What does feeling sexy have anything to do with your business or your blog? When your business feels sexy, you show up online as an authority. Clients want to learn from and invest in you, and your brand is perceived with a higher value. For today’s episode, I’m sharing my take on how you can use blogging to show up online in a way that is empowered, aligned, and leads those dream clients right to you. 

On Quianna Marie Weekly, we’re chatting about business growing pains, finding genuine connections, and celebrating wins of all sizes through the lens of a photographer at heart. Sprinkled throughout stories and interviews with past clients, photographers and other business owners this podcast is designed to help you step into your purpose and to truly create a life you’re proud of, a life worth photographing and sharing.

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Today’s episode is brought to you by The Green House, my resource garden for photographers! Let me help you AMPLIFY your heart online and in real life to turn bridesmaids into future brides through templates, workshops, and freebies!

Review the Show Notes:

Why Should We Be Blogging? (3:24)

When Should You Be Blogging? (8:21)

How To Get Started (9:28)

Mentioned In This Episode:

Blogging Guide for Photographers

The Green House

Episode 47: Blogging + SEO to Amplify Your Weddings with Vanessa Hicks

Episode 36: Boosting Pinterest to Amplify Your Weddings with Jen Vazquez

Blogging Guide for Photographers That Hate Blogging

Review the Transcript:

I feel like now is officially the New Year back to work. It’s the middle of January, many of us have started implementing new morning routines we already have our vision boards created. And if you’re feeling really motivated, maybe you even change your passwords to new goals for the year and change your phone background for all your biggest manifestations for the year. Yeah, that’s a sneaky way to add those mental daily reminders to stay in alignment and subliminally keep those goals top of mine.

Today’s episode is brought to you by the blogging guide for photographers that hate to blog. Check out the greenhouse, your resource garden packed with guides, templates, education, and business Miracle Grow to help you plant deep roots and shine online throughout every season.

For episode #69, I’m feeling a little frisky and I want to shine light on the power of blogging, and how it can be really sexy for your business. What does feeling sexy have anything to do with your blog? Let’s break down what it means to me to feel sexy. Well, of course based on my own interpretation, feeling sexy means feeling confident in my own skin, feeling admired, cherished and attractive. It’s a feeling of empowerment, beauty and lust. When I feel intelligent, I feel admired. There’s nothing sexier than someone who knows what they’re doing. Plus, when I’m feeling sexy, let’s be honest, I usually get what I want.

Now, let’s flip that in terms of your business. When your business feels sexy, you show up online as an authority. Others want to learn from you and invest in you, you have a confidence that shines a bright, your brand is perceived with a higher value, you get my point here. Also, I don’t want to keep talking about this and taking it to the next level. But when your brand is air, quote, sexy, you find that you create loyalty with your clients and customers. I know so many women that only trust one stylist to do their hair, and they’ve been going to them for the last 15 years.

Or maybe they’re diehard fans of their favorite realtor. And you know what I’m talking about that guilt and shame when a family member or even you happen to use a different realtor or go through a different transaction with someone else like oh, that just feels wrong, right?

But do you see what I’m doing here? Let’s show up online, add value and help our dream clients find us. The secret is blogging. Welcome to Quianna Marie weekly, a podcast for creatives who love to celebrate wins big or small by dancing in the kitchen photographers who are excited to serve their clients and friends who are ready to chase really, really big dreams.

You can find all of the resources mentioned in this episode at QuiannaMarie.com/podcast. Join me as I share weekly motivation, chat about growing pains, finding genuine connections and celebrating your wins through the lens of a photographer at heart. Come join me for a dance party ready loves though?

I find that most businesses have a hard time blogging because they don’t know what to say or they suffer from writer’s block. Content blocking is a real thing. Okay, enough about the puns already. I can’t wait to crack down on some tips to help you feel empowered as a business owner, align yourself as the expert and gain a ton of inquiries without keeping up with trends or fighting algorithms.

First of all, why should we be blogging? Is it really something we need to add to our never ending list? Well, hold tight babe, let me share a quick statistic for you. According to Google, a person is doing a Google search almost every second, breaking the number down.

This means that the Google search volume is 145 million searches per hour 2.4 million per minute, and over 40,000 per second. This was just a quick search I made from Google proving that this is just one search engine on the entire internet. That’s a frickin lot of searches.

Now since I got caught up in the rabbit hole while searching that I quickly Googled more questions about the wedding industry and wedding photography industry. With just a random search, I found a source that claims that wedding photography, and that entire industry is estimated to hit $10 billion in revenue in 2023. In just one year, the wedding photography industry is projected to make it that much that’s a lot. Why don’t we jump on it and have a slice of that income.

Now, you may be thinking, Okay, those are big numbers and a lot of fluff for searches. What does that have to do with my blog? And I don’t think anybody actually reads blogs anymore. And you may even be thinking, I don’t even read blogs, like I look up recipes, and I have to scroll through all the stuff and things I don’t care about to just find the ingredients like who’s actually reading these blocks. Back to those Google searches.

Over 77% of online users are reading blogs daily. And once a Again, that’s a lot. So we may be thinking I’m actually reading these.

So what’s the point?

How Blogging is Like The Farmers Market

Here’s my take on blogging in a nutshell, I want you to think of your local farmers market. I love a good analogy. So I hope I don’t get you lost with this idea and the way my brain works, okay, so I want you to pretend like your local farmers market is the worldwide web.

Okay, neighbors, friends and locals are the internet users searching for products. Let’s be honest, most people that go to farmers markets love supporting local businesses, they’re already planning to pick up some fresh veggies and maybe a loaf of bread. But they’re hopeful to find unique gift ideas, tasty, yummy food, and maybe even pick up some CBD for their crazy dog. The locals that are attending are looking to spend money and may have something specific they’re looking for. Now, let’s pretend that you’re a healer hosting a booth that sells essential oils.

At your booth, you have crystals for sale, essential oil blends, full moon rituals, maybe some cute tops or items of clothing for sale. But you get my point that you don’t just sell essential oils. Now, I want to make a point before I continue with this crazy story, that your blog is your booth. If you’re consistently blogging, your booth will be at the farmers market every weekend. If you’re only sporadically blogging, then you’ll be that one guy with the best also in town that comes and goes sometimes he’s here, sometimes he’s there, sometimes he’s not there at all.

You know exactly what type of business I’m talking about. They’re inconsistent with showing up and it’s a lucky day when they’re there. Hopefully you make it in time before they sell out. Okay, so now before I lose you on this idea is important to share that at the farmers market, you’re going to meet new friends, old friends, customers that purchase from you every single week, people that pass by or only pick up a card, you may even have locals walked by and then circle back with a group of girlfriends and say, This is the girl this is the business I was talking about.

BOOM! You’re present, open for business and ready to sell. Maybe one customer popped over because she saw your crystals, but ended up purchasing an essential oil blend. Maybe another girl didn’t purchase anything at all, but she’s attending your friends sacred yoga class that you’re promoting on your table. Boom, you just made a new friend, a new connection and a possible future customer.

The whole point of this analogy, like I’m saying, like I’m trying not to lose you on this is to prove that blogging, just like a booth at the farmers market is a way to show up for your dream clients. If you’re not showing up on your blog, aka if you’re not showing up at your farmers market. How are anybody going to find you? We have dream couples, clients and customers that are praying to find us. They want to luxury experience for photography or insert.

Of course, whatever you’re offering, or whatever you’re selling, they’re craving connection and want to feel understood. They have a problem, or they need help with something and you are the answer to their prayers. Blogging is a beautiful and efficient way to pop up. When those 1000s of searches happen, every frickin second, will your business be present when they’re searching? Back on episode number 47, I had the honor of interviewing Vanessa Hicks and she dumped a ton of knowledge. I’m talking like mic drop moments, all about education and blogging and SEO.

If you missed that, definitely circle back and add that episode to your playlist.Now that I’ve probably confused you about why you should be blogging, let’s dive into when should you be blogging?

Why should we be blogging?

What’s the good cadence for your business? Even if you’re thinking I don’t know, this seems like too much work for me or I’m not. I’m just not a good writer. I don’t want to this is your answer to just start and then we’ll figure it out later. Personally, I’m a huge fan of consistency and efficiency. Maybe that’s only once a week for you, or once a month. Anything that doesn’t feel too overwhelming. You own your blog. I know we hear this often, but we don’t own our social media platforms.

Now, I don’t think Mehta or meta will ever actually go away like Instagram and Facebook, they’re here to stay. They’re these huge, huge businesses that like are just so out of our leagues, right like I don’t think they’re ever really go down. But there are so many factors out of our control, like accounts getting hacked, are losing access.

That’s really scary to have our business in the hands of someone else. Let’s own it. They own our value, own our visibility, own our success, we’re in charge. So when should we be blogging?

When should we be blogging?

I say as often as you can without feeling overwhelmed. How to Get Started when you really hate writing or don’t know what to say. I would start with your client experience. Sometimes we’re so close to our business. That what we do daily feels easy and repetitive. But our dream clients want to know about them. Break down your offers, showcase the checkpoints of your business and how well you serve your clients.

Share your best work, highlight vendors and cross promote. Your Blog doesn’t have to be packed with education, insights and information. It literally just needs a couple of key words and some text to share just enough info to get picked up by Google, the best part about being a photographer is that we have tons and tons of images to share.

You can literally share a blog post with just a handful of images and blasts that you’re a Dallas wedding photographer and lead them right to your website or a client review on the knot. It shouldn’t take a ton of effort or require too much of your time. In episode #36, I interviewed Jen Vazquez was my favorite Pinterest expert and she shares a ton of value about showing up online and easily adding Pinterest and blogging to your workflow to keep it super simple and repeatable.

Think of your frequently asked questions, you could create one blog listing them out as one thought blog or create a series to sprinkle out a handful of must reads, This is a great way to catch someone scrolling, maybe they pop into I don’t know maybe your tip number seven or something. And then they want to Netflix and chill your blog or website to continue wanting more.

So you kind of hook them and grab them. And then it leaves them scrolling back through other posts and they just kind of like get stuck in that old like rabbit hole that you’ve created. Instead of focusing on creating blogs to find new customers and book more weddings, consider whipping up blogs that will be helpful for your current clients. That’s like a huge aha moment right?

There are some times it just takes a shift in our mindset. And all of a sudden the ideas start flooding. If you get anything from today’s episode, please remember this. You’re amazing. You create unforgettable experiences in front of your camera. Your heart is bigger than your fears. You truly add so much light, love and joy everywhere you go. We just need more eyeballs on your business. And if you know me, you know I’m super Italian. I’m literally like dancing with my hands over here.

Like we just need more people to see you. You need to slow some scrolls and show up online. Your dream clients are praying to find you. Blogging is really an easy way to gain visibility for the longevity of your business. Next week on the podcast, I’ll be sharing about the many opportunities that popped up into my inbox directly into my email simply because they found me through my blog. Yes, many inquiries come directly through Instagram.

But more come organically through Google searches. Remember those 1000s and 1000s of Google searches we started with.

That’s how they’re finding me.

Check out the shop to learn more about one of my original digital products called blogging for photographers that hate to blog. Yes, I literally named it that because it’s true.

Photographers didn’t get into business to sit behind our laptops as often as we do. We started our business to be more more connected to do more of what we love, boost financial freedom, make our own schedules and live a life of purpose and value for others around us.

Blogging is the ticket your Fastpass to more booked weddings, increasing your pricing, making an impact and finding balance between work and life. I created this blogging guide to help you show up online with over 50 blogging prompts and title ideas, sharing the different types of audiences you should be writing for. And even more key tips and ideas to help you think of blogging has been sexy and exciting again, instead of annoying and daunting.

I can’t wait for next week’s episode to share a bunch of examples of how blogging works so well for the growth, authority and increased value for my business and how it can help yours blow up to your dream clients are looking for you. They’re hoping to find you. We just need to show up for them. Take a peek at the greenhouse, your resource garden for photography and business education.

Check out the show notes or visit QuiannaMarie.com/shop To learn more about the blogging guide for photographers that hate to blog and many more resources for you. I’m so lucky to have you here and look forward to watching your business bloom. I know you’re incredible, and I can’t wait to watch you continue to thrive.

Thank you my love wishing you the best today and always keep on dancing baby. Love you. That’s a wrap on another episode of Quianna Marie Weekly. Thank you so much for your listenership and support. You can find the resources and show notes for this episode and more at Quianna Marie.com/podcast. I’d be honored if you show your support by leaving a review and rating on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, keep on dancing!