The 27-Step Guide to Starting a Photography Business in 2024

The only difference between an amateur and a professional photographer is that the other gets paid to shoot photos.

That’s it.

Contrary to popular belief, there’s no magical yardstick that sizes you up and determines if you’re skilled enough to produce decent photos for a fee. You don’t need anyone’s permission to get started and pursue becoming a pro. You only need to find paying clients for your first project and boom – you’re now an official professional photographer.

I started out shooting gigs from Craigslist for $50 a pop, now I’m charging $400+ for 1 hr sessions (see how much other top photographers charge). I’ll take a deep dive throughout my business and show you 27 things you can do today to get your photography business running. This post is a massive 6000+ words long, it might be worthy of bookmark. Here’s my little tl;dr to get you started.

The tl;dr – I’m a specialist in headshots and portraiture, I would 100% recommend specializing in the area of photography you’re most passionate about. For me, if you love what you do, it doesn’t feel like work. And I’ve found clients are more inclined to hire a specialist, then a generalist.
From there, you’ll want to build your portfolio. Start with friends and family, not only will they appreciate it, but you’ll be most comfortable with them.
Unless you’re willing to fund the additional overhead, I’d start by shooting outdoors. “Golden Hour,” ie. The hour before or after sunset is the preferred time for photographers for the best lighting. Don’t be afraid to shoot from your home studio, I’ve had a commercial studio, and a home studio, and you can be successful in either.
As far as equipment, you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars. Clients don’t want to buy your camera, they’re buying your skills as a photographer. I started with a pretty cheap camera and upgraded as I became profitable.
For marketing, I get about 80% of my clients through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Google. The rest through Yelp, referrals and Thumbtack. But I know other photographers who receive most of their clients through Facebook and Instagram. I would recommend testing different marketing channels and finding out what works best for you.

Alright, so you’re preparing to make the biggest leap of your life – possibly from a 9-5 you don’t particularly enjoy and into professional photography – you’re going to need a game plan. In today’s guide, we’re running through a step-by-step process that’ll set you on the right course towards running a profitable photography business in 2021.

The first 8-steps will take some time and a lot of thinking, the last 19-steps will be actionable, things you can do today! Feel free to skip ahead if you’d like, but let’s start with #1…

#1 – Set Expectations – You can’t just be a photographer, the majority of work is on the business side. 

Newsflash. The second you start taking payment for your photography services, you become a bona fide small business owner. Running a photography business means taking on more responsibility on top of delivering high quality photos for a client. You’ll now be in charge of marketing, bookkeeping, and customer service – you know, just about everything that makes every business on earth run.

It’s just you going ‘round town promoting your business, following up on client meetings, closing projects, dealing with the tax season stress, and so on. The whole professional photography business thing is at a generous 25% shooting and 75% deskwork split. And you should expect to keep doing all these things by yourself in the first couple of years of your career at least.

So if you’re the type of hobbyist who’s deathly afraid of being too “salesy” or the idea of constant cold calling prospects, it might be a good idea to reconsider going pro.

Pye Jirsa of SLR Lounge says that the “vast majority” of creatives going into professional photography failed in the first two years. But if you go into it with the right expectations – not daydreaming about an influencer/rockstar photographer with a 4-hour workweek lifestyle on your first year – you might come out just fine.

Here’s some tough love from Pye plus 5 other things to consider before starting a photography business.

#2 – Pick a Niche in Photography 

Focus on just one genre of photography when starting out. Doing so offers a couple of core advantages for you and your brand. First, if you for example choose to focus on maternity portraits, you’ll become “the” guy/gal who shoots really awesome maternity photos, and not “some” photographer who shoots okay maternity photos, concerts, sports, products – you get the idea. Guess which professional will get more calls from expecting couples looking for portraits.

Second, niching down helps you keep all your marketing message laser-focused and not become a shotgun approach mess. Your customers can’t be everyone, so you better spend most of your energy marketing towards a targeted group of people who are more likely to buy your photography services.

Now, there are certainly a not of niches that I recommend adding to your services regardless if you specialize in something like portrait photography:

  • Product photography is a good one, most people just need white background Amazon type photos for their new product they’re launching… it’s a nice and easy niche to make a little extra money. There are now a lot of online services offering product photography, which will cut into sales, but customers often don’t like dealing with shipping and thus you could make an easy $100+ a product. I added this service and I would say I’ve made about $5k a year from product photos – and I only do white background to keep it simple. If you added more lifestyle and branding type photos, there are plenty of photographers who make $100k+ through branding and commercial photography.
  • Food Photography – Somewhat related to product photography, food photos will always be in-demand, and will always need a local photographer. It just requires a small investment in food photography props and you’re ready to start making some extra $$$.
  • Real Estate Photographer – You really just need a wide angle lens and a tripod, and a few real estate gigs can easily pay for itself. It’s true, it’s a pretty competitive field and a lot of real estate agencies have either trained someone in-house, or they’ve hired an in-house photographer because it basic real estate photography is pretty simple. Photos will make you decent money, but I’d say adding real estate videography is where the real money is at.

#3 Buy the Right Photography Gear

I shot my first gig on a Panasonic GX1, and have kept shooting with a small mirrorless camera since. No one’s ever questioned the gear I use, or the size of my camera. If you read the photography forums in the early mirrorless days, DSLR users said people would scoff at the size of a mirrorless camera thinking of it as “less professional.” You rarely hear that anymore as the camera market is dominated by mirrorless cameras.

People aren’t buying a camera, they’re buying your skills as a photographer.

After you’ve settled on a genre of photography you want to focus on, it’s time to pick the right gear for the job. Emphasis on the “right” gear and not the “best” gear. I’m well aware that getting gear envy or just plain old GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) is a very real part of every creative’s journey, but getting more gear that you can responsibly afford at this stage of your career might not be the wisest business decision.

Budget is often a major constraint when it comes to building your first camera system. So if you’re working with a tight budget, I you could think about the used market to get the most bang for your buck. Also checkout my post on the Best Mirrorless Camera Under $1000 for my take on what camera you should buy.

While we can’t cover every piece of gear you’ll need for your business, since this would be heavily dependent on your style and photography genre, we’ll be running through some pointers that can help you with your buying decision.

Camera – Selecting a camera body influences almost every aspect of your entire photography equipment. You’re going to have to do your homework here and find what’s going to fit your requirements. For example, if you were to shoot newborn photography, you might not need speed demons that can shoot 10 frames a second. If you were to go into landscapes, you might want to find a camera that has robust weather sealing for that extra peace of mind. It’s always better for you and your bank account’s sake if you can be honest and able to draw a line between what you need, and what you want.

Here’s Matt Granger with some solid advice on picking up your first camera:

Lenses – One great little tool that can help you figure out which lenses you should get for your “professional” arsenal is your kit lens. Just dive into your metadata and identify your most used focal lengths and base your next lens purchases from there.

Another tip that can help you save money is looking at relatively “slower”, though cheaper native primes for your system. Almost every camera brand has a budget-friendly f/1.8 prime starting at the 35mm to 85mm range that should be more than enough to get you rolling.

I also highly recommend checking out third party alternatives from Samyang/Rokinon because beyond making gorgeous glass, they pretty much have an awesome offering for every sensor size and mount available. If you were to go for a mirrorless system, you’ll also be opening yourself up to a whole new world of quality legacy lenses you can get for cheap.

David Manning has an awesome lens buying roadmap that you can use for reference. He primarily shoots weddings, but the insights and reasoning behind every lens purchase will prove useful for a lot of beginners.

Lighting – If you want to go into weddings, fashion, commercial photography or any genre that involves taking photos of human beings, you’re going to need a few lighting gear. No, you can’t hide behind being a “natural light photographer” forever.

I realize getting into off-camera flash can be intimidating as it’s another load of technical stuff that you’ll need to wrangle with when starting out. But getting out of your comfort zone and learning such a powerful set of skills this early will pay dividends throughout your professional career.

Start with just one light. You’ll be surprised with just how much you can do with such a simple set up. Getting a complete lighting kit can be affordable, too. I recommend going with a third party flash from Godox or Yongnuo — they make really competitive flashes at the fraction of the cost of native flash offerings.

You could skimp on a good light stand at first, but I’d eventually get a c-stand (plus, they just look so much more professional).

And whether or not you want to shoot studio shots, get one photography background (you can start with a collapsible/reversible one for under $100). Trust me, just shooting headshots and it will pay off in spades.

Here’s Matt Granger once again with a comprehensive, off-camera flash buying guide that covers everything you need to know about flashes, triggers and light stands.

https://youtu.be/RTXKhV7BJ8s

#4 – Invest in your Photography Education

Look, no one wants to see you fumble about with your camera’s thirty different dials looking all stressed out on location, especially paying clients. Do a bit of honest self-assessment and figure out which part of your skillset will need some polishing.

Thinking about going into real estate photography but have only photographed people since you’ve picked up a camera? Check out Fstoppers’ paid course and build a portfolio off of what you learn from there. If you were flirting with fashion photography, and haven’t worked with off-camera flash before, there’s a wealth of free and paid resources out there for you to get the fundamentals down. CreativeLive is one my favorites that you can livestream for free, provided you can watch it live.

When you’ve decided on your area of focus, you’ll want to get both the creative and technical aspects of the job covered. Get yourself educated on the craft and then mix it up with real-world shooting experience (by doing test shoots), and you’d well on your way to becoming a true, unshakeable professional photographer that’ll come out of a session with photos worth paying for, come hell or high water.

#6 – Define Short Term Goals

Setting the right goals will keep you on track and focused. You’re going to need short term goals — goals that you can realistically do between today and the next couple of months. This could be something as simple as committing to becoming more proficient with cataloguing your photos on Lightroom, learning a complex compositing technique, or getting comfortable shooting with three external lights.

High on your priority list should be testing out different advertising platforms:

  • Google Ads – My personal favorite, once you find a successful campaign, utilize the high converting keywords and create a SEO plan do you don’t have to pay for Google ads anymore because you’ll start ranking organically!
  • Facebook and Instagram Ads – Facebook/Instagram have great targeting options, you can target engaged couples (engagement and elopement shoots), women who are pregnant (maternity shoots), and even by income!
  • Thumbtack – It’s Pay Per Lead, and often requires pitching because prospective clients are shopping on there, but it’s the fastest way to get the ball rollin’ with your business.

#7 – Long Term Goals – Create a Business Plan

Now long term goals are what you’ll look forward to in your photography journey. Long term goals could broad or as specific as you want them to be — from netting six figures in your third year of going pro, to delivering the cover photo for a prestigious fashion magazine. These goals will serve as your proverbial lighthouse in a storm of a rocky, unpredictable and honestly scary voyage of being a small business owner.

A business plan would allow you to articulate the strategic steps that you’ll need to execute to achieve every goal you set. This’ll include assessing your strengths and weaknesses, identifying opportunities for your business, doing market research, and developing marketing strategies.

A lot of photography businesses that dropped off the face of the earth in their first two years had bulletproof business plans in place. Imagine your odds coming out successful – no, profitable – if you were to decide to just wing it and go in headfirst without anything resembling a plan.

We’ve already covered a few core principles that you’ll find in a business plan so far, but fleshing out an A-Z professional photography business plan is a bit outside of the scope of this article. Fortunately for you, SLR Lounge has done an impeccable three-part series on crafting a simple business plan for photographers. It’ll cover everything from identifying your target market, conducting a simple S.W.O.T. analysis, to creating a mission statement for your business so I highly recommend checking it out.

#8 – Build a Strong Portfolio

Now that you’ve purchased all the gear you need, invested time and money into honing your technical and creative skills, and written a simple business plan, it’s time to get to work. Well, not real-real paid work just yet. That’ll come after you’ve put together your first photography portfolio.

A good, strong photography portfolio should lead you to the type of jobs you want to do. Let’s say you want to shake up a certain niche. Let’s say you wanted to take boring engagement sessions to a whole new level by… exclusively shooting uber-dramatic, engagement photos that follow a film noir aesthetic. What you need to do is organize a couple or more test shoots to come up with the pieces to a solid body of work that’ll show your unique, personal vision. Call up friends and family or anyone willing to model for you. Do a few free shoots for good old exposure if you want — do everything to make it happen.

The example above might be on the extreme end, but it highlights an important point. Your portfolio should showcase your style and creativity, and tell your clients what they can expect from you. Go experiment and try to come up with a coherent, striking portfolio that’ll get the right clients to stop scrolling through their feed and pick up the phone.

Here’s Evan Raft with 7 solid tips that’ll help you get started with your photography portfolio.

#9 – Picking your Business Name and Start a Website

I’d recommend just branding under your name, mine is simply Jay Soriano Photography. But if you’re planning on scaling, bringing on associate photographers, etc. coming up with a name for your business might be best.

Next step to starting your photography website, register your domain. And this step allows you to check if your name is available too (which is what you want!). Some people choose .photography domains for more name options, but I’d still personally recommend the .com version as it’s still what most people are familiar with.

You should also check if your name is available on various social media platforms, namely Instagram and Facebook.

I started with GoDaddy, which is a viable option, but I’ve since transferred to NameSilo.

#10 – Starting your photography website – Picking a host and CMS

Site speed is a Google Ranking Factor for SEO, and it’s especially relevant for photographers because we use way more images that your typical website, and we need them uploaded in high quality to showcase our best work.

This step requires picking your CMS of choice, with the advent of easy to use platforms like Pixpa, SquareSpace, Wix, and WordPress (what I use), it’s easier than ever to start a website even if you aren’t technically inclined. SquareSpace, Wix and WordPress.com have hosted options, the open source WordPress.org is self-hosted.

About half the internet is built on WordPress, I’ve personally used the self-hosted WordPress.org since I started about a decade ago, but SquareSpace, Wix and the like have been continually improving over the years. SquareSpace in particular has been aggressively advertising to the photography community.

Back to hosting, shared hosting is the cheapest – which I would probably avoid. You could start out with it, but it a pain to transfer hosts if you aren’t technically inclined.

Managed WordPress Hosting is great if you aren’t very technically inclined, and what I recommend for those who aren’t tech savvy and don’t want to hassle with regular backups and security updates (most do them for you).

If you have multiple websites, VPS or Dedicated Hosting might be your best bet.

Regardless of host, I’d also recommend a CDN, CloudFlare is free, and it’s what I use and recommend.

Note: Before jumping the gun on a website, please see step #20. 

Once you’ve figured that all out, it’s time to start your website – Owning a professionally done website does a lot of things for your business. First, it nets you instant credibility. Just seeing your portfolio proudly displayed on a nice, clean website gives your clients the first trust signal they need to pick up the phone. Next, having a website means you have a base camp for all of your content marketing efforts. It’ll let you run your own photography blog, show off past projects etc. — all these contribute to bettering your chances of sitting at the top of search results.

#11 – Figure out Pricing and Cost of Doing Business

You’re running a business. Exposure can only get you so far, and it sure as heck won’t pay your rent. You need revenue to survive. The quick and dirty of figuring out a bare-bones basic pricing structure is to start with your Cost of Doing Business (CODB).

Your CODB is a figure that will pay for rent, keep you fed, cover for gas and so on. Just enough to cover the essentials. Now divide that by a conservative number of gigs you expect to get in a month. The quotient is what you should be charging your clients for a shoot.

Pro-Tip: Avoid PayPal for payments. I started with them and ran into issues. Go with Square instead, you get a small card reader you can take with you on shoots and you can send online invoices when needed. 

Of course, you shouldn’t just work to barely keep your head above water. You want to stay profitable. Here’s what Zack Arias thinks of the CODB-centred pricing structure:

“These are just basic guidelines. To get really deep into it you need to cover your expenses (rent, kids, gas, food, cell phone, taxes, insurance, etc) THEN add “salary” into that or “profit”. You have to make a profit. You have to be sustainable. If you need $3k just to survive then you should try to bring in $6k a month. Then you pay taxes and the like on that (consult someone who actually knows what they are doing on that part) and you need to have covered all expenses and have money left over.”

Tony & Chelsea Northrup has done an amazing, 30-minute deep dive on pricing models that should give you a better idea of what you should be charging photography clients.

#12 – Should you form a company for your photography business?

Disclaimed: I’m not a lawyer, I’m just a dummy on the internet, so definitely defer to their expertise.

It’s no secret that 90% of businesses fail within the first year. Start out as a sole-proprietor (you don’t have to do anything), and if you start making money and you’re sure that your business will continue then form an LLC.

Filing a single member LLC was simple enough for me through the State of Nevada, YMMV though.

LegalZoom is another cheap alternative if going directly through the state seems difficult.

#13 – Do you need photography business insurance?

Do a Google search and a lot of people will unequivocally say YES… but a lot of them are just selling you insurance.

Look, again, I’m just a dummy on the internet so consult with a professional.

But I don’t have insurance, if I drop my camera, I’m buying a new one… and in a decade I’ve never dropped my camera (I’ve had some cheap lights drop though), nor has my gear been stolen (*knocks on wood). And if you’re worries about being sued, you could have your clients sign a waiver if they trip and fall.

I’ve been in business for over a decade, and I’ve only been required to have insurance for a corporate gig once. I bought insurance on-demand for that day (I used Thimble), and I believe it was something like $10 for the day.

#12 – Market your Photography Services

No matter how good of a photographer you are — you might be the next Richard Avedon for all we know — but if you’re not getting enough eyeballs on your work, you won’t be getting any business. And if you’re not getting any business, you’ll starve. Then you’ll have to close up shop and try something else.

Here are a few tried and true marketing strategies you can do to help prevent just that and start filling your calendar with paid gigs…

#13 – Cold Calling / 2nd Shooter

Cold Calling – I’m personally not the cold calling type, and have never served as a 2nd shooter but a lot of photographers built their business starting this way. The pandemic may have changed a lot of things for photographers and have undoubtedly made launching any type of business extra challenging, but you can still never go wrong with cold calling (or cold emailing).

The easiest way to build a portfolio is to 2nd shoot at a wedding, you can pitch successful photographers in your area, you can ask for a little money, or even do it for free. Most photographers probably wouldn’t scoff at paying $25-50/hr for a 2nd shooter, well because most can easily up-sell it to the client – more photos the merrier!

In any case, this is a really good way to build your portfolio, especially if you can work with a high-end wedding photographer.

Pitch to your ideal clients. If you’ve put in some time with your business plan, you should be all clear on who they are. Now fire up a spreadsheet and start googling local businesses, smaller brands, agencies, and individuals who might find value in your photography, and go listing down everybody’s contact information. What you’re doing is called lead generation, a pretty crude way of doing lead generation, but it’ll get the job done.

When you get the person you want on the other end of the phone, you better have your portfolio ready to go and a simple, easy-to-digest script prepared. Just tell them who you are, and what you can do for them. You could offer a professional headshot for a lawyer, or a lifestyle shoot for a local clothing brand, or offer to shoot an entire product catalogue for an e-commerce company. That’s it. What’s the worst that could happen, you get a “no”?

#14 – Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp, etc. 

I don’t even touch this anymore – but it’s where you’ll have to start. People shopping on Craigslist are shopping for price, they want it as cheap as possible.

Depending on where you’re at with skill level, start anywhere from $25-75 a session. It’s a good start if you’re new, that amount doesn’t feel like you’re promising too much, and it gives you the opportunity to experiment with different styles and build your portfolio.

Warning: Your “ads” might be flagged on Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp, depending on your city and if people feel like flagging your ads, Facebook really wants you to pay to run ads. If you do get flagged, you could get crafty, post a fancy newborn picture of yours and say that you’re a photographer selling “newborn props.”   

Another strategy is to find local Facebook groups in your area, some photographer groups even have requests from locals that you can pitch.

After this stage, where you go from here is really up to you. I know photographers who get most of their clients from Facebook, others get most from Instagram, some get em all from Yelp, me personally I get a lot through SEO (a big reason why I have this blog!).

In any case, once you’ve built your portfolio and your prices are at least $100+/hr…

#15 – Start a Facebook Page and Run This Test…

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook Ads.

Most people who are new to them, end up wasting a lot of money. Many photographers on forums (with good work, mind you), have spent a couple hundred bucks advertising their mini sessions with zero conversions.

Now, without seeing their campaign, I’d argue that there was some hole in it. A lot of people mess up their targeting (I’m sure you’ve seen local business ads that weren’t even in you’re area).

I’ve found with extremely tight targeting, you can build a profitable campaign.

Note: I’ll share my exact campaign in a future posts on Facebook Ads for Photographers – stay tuned!  

To be profitable on Facebook ads, you’ll have to charge at least $100 a session, which means if you want to profit $80 (still more than Craigslist, et. al), you can’t spend more than $20 per conversion. Keep that in mind.

Another thing Facebook ads can do is generate new likes to your page, which is handy because you need at least 25 likes to claim your Facebook URL (which you should as soon as you hit that mark).

#16 – Google and Yelp Reviews are a must for photographers

Steps #14 and #15 are for a reason – you need to be getting as many reviews as possible. 

Google and Yelp are essential long-term for ranking organically (ie. you don’t have to pay for leads).

So while starting out you’ll only make $50 a pop – it will pay off in the long run. And the reviews you generate early, will help you 10x your prices later.

You’re allowed to “solicit reviews” on Yelp, so it might be a challenge. You’ll see the majority of your reviews get filtered (ie. no one will see them). Definitely a love/hate relationship with Yelp because they filter most of my genuine reviews. But hey, what can you do. Their filtering system is why a lot of people trust them. In order for them to pass the filter, you really need reviews from people who are actually active on Yelp, and having a profile picture, friends, and multiple reviews definitely help.

I’d ask for reviews on both, but if I had to say which is more important – I would say Google. It’s no question that reviews help you rank in Google Search/Maps.

#17 – Pay Per Lead – Thumbtack 

I’d wait until you can charge at least $200 for your Mini session before starting on Thumbtack. That’s because you’ll pay per lead on Thumbtack. You only get charged when a customer reaches out to you. The problem? They’ll like reach out to 3-4 other people… and some of the time they won’t even make a hire at all!

In my experience, you’ll convert about 30-50% of leads, which means you could be spending $~30-50 (depending on your area) for leads before making a conversion. Factor that in when starting your Thumbtack campaign.

#18 Learn Content Marketing – SEO can make or break your photography business!

Content marketing is a sort of catch-all term for pretty much everything your business puts forth online. The following points will fall into the content marketing umbrella, but I thought it’s still worth mentioning here. Because even if you’re not the best photographer for the job, but you completely dominate your competition in terms of online presence, you’re the photographer who’s going to get hired — and not Ms. Too-Good-For-SEO.

Learning SEO as a photographer and getting into the whole content marketing thing might be the most daunting tasks you’ll ever do for your business, but they’re undoubtedly the very best investments you can do for your career. Think of it as a sort of marketing flywheel that’ll constantly build momentum as long as you keep at it, and will work for you even when you sleep.

B&H has done an incredible Content Marketing seminar for photographers, and you’d be wise to commit about 2 hours of your time to this marketing wisdom goldmine.

#19 – Create 3-5 blog posts related to your niche.

This is important for SEO, Google crawls your website to understand what you do. Internally link to your relevant service pages and it’ll be immensely helpful for ranking in Google. Here is some of the content I created to rank top 3 for “Headshots Maui”:

They all internally link back to my homepage, JaySoriano.com where my headshots portfolio is located.

This is just one piece of the SEO puzzle, but it will get you started.

#20 – Want to stick with photography? You could outsource.

If anytime you remotely approach a keyboard you start to get writers block, I’d consider outsourcing your content writing.

But don’t. I repeat don’t outsource SEO. There’s a lot of snake oil in that industry and it could cost you in the long run. I would personally take care of that in-house. Besides, it isn’t incredibly difficult, and you don’t have to be the best SEO in the world, you just gotta be better than your competitors.

If you want a head start, head over to Fiverr and search for “photography writer” and pick from the bunch – try to stick will sellers in the USA though. Think of them as a ghost writer. What you get back probably won’t be perfect, but it will be a good start to add your personalization and finishing touches.

#21 – Google Page Speed Tool

Another confirmed Google ranking factor is site speed. You’re about to be best friends with the Google PageSpeed Tool.

As a photographer, you want your work displayed at the best quality, but Google wants you to optimize for site speed which often requires smaller resolutions, and compressed images… ugggh.

I do all of the above for this blog, but to a little lesser extent on my website as I want a little higher quality.

It starts with the host, which I mentioned above. You can add a CDN in CloudFlare. Then if you’re on WordPress, you could take advantage of the myriad of free caching tools.

Now most of us will be using a theme or a template, so make sure it’s fast. One thing to test before purchasing, is using the PageSpeed tool on their theme demo.

I wouldn’t obsess over your site speed score because it’s just one small piece of the puzzle, but I would at least scope out your competition and make sure your website scores better than theirs.

#22 – Google My Business for Photographers

If you have a physical location, great. Many argue this ranks better in search. Most photographers, however, will be “service based businesses” according to Google.

Related to step #16, Google My Business (ie. where you setup your business in Google) is essential for ranking in Search and Maps.

Take the opportunity to completely fill out your profile, optimize it with images and write out all your services. I mean everything. Not just portrait photography, but family photography, newborn photography, etc. The keywords you use can show up in search. Take advantage of their “posts” section, it also shows up in search and you can write up to 300 words.

#23 – Promote your Work on Facebook & Instagram

You know you saw these two coming. Both platforms are incredibly image-centered websites; posting your own content and sharing any marketing material could be done in a snap so getting consistent with your content curation duties shouldn’t be too hard to ingrain in your daily activities. Best part is, your ideal clients are most likely already spending a lot of hours on Facebook and Instagram, which further betters your chances of booking more gigs!

Check out fashion photographer Kayleigh June’s 15 content ideas you can implement in your own social media marketing strategy.

#24 – Start a Photography YouTube Channel

You already have a camera that you can use with YouTube, it just makes sense! The only thing you might need is a good mic.

With nationwide restrictions and a pandemic hanging over everybody’s heads, you might find yourself having a lot of extra time in your hands. This might be an opportunity to start thinking about publishing your very own brand of content on YouTube.

With consistent hard work, great ideas for quality content, and a ton of luck, running a YouTube channel as an up and coming photographer can be a business in and of itself (here’s how much creatives are making on YouTube). While I wouldn’t recommend entering the content creation game expecting to be the next Peter McKinnon, I also wouldn’t recommend putting off your first upload until your third year in the business. YouTube, in tandem with your website and social media pages, completes your content marketing trifecta for your business. Here’s a few tips for starting a YouTube channel to get your started.

Then check out Evan Raft’s very insightful video sharing his YouTube journey, and how he uses this super powerful platform to promote his photography business.

https://youtu.be/lXV4lgACAfo

#25 – The most valuable photography book…

…isn’t a photography book at all. It’s the Lower Your Taxes – BIG TIME books by Sandy Botkin.

A lot of what you can get in photography books are available online, now there’s definitely some tidbits you can pickup here and there but as far impact to bottom line… the Lower Your Taxes books have saved me a lot of money.

#26 – Expanding and Optimizing Your Schedule as a Photographer

If you shoot outdoors, you have a small window ie. “golden hour.” That’s why to optimize your schedule I would recommend adding studio portraiture, and things like product, food and real estate photography that you can at any time. If you’re up for working nights, corporate gigs with event photography is a good money maker.

#27 – Think about being a videographer as well

It’s a new generation. Smartphones sales are up, DSLR/Mirrorless are down. The demand for photography is a lower because people are “happy enough” with their iPhone pictures. Combine that with a low barrier to entry to become a photographer (anyone with a camera)… less demand, a lot of supply – you do the math.

I’m a photographer at heart, but I’ve started dabbling in video and I think most would agree that it’s harder to produce a really good video than it is a really good photo. I know, I know. I’m a dummy. It’s not the same. I’m comparing apples and oranges. Yes, I get it. I’m just saying in personal opinion it’s harder to become a high level videographer.

With that being said, becoming a videographer should be something you think about. Or at least incorporate it into your business, you could even do it in passive way by selling stock footage, renting out your videography gear, YouTube, etc. Here’s a few filmmaking and videography tips to get you started, and a inside look at video production pricing based on industry research.

Conclusion

Starting a photography business from scratch has never been easy, and that’s even without the pandemic putting pretty much any business to a crawl. Not everyone can make a photography business work, especially in this climate. But if you somehow manage to come out of the first trials and tribulations of running a small business grinning and looking forward to your next projects — I promise you, few things in life are as fulfilling as doing the very thing you love for a living.

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