Photo Blogging “Success” Stories

In case you haven’t heard, blogs aren’t just online journals anymore, they are powerful business tools that can be leveraged to increase traffic to your site, gain recognition for your work, and ultimately drive more photo assignments and image sales.

In our most recent ebook, the Photography Blog Handbook we offer tools,
guidance, and strategies to help photographers become better bloggers. While writing the guide, we asked photo bloggers to share their “most successful” blog posts. But, as Jim Goldstein of JMG Galleries astutely pointed out:

“‘Successful’ could mean a few things… most ‘popular’, most viewed, most successfully found by search engines or most discussed? I suppose success is relative depending on your goals. Something to keep in mind.”

Well said Jim.

So how do you gauge “success” on your blog? What are your goals and how are you tracking your progress?  And what are you doing to set yourself up for repeat performances of your greatest hits? Here’s what the bloggers we asked had to say about the secrets behind their most “successful” posts.

Update: Robert Seale shared a “success” story of his own so we thought we’d pass it along…

I would say the post that generated the most traffic was the Lance Armstrong shoot post.
 

After it was posted on Strobist, etc… the traffic really took off.  I typically get between 75-200 visitors a day on my website, and I had a single day with 900 visitors after this post. Eventually, I was contacted by a cycling magazine, and was able to license one of the Lance images into a cover sale.

Marc Feustel of eyecurious

An interview with Hiroh Kikai. Quite a few other bloggers linked to the post, including the big names. I think this was also successful because there is very little content in English about Kikai and a lot of people really liked his book Asakusa Portraits.

 

[my personal favourite] was on the changing nature of the word “curator.” I consider this post to have been more “successful” because it led to more debate and was used by Flak Photo to start an online discussion on Facebook on this subject. Being able to generate discussion is one of the main aims of my blogging activity – not just telling people my opinion.

Jennifer Spelman of Photo Coleslaw

My most successful Photo coleslaw post was entitled, Surrender. The piece was written about the trials that emerging photographers often face, the uncertainty that is inherent within making a living in this business.

One line from that piece, “Surviving the photography business is one part vision, one part business and all heart,” seemed to resonate with a lot of people. Snippets of the post were posted on a couple of large audience photo blogs and from there I was able to just watch the piece continue to spread. The success of the piece came from a combination of speaking in an honest voice and spreading it to as many networks as I could.

Todd Owyoung of ishootshows.com

By far, the popular blog post I’ve written was a detailed tutorial on how to make a DIY beauty dish for small flashes, which went relatively viral on message boards and forums. One aspect of the post’s success was that it was a well-made design, but more importantly, it was a project that people could easily make themselves.

Once they’d finished the beauty dish, many people posted their own versions of the design, which created a chain of trackbacks that repeatedly generated interest in the original tutorial. So in this regard, the DIY beauty dish gave people something that they could literally make their own and which they were genuinely interested in sharing.

Now, the tutorial for the DIY beauty dish is the number one Google search result for “DIY beauty dish.”

Jim Goldstein of JMG Galleries

My most commented post was How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend with 244 comments.

The post was timely, educational, and raised a red flag to a hot button issue. It was a wake up call for people unfamiliar with some of the weaknesses of Flickr or at a minimum depending on your view point the lax enforcement of the Flickr API. I suppose that could still be debated, but it’s impact at the time was that it was a real eye opener and provided value to my readers and the photography community at large.

Michael Zhang of PetaPixel

Our most successful blog post so far as been Scientific Curiosity Captured in Photos. I’m guessing it was extremely popular because the photographs we featured by caleb charland were creative, fun, and unique.

Rachel Hulin of the Photography Blog

Surprisingly enough, it was a post about painting. Specifically, it was about the documentary My Kid Could Paint That on Marla Olmstead, the four-year-old prodigy.

There’s wide speculation that her father was making the paintings himself, which the filmmaker himself came to believe. I think my post is pretty high on google now, so people keep coming and adding comments.

Share your “success” story:  What was your most successful blog post? And what made it such a hit? Be sure to include a link.