Photography Business Overwhelm is an actual thing.  The last couple of years I have been getting seriously overwhelmed with blog posts, social media posts, Pinterest pins and the list of small details that went into every post was killing all of my photography business joy.  Can I please just get back to taking pictures and editing?

The Best Photography Blogs create optimal SEO. You know it and I know it. I feel just like you do about it: OVERWHELMED.

I know that SEO is crucial for me to get on the first page of Google and other search engines, which really effects the bottom line.  But an unfortunate aspect of a creative mind that has a TWEE bit of ADD, is that I get VERY overwhelmed with details and I start to shut down.  To cope with this issue, I am a notorious list maker.  I have lists of my lists.  For reals.

For a FREE Google Spreadsheet Calendar (that includes all of my monthly themes for the whole year and weekly blog suggestions), click here.

For this year, I knew I had to get my content marketing and business strategy honed in or I was going to crumble with the weight of my overwhelm.  I invested in a few crucial changes this year that have drastically altered how I feel about my off-season marketing responsibilities, and have taken all of the overwhelm out of the "business" side of my business. 

For a Creative Live Class specifically geared towards Content Marketing for Photographers, check out this class: Content Marketing for Photographers.

Are you DYING to know how I changed my overwhelm to rock star marketing?  Three programs I can't live without:

CoSchedule

Sprout Studio

Planoly

First of all, what is CoSchedule?  Here is a short video that gives a quick overview:

Let me show you how I personally use CoSchedule.  

Since consistent blogging is the single most effective tool in your SEO strategy, and the best photo blogs alllll do it on a regular basis, having an editorial calendar with individualized task lists is CRITICAL to staying on top of this.  The real beauty for me, is that I can see my blog posts, Twitter, Facebook, LInkedin, Pinterest (and more social media options that I don't personally use) all in one calendar view.  Here is an example from my personal CoSchedule Dashboard calendar:

What do I love the most about CoSchedule? 

Choosing exactly when and where I want to schedule my social media based on a post.  I can schedule follow up posts that drive traffic to my blog today, tomorrow, next week and/or even next month!  My go-to content strategy is to brainstorm and type up a series of blog post topic ideas for the whole year (with a loosely followed monthly theme).  Plug these topic ideas into the calendar on the day of the week I want my blog to go out (I try and do a post every Tuesday).  Then I go from there working on each individual blog post when I have time. The farther I can get ahead on this during my “free” time, the less I feel BLOGGGGGGG looming over my head. In fact, I find it kind of fun!

When I am ready to work on the individual blog article, there is a SUPER handy headline analyzer for your blog post titles to help you get the best bang for your buck on each and every post title.  

See below, my title needs a little work to get a "green light" and it will even give me suggestions for how to improve my title. Coschedule’s Headline Analyzer is one of my favorite tools. Not only does it improve my headlines, but with the words I use to create the perfect headline, it often inspires me to write a better article all together.

 After I plug in my title for the post, I click on my task template for blog posts.

In that automatic, pre-generated workflow of tasks (I created this ahead of time called "blog post workflow") it then opens up all of the items I need to take care of for each blog post.  As you can see below, that means it reminds me to write the post (remember I start with just the general topic for each post from my year sketch plan, I still need to research and write the actual content), add affiliate links, images, post to my instagram stories, create a pin for pinterest, etc. etc.).

For a list making lover, CoSchedule is what dreams are made of. 

I can see very clearly what needs to be done with regards to my content marketing and I can break it up into manageable pieces.

I am barely touching the surface here of what options are available for simplifying your content marketing, but trust me, CoSchedule is worth its weight in gold.  Speaking of gold, CoSchedule is very affordable at only $15/month.  The time and headache and overwhelm this service saves me is worth every. single. penny.  Please trust me on this.  They also have a 14 day FREE trial with no credit card or strings attached, so check it out and let me know what you think!

One final comment about CoSchedule, and a big reason why this service was the right fit for me is that it is an incredibly straightforward software program.  

There was a not a huge learning curve.

As a photographer always learning new things and taking classes to improve my skills, etc. I REALLY didn't want to waste hours upon hours figuring out my content marketing software on top of everything else.  Check out the trial and see if it is a good fit, I really do not think you will be disappointed.

Next week's post (according to my handy dandy scheduling calendar on CoSchedule) is on how Sprout Studio has saved me in organizing my emails and my client workflow and management.  For photographers looking to crush the business side of things this year, stay tuned for more ideas on simplifying your business so you can get back to what you love!