Blogging is such a broad topic. There are thousands of tips and advice on how to succeed in blogging. Some advice works, some doesn’t. But not because the advice wasn’t good enough. There are a lot of reasons why they don’t work and the one I can think of right now is the industry or niche itself.
As I mentioned above, blogging is a very broad topic and one tip that worked for one blogger does not mean it will also work for you. You need to apply the advice that makes perfect sense for your blog.
On one hand for example, you have a photography blog and your audience includes aspiring photographers. By turning your blog into a go-to resource for information, it would make sense to always provide 101 guides. On the second hand, it won’t make sense to provide 101 guides for photography experts or enthusiasts.
But in this article, I am sharing ways to make your audience love your blog. Specifically, making them stay and fall in love with your photography blog. Let’s get to it.
1. Use High Quality Shot Photos
Being a photography blogger signifies that you know something about photography. You won’t just create a photography blog if you have never been a photographer – that is a fact. In that sense, your blog will not succeed if the photos you use are not attractive, if the shots are too blurry, or if there’s no artistry to them.
There is a saying, a picture is worth a thousand words. If you want to succeed in photo blogging, using this sort of quality photo will be well received by your target audience.
2. Provide Interesting Blog Topics
Another important tip to succeed in photo blogging is not just the quality of your photos alone. Your blog content idea has to be creative in a sense that it will capture the eyes and attention of your readers. Don’t publish something that has been talked about countless times in the internet. Otherwise, you will just bore visitors and send them away instead of keeping them.
You want to entice them with something they’ve never heard of before like this: Top Places in The Great Wall Movie Photographed.
3. Keep Images Working and Loading
One of the mistakes that websites often make is the failed to load image. Don’t let this happen to you. Always monitor your images to see if there are any 404 issues that affect their loading. Photos are the most important asset of a photography blog so don’t let any of your photos be gone from your database.
4. Viewable in Every Screen Resolution
In photo blogging, you just don’t publish the photos to your posts and walk away. You need to ensure that they will fit on every screen size and for every device’s resolution. By default, you must at least make sure to have your images fit to web browsers and mobile devices.
You can optimize your photos for selected gadget models once you identify which specific brands and models view photos on your blog the most.
Further Reading: MachoArts posted an article on the same topic.
5. Provide Contextual Content Alongside Your Images
To have a little excitement and to keep your readers engaged with your blog, adding paragraphs or a sentence will do. This is important because your audience will not just be looking at your photos, they are also looking for contextual information they can absorb.
6. Improve Page and File Loading
Similar to loading images, the format of your page is really important. Your page readability contributes a lot whether your blog will succeed or not. Regardless of how quality all your photos are or how unique your blog topics are, if your photos or content is misaligned to the point that it affects the readability of your page, all your efforts to make your blog impressive will fail.
7. Use Social Sharing Buttons
Happy readers are good traffic drivers. If your readers are happy with your photo blog, they will most likely share your content to their friends on social media. You need to make things easier for your readers to share your content and that’s where social sharing buttons come in.
The important thing you must keep in mind when adding social sharing buttons is to make sure that all information of your page is already provided by default such as the photo will appear in social posts, the description and the title (that are clear and to the point) are provided, and so forth.
8. Allow Visitors to Subscribe
It is no secret anymore. Increasing your email subscribers can make it easy to update your audience whenever you post something new or whenever you have to announce something that is worth sending in email.
One important thing about sending emails to your subscribers is to avoid selling them products or advertising other companies. It is a sin that easily ruins the trust and loyalty you established with your subscribers.
9. Communicate to Your Readers
You don’t just publish and leave your blog posts alone. To establish and strengthen your blogger to reader relationship, it is a common practice to respond to their comments. In this way, you can have a quick and focused conversation with your audience, which is the most important ingredient to a successful blogging career.
Responding to comments may be time consuming on your end as a blogger but it builds up the foundation of your relationship with your readers. So never ignore this tip no matter how busy your schedule is.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, the happiness and satisfaction of your readers is your end goal. The main reason why you are sharing something on your blog is to inspire and educate the people in your industry. Provide them the information they need and the attention they deserve and everything else will follow.