How to Make a Photo Blog

The old saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” but we're pretty sure that you'll still want to add a few more of your own. While there are lots of blogging services out there to choose from, it can be tricky to switch services or (even more commonly) customize it to match your main site. So here’s how to create a photo blog on the SmugMug.

Featured photo blog by Michael Bonocore

Step 1: Create a Folder.

Creating a Folder for all of your future blog entries ensures that your entries stay together, and that your blog has a neat, readable URL. Try something dead simple and SEO friendly like “Blog”.

Step 2: Upload your photos to a gallery

A no-brainer, but you’ll need someplace to stash the photos that you’ll be posting to each blog post. Since you’re already on SmugMug, uploading your photos to a regular gallery in any location on your site should work just fine.

Step 3: Create the Page for your post

Create a new Page in your “Blog” Folder for your new blog post. You’ll have to think of a good title, and we recommend that you make the URL readable so that your viewers (and search engines) know what that post is about and can refer to it without too much brain power.

EXAMPLE: 

From here you can set your page settings. We recommend making the page Public and filling in the Meta Description and Meta Keywords fields so that your post will show up in search engines. Additionally, choose a Feature Image so something pretty shows up in the thumbnail.

Step 4: Customize the content

This is the good part! Open up Customization on the page and start dragging in content  to fill in the space. We recommend the following:

Photos or Slideshows.

These are the backbones of your post! You can drop in Single Photo content blocks, or drag in a Slideshow for compact display on the page. Don’t forget that you can set your photos to open in a lightbox which clicked, take the viewer to the gallery, or do nothing at all.

Text or HTML.

Drag in Text boxes and write your story between your photos or wherever you wish on the page. For additional styling, we recommend the HTML blocks for greater customizability, but the choice is yours.

Titles.

These work beautifully to make your photo captions stand out. Drag one under each of your photos and add visual spice to the content down the page. If you prefer to use multiple Text content blocks instead of one big one, you can even use the Title block as sub-headers to break up the flow of words.

Separator.

We love this underrated little feature for creating boundaries! You’ll find it under the “Design” section of your customization options, perfect for cleaning and giving your page a polished look.

Step 5: Invite conversation

What’s the point of sharing your point of view if you can’t get feedback? To finish your post, don’t forget to invite your fans into the discussion:

Share buttons.

Drag in Facebook Like and Twitter Tweet buttons. One click and your post is out there!

Comments.

Even if the conversation is happening on social media, there’s nothing more gratifying than a good old-fashioned comment from one person to another. Don’t forget that if you’re worried about who’s out there, you can hold all comments for moderation, first. (Found in your

Account Settings > Stats > Comments)

What if I have a Basic account?

Even if advanced customization options don't come bundled with your site, you can still create a beautiful, organized place to put all of your photos and stories together.

Simply create a main Folder for your blog, as shown above, and create galleries instead of custom pages. For the super organized folks, create up to 5 different layers of folders, like this:

Switch your galleries to the Journal viewing style and upload your photos. You can then enter as much (or as little!) text as you want in the title and caption fields when you open the image in the Editor. 

So what are you waiting for? If you've been putting off starting your own photo blog, give this a try and let us know how it works for you, and what other cool ideas you come up with to personalize yours.