This is a part of a series called 101 tips to make you a better photographer.

Tip #6 of 101: Motivation for your photgraphy - build your own photo blog using free tools

Tip related to: Marketing and Promotion
Photography skill required: Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced
Camera feature required: Any camera, useful even if you take photos using your mobile phone
Special requirement: You will need a computer with Windows (any version) or Linux or Mac etc

Although these tips are not directly related to photography, I strongly believe that if you do not have a motivation for photography, your hobby will slowly die under pressure of responsibilities of your job, your family, your friends etc.

Things like… being a part of the forum or community of photographers, creating your own blog, dabbling in micro-stock photography etc will keep your passion and motivation for photography alive.

And the best part it, it does not cost you a single cent to do all this. All you need is some time and lots of passion for your hobby.

Next week, I promise to talk about something closer to the actual act of photography.

So today, let us build a photo blog using free tools available on the internet.

Step 1: Create a blog.
There are quite a number of ways in which you can go about doing it.

My personal preference is WordPress. Another very popular choice is Blogger

In this post, I will be talking about WordPress, because I have experience with it, but the steps would be the same for any blogging software you use.

You can use the power of WordPress in two ways.
a. Have a hosted blog at wordpress.com
b. Install a wordpress blog on your own domain.

Here are the details.
a. Have a hosted wordpress blog at www.wordpress.com
This is actually very simple.

Just visit www.wordpress.com and register there.
It takes a few minutes and you do not have to pay anything ever.

This will usually create a blog like YourName.wordpress.com

You can get some great help and tips at http://support.wordpress.com/getting-started/

b. OR Install the wordpress blog on your own domain.
But since you have to pay for a domain name and hosting space, I think this goes outside the free concept that we started this post with.
You can read detailed instructions and videos on installing wordpress on your own domain can be read here

And another video here.

Step 2: Do not upload your photos on your domains or WordPress.
Always, upload your photos on your flickr account and then post your photos in your blog posts.
I have talked about using flickr in my last tip here.

The hassle: It adds one extra step to showing off your photos on your blogs
The benefit: Your photos automatically become a part of one of the largest communities of photographers on flickr.

So, lamely speaking, you kill two birds with one stone

You save precious hosting and bandwidth space on your server and your photos introduce you to millions of other photographers spread all over the world.

Here are the exact steps to show the photos in your flickr acccount on your blog

1. Log into your flickr account
2. Click on the photo of your choice,
3. You will get a few options at the top of the photo. One of them will be “All Sizes” with the icon of a magnifying glass beside it.
4. Click it. It will show you all the available sizes of your photo and also give you the code to paste in your blog.
5. Usually blogs support the size of Medium (i.e. longer edge is 500 pixels long). Click on Medium.
6. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where it says “2 Grab the photos URL”
7. Select everything that is written in the text box below it and hit CTR + C (i.e. Control Key and C together)
8. Now go the write post option in the Dashboard of your blog.
9. Start writing your post.
10. When you want to insert the image, simply click on the Insert/Edit Image icon (the icon with a small green tree
11. This will open a small window which will ask for the details of your photo.
12. In the text box labeled “Image URL”, paste your photo’s URL. You can do it by clicking inside the text box and pressing CTR + V keys together.
13. Click on the button called Insert.
14. That’s it. Now you will be able to see your photo in your blog post.
15. Save your post, and click on Publish to show your work to the world.

See, it is as simple as that.

Step 3: Finally, publicize your blog

Now that you have created your blog and have written some useful and interesting stuff and shared some awesome photos, it is time for you to let the world know that you now have a blog and are frequently updating it with latest posts.

There are a lot of things that you can do to promote your blog. A simple search on google on how to promote your blog will give you hundreds of tips tricks and tutorials.

I personally do the following

1. I try to keep a focus in my posts i.e. my blog is all about photography (and a bit of important things in my life). This way, regular visitors to my blog know what they can expect to read here.
2. I have submitted my blog to blog directories like indiblogger and blogadda. These directories focus on Indian blog writers, that is why I have selected them. You will have to find suitable blog directories for your blogs.
3. The readers of my blog have the option to know immediately whenever I publish a new post using email and RSS. I use Feedburner for that.
4. I put my blog’s link wherever I can e.g. in the forums where I discuss photography, on my orkut and linkedin profiles,  on my flickr account, my Dreamstime account etc
5. Whenever I have spare time, I visit the of blogs of my friends and comment on their work. Most of them reciprocate. It also helps stay in touch.
6. I try to be regular with my posts on my blog.

As a result, now a days, my blog gets around 100+ visitors everyday, people comment on my work and I have the motivation to keep on taking more photos and keep on writing useful stuff for my blog.

I have managed to get a few photography assignments from visitors from my blogs and yes, I have made a lot of new friends because of it too.

I would have never come to know all these wonderful people if I did not have this blog.

All of this hardly takes a few hours a week but it works.

So folks, spend some time away from your camera, on the internet, and find instant motivation for photography, everyday.

That is it for today.

In the next post, I will talk about composition and how we can improve our photos, just by changing the way we see our world.

My last tip was:  Tip #5: Join a photo community to share your photos

List of all the tips: 101 tips to make you a better photographer

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If you have any questions or want to share your photos, post them in the comments section below.

Take care,
Gunjan