Imagine creating a tiny piece of content that increases your revenue and connects you with your dream clients for YEARS after you’ve hit publish. In today’s episode, I’m humbly bragging about the ways that blogging has done just that in my business. With just a little bit of planning and intention, blogging has changed my life and it can so easily do the same for 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:

Align Yourself As The Expert (2:59)

Time Saving + Business Growing (6:04)

Resources + Affiliate Links (8:13)

Mentioned In This Episode:

Blogging Guide for Photographers That Hate Blogging

The Green House

Episode 41: Creating Workflows and Systems to Amplify Your Weddings with Laura Murphy

Review the Transcript:

In last week’s episode, I chatted all about how blogging can be sexy. I know we all have our own definitions of what’s hot, what’s not, and what’s totally worth our time or not. So I thought it’d be a good idea to share a bragging episode, not to brag about my wins. But to share that with just a little bit of planning and blogging, it’s totally possible for you to imagine creating a tiny piece of content that really only takes about an hour of your life to throw together and having that blog, increase your revenue. Still getting hits and creating connections, years, I’m talking years after hitting publish.

Even if you’re listening, convinced that you’re not a blogger or not interested in blogging at all. I’m not here to convince you or to persuade you to do anything that you don’t want to do. But maybe if I share a handful of ways, blogging makes my life easier and big account bigger. It may just be worth to just listen and learn more. Welcome to Kiana 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?

Wouldn’t it be amazing to have an entire calendar filled with Dream weddings and frickin awesome clients? Can you imagine aligning yourself as the expert by simply sharing what you already know? How would it make you feel to attract dream couples from around the world to photograph dreamy destination weddings, hello, Italy Hello Mexico.

Pack your bags baby. Even if all those sounds amazing, wouldn’t it be a blessing to cut down the time in front of your laptop to enjoy more freedom doing what you love with your favorite people. Logging has helped bring so many amazing opportunities to my life and business and I can’t be gatekeeping over here. Today’s episode is brought to you by the blogging guide for photographers that hate to blog.

This is super affordable digital workbook is packed with easy blogging prompts, tips and tricks to crush your writer’s block and your guide to showing up online to shine. The brighter you are, the easier it is for your dream clients to find you learn how to turn your website into the lighthouse on the rocky shores that your drowning clients are praying to find.

Check out the greenhouse your resource garden for education and inspiration to learn more. Let’s dive into three of the top life changing moments blogging has brought into my life and how it can easily do the same for you. key tip number one, align yourself as the expert.

How many times do you wish your dream clients would just trust you tired of keeping up with algorithms?

There are so many businesses showing up online drowning our visibility every single day, it feels impossible to keep up? What if blogging helped with some deep rooted SEO to land your website on the phones, iPads and laptops of your dream clients? What if your website was a tab that never closed out on someone’s browser instead of just a scroll through on social media?

Key Tip #1 – Aligning Yourself As The Expert

Blogging is a way to align yourself as the expert educate your dream clients answer their questions and completely wow them by helping them with questions, answers and ideas that they never even asked for. Think about it. Imagine you’re thinking of a honeymoon or vacation in Italy. Wouldn’t you feel like you hit the jackpot if you found a Pinterest pin for the safest most beautiful Airbnbs on the Amalfi Coast. That pin brought you to a cute travel influencers blog. And while you’re reading about the best Airbnbs you find more blog posts about the best trains, plane hoppers and transportation to actually, like safely get to Italy, you see something else about the best time of year to travel to avoid crowds.

Another posts lead you to the five best cooking classes near the Amalfi Coast. And another article on that same blog shares the best local restaurants that serve the yummiest Margherita pizzas and gelato. Some are super high end and fancy restaurants, some are affordable and local and some are great to just pick up mozzarella and tomato sandwiches for your boat ride, which of course has recommendations for the best boat rentals and tours.

Okay, so I’m going to stop daydreaming about Italy for a sec, but you get my point.

Creating blogs creates credibility.

When you can get on a roll sharing wedding tips, vendor referrals, real wedding galleries, and a ton of education for your couples.

They’ll be hooked.

Do you see this time I’m an age with technology, almost anyone can take pretty pictures. Now, I can argue with you about that forever. As you know, I don’t believe that, but it takes an expert to create and make beautiful photography. Our wedding experiences are so much more than showing up and taking pics. We help set the mood while dancing between creating and capturing the day unfold. You’re already doing the work in person.

Now we just need to get that online. So new people outside of our network can find us and book us. Now that I have you dreaming of a trip to Italy. PS we should all go. Let’s go back to creating our own blogs for success. Before we move on to the next tip, I want to share that blogging has connected me to booking international weddings and Mexico, engagement shoots in Italy, elopements in Colorado and weddings all up and down the state of California.

With an influx of technology and social media, it’s tough to pinpoint exactly where these inquiries are routed from. But it’s the best feeling ever when someone says they found me online or through my blog. It totally works.

So what exactly do we write about?

Key Tip #2 – Time Saving + Business Growth

This leads me to key tip number two, time saving and business growing. We all should have great workflows and emails set up through the wedding experience. If you need help, or maybe it’s time for some updates, check out episode #41, Creating Systems and Workflows with Laura Murphy. She’s the expert and she’s so amazing at streamlining your business. And I always learn a ton from her literally just every conversation we have.

So make sure you follow her online too. So how exactly does blogging save us time when it takes time to blog? I know that doesn’t make any sense. I want you to think about your frequently asked questions. What should I wear for my engagement? Shoot? What are your favorite beach locations for engagement sessions?

Can you recommend your favorite makeup and hairstylist? Have you ever shot at Willow heights mansion? These are just a handful of frequently asked questions that I’m sure you can relate to insert your local venues and your local vendors right? Wouldn’t it be amazing to create a bundle of blogs that answer these questions. Then when someone sends an email or slides into your DM’s you can copy and paste a quick link to answer their question with a blog. Boom.

You just saved yourself minutes if not hours of your time. Plus, if you circle back to key tip number one, it aligns yourself as the expert and those current or future dream clients will Netflix and chill the crap out of your blog. You’ll get them hooked. How did this approach helped my business grow?

By answering the burning questions our clients have highlighting vendors and showcasing venues I’m creating super shareable content. Since I’ve been creating the types of blogs I landed on prefer vendor lists for my favorite local venues. venues will backlink my blog to showcase weddings at their vineyard or their venue to this day. I’m still getting inquiries from Leal Winery, Clos LaChance, Kirigin Cellers, Nestledown, Cinnabar Hills and many, many more of my favorite venues to shoot in. I’d say love South Bay, right so Bay area, but really Morgan Hill Santa Cruz, that’s where my hometown is.

This is totally possible for you and your local connections.

Key Tip #3 – Resources and Affiliate Links

If you’re a photographer scrolling Tiktok and Instagram, I’m sure your feed is flooded with affiliate marketing ideas. At least. That’s what my algorithm is pushing me. I used to think that affiliate links were great for other businesses so more business to business.

If I share my living room studio setup, other photographers always reach out for links and more info I rarely get an inquiry from you know from like an actual content or a brand looking for photos. Like they come through my DMs but they’re not specifically asking questions about the backdrop or my lighting, right. I know Natalie Frank, for example, shared a blog post about her favorite shoe to wear to work weddings. And to this day, she’s getting a stream of income from other affiliates and it’s just insane how that stream of income is still dripping to her years later.

I challenge you to take a different perspective with your dream clients as brides, grooms, bridesmaids, groomsmen, flower girls, mothers of the bride and wedding guests instead. So instead of thinking that you have to market to other photographers to get ahead or other like business to business, why aren’t we marketing and creating affiliate links and resources and blogs for our current clients and the people that are around them? Right? So for example, I wrote a blog years ago that listed 50 wedding guest dresses under $50.

Another was 75 affordable getting ready outfits for bridesmaids and another blog was all about recently engaged gift ideas. Each of these blogs highlighted my favorite finds on Amazon and LinkedIn directly with an affiliate link. So anyone that purchases it, I’ll get a tiny fraction but literally get paid if someone uses my my link to purchase so even to this day, I am still and guys I mean, totally transparent here it is literally cents on the dollar. Like, I’m not getting rich with these particular affiliate links.

But the cool part is is monthly, like every month that’s growing. But when I first started, I was making $17 a month $40 a month, I was literally getting a whole tank of gas for free. Essentially, because of these blog posts that I had shared years ago. It really works. I really also love supporting small businesses and local businesses, and which is why I find it so important to blog about your favorite vendors by highlighting them individually. Or create a list of your top five florist or your favorite local Santa Cruz catering companies.

For example, you can get so creative with different ways that you can market your dream team, highlight specific people or make them a part of your series. You see how the opportunities are endless. Instead of it feeling daunting. Just start, start blogging and having your business show up online. If you’re interested, but still feeling stuck, check out the blogging guide for photographers that hate to blog. It’s literally made for you head over to the greenhouse to learn more. Last week’s episode number 69 was all about trying to make your blog feel sexy, empowered and worthy of being seen.

You are worthy, my love, you have so much to share, and clearly are passionate about your business and purpose. Share it, post it, build it, talk about it, share it some more and they will come. I’m thankful that my blog has brought on endless opportunities to connect me to my dream clients. It’s allowed me to travel, build lasting friendships, and increase my revenue in so many different ways. I’m always cheering for you, babe, if you’re still listening, thank you.

Thank you for being here and supporting this wildest dream. I’m so grateful for you. I don’t even have the words. It just makes me want to cry to think that you’re, you’re still here. You’re still listening. I appreciate you. If you have a quick question and you are interested, please send me a DM and say hey Qui! I need help coming up with some blogging ideas and prompts. I will be so happy to give you a handful of blogging ideas that you can literally start writing next week.

Let’s get on it.

Okay, I’m sending you sunshine, love and confetti from Arizona. Can’t wait for next week’s episode to introduce you to my new passion project! Lucky 13 will be monthly content and brand new shoots that I am committed to photographing the 13th of every single month this next year. Oh boy. It’s going to be so much fun and I can’t wait to tell you all about it. 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 Kiana murray.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.