip. Next time you finish a session and you love how it turned out, ask yourself why. Was it the location? The time of day? The time of year? What they were wearing?

I use this example all the time. Let’s say the Jones family books you every year. By year two or three, you’ve run out of things to say. The kids got bigger. That’s boring. But maybe you look at the photos and realize Mama Jones absolutely crushed it with how she styled everyone. The colors were perfect. Everything was coordinated.

Instead of writing a post about the Jones family, reach out to Mama Jones. Ask her where she shopped. How she picked the color palette. How she coordinated everyone’s outfits. Now you’ve got a “what to wear for fall family photos” post, and you’re using her session as the real-life example.

And here’s the best part. She’s going to share that post with everyone she knows. Because you just told the world she’s an amazing stylist. That’s free marketing for you.

The same approach works for all kinds of topics. Had to reschedule a session because of rain? Write a post about your rain policy and use that rescheduled session as the example. Got questions from clients about a certain location? Blog about photography at that spot and weave in the images from a recent session there. You’re still sharing your work. You’re just wrapping it in something that’s actually useful.

Photography Blogging and SEO: What You Need to Know

Now let’s talk about search. You can absolutely still target keywords in these posts, but you don’t have to force it. This does not have to be a “let me see how I can jam my keyword in here” situation.

Here’s what I don’t want you to do:

• Don’t use your homepage keyword.
• Don’t use the keyword from your portfolio page.
• Don’t reuse keywords you’ve already targeted in other blog posts.

Those are already spoken for.

But you can go after more specific terms. Something like “what to wear for fall family photos” or a location-based keyword like a certain park or beach in your area. You can also target smaller cities around you. Even if those towns don’t show a ton of search volume in your keyword research, writing about them still tells Google that you’re local and that you work in those areas. It all adds up.

The key with photography blogging and SEO is to make sure you actually have enough content on the page. If you’re writing helpful, FAQ-style posts like the ones we’ve been talking about, hitting that 600-word minimum is easy. It’s so much easier to write about what to wear or your rain policy than to come up with new flowery things to say about every family session.

Don’t Forget to Sell Yourself

This is one I’m noticing more and more. Photographers write great blog posts with helpful content but forget to actually sell themselves. You’re providing value, yes. You’re trying to rank on Google, yes. But as Donald Miller says, you’ve got to ask for the sale.

Every blog post should have calls to action throughout it. Not just one at the bottom. Think about adding a button or link every few photos. “Are you looking for a family photographer? Click here.” Send them to your portfolio page, your contact page, or another helpful blog post. Mix it up.

You can also use your blog posts to grow your email list. But don’t just put a button that says “join my email list.” Nobody wants that. Give them a reason. If you’ve got mini sessions coming up, invite them to join your VIP list so they hear about it first. If you have a lead magnet that ties into the topic, mention it right there in the post.

And one more thing. Introduce yourself in every post. Don’t assume that people who land on your blog know who you are or what you do. Tell them. Make it easy for them to take the next step with you.

Repurpose Your Blog Posts Everywhere

Here’s where photography blogging really starts to pay off. One solid blog post can fuel weeks of content across all your platforms.

Take a “what to wear” post, for example. You could pull out a section on what dad should wear and turn that into an Instagram post. Then do the same for mom, kids, baby, and the color palette. That’s five or six social media posts from one blog post, each one linking back to the full article. You could schedule those to go out once a week for over a month.

You can also build a simple client dashboard, which is just a private page on your website that links to your most helpful blog posts. Once someone books, send them to that page so they can find everything they need in one spot. What to wear, how to prepare for a session, what to expect on their timeline. It keeps you from answering the same questions over and over, and it makes you look super organized.

And don’t forget about backlinks. When you write posts that are genuinely helpful, other people start linking to them. I’ve noticed this with my own content. People find a post, use it as a resource, and link back to it from their own site. That’s huge for your domain authority, and it happens naturally when your content is worth sharing.

Join The Blogging Club

If you love the idea of photography blogging but you’re still staring at a blank screen thinking, “I don’t know what to write,” that’s exactly what The Blogging Club is for. Every month, you’ll get blog post outlines that walk you through each section so you know exactly what to write and how to write it. I break it all down the same way I’ve done here, so you’ve always got a plan and you’re never starting from scratch.

Head to The Blogging Club and let’s get your blog working for you.

If you liked this post, we think you’ll love these:

AI Blogging for Photographers: How to Blog Better Than a Bot

What Is Evergreen Blog Content & Why Photographers Need It Now

How to Repurpose Blog Content Into 10+ Marketing Assets

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