Picture Perfect – A Guide To Photo Blogging
A photo blog (also called photolog or phlog) is a great example of the modern tendency to stay connected at all times and to share as much information with virtual strangers (pun intended!) as possible. Photo blogging is essentially, therefore, the phenomenon of photo sharing and publishing in the form of a blog, obviously characterized by the use of and emphasis on photographs rather than on text. Photo blogging (posting photos to a blog) has been on a drastic upswing since the early 2000s, particularly given the tremendous advancement in digital camera technology, which means all of us can take photographs these days, and post them directly to a photo blog from the camera.
As most of you might know, there are three chief kinds of photo blogs: those that exist on personal domains, blogging services that were designed for text content but can also accommodate images, and exclusive photo blogging services such as Flickr.
As is obvious, setting up a photo blog involves following the same procedures as exist in case of a normal text blog, and access to most photo blogs is free. Given the ease with which a photo blog can be created these days, it comes as no surprise that photo blogging has become such a rage. Of course, it also means that quality control is a bit tricky, since any and every individual armed with a camera may legitimately launch a photo blog, but if you are really confident about the quality of your photos, and if both friends and unknown visitors have provided positive feedback, you could try promoting your photo blog exactly the way a text blog is promoted, and by placing related ads on it, you may also earn money from your blog.
Besides, in these fluid times, who knows whether your works will draw the attention of connoisseurs, and you will become accepted as a serious photographer as a consequence? So the next time you step on to that mountain trail, keep the camera handy. Remember, a photo blog awaits you.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
The biggest problem I see with blogs that only post photos is their search engine saturation.
It is very difficult to get ranked in google for any specific keyword when there isn’t much text-based content.
For those starting a photo blog, I’d recommend at least adding some text to each post that might explain your thoughts, or what you were doing, or something.
I agree with you. It is hard to get ranked with a blog like this. If people are going to start a Blog like this, then they should definitely make sure they know where they are going to get traffic from besides search engines.
It is important to add some personal photos on your blog of you because your audience loves to know a little bit about the person whose blog they are reading. Building this type of relationship is priceless
Definitely. People want to know you at some sort of personal level.
Speaking of photos, what is your take on using the photo from someone else’s site and linking to it. You could even credit the site.
I recently heard that this is taboo, but I’m not sure what other people are doing.
I am really not big on taking photos from other people’s website even if you credit them. I would use a source like Flickr. It at least tells you if you can use their picture or not.
Never heard the term ‘phlog’, lol. But a photo blog is indeed great for getting noticed. I have found the work of many talented photogs this way and have personally sent others to these websites.
And @Steven-Sanders, adding descriptive text is important for SEO.
I use a lot of photos for my site. It’s perfect for the niche. It can add a dynamic to a site that written content sometimes misses. It’s also great for visitors who want a quick fix.
I would say that there are two things you can do to increase your chances of being found by the search engines.
1. Name your photo the same name, or similar, as the title of your post/keyword.
2. Add alternative text to your photo and main keyword.
3. Add some text (as metnioned already).
By just doing the first two, you would be amazed at how many of your images will be found in Google’s image search.
Chris Pearson (guy who wrote Thesis) has a long running thread (239 comments) about how to maximize the use of images.
The post in question –> http://sn.im/rjoi5
Top 5 to do, according to Chris
1. A src attribute specifying the URL of the image
2. A width declaration in which the width of the image is specified in pixels
3. A height declaration in which the height of the image is specified in pixels
4. An alt attribute that describes the content of the image—this is the #1 element of image-oriented SEO
5. A title attribute that contains text to be displayed when the user hovers his/her mouse over the image