Starting a Photography Business

If you are thinking of starting a home business for photography, here are a few things to start out strong:

1. Start a blog with your current work. Post often--two or three times a week. Instead of keeping a website address with WordPress or blogspot in it, buy a domain name for $10 a year so that you can look like an "official" website.
2. Link your blog to a Facebook fan page. Keep this page updated as well. Use networked blogs to post on your fan page whenever you post on your blog. This will allow traffic to your blog that you might not otherwise get.
3. Have a custom logo created for your business. There are many graphic designers who offer pre-made one of a kind logos to people who don't want to spend a ton of money on a custom one. There is a huge selection on Etsy--most are around $30.
4. Stay consistent. Use your logo on your blog. Use it on your Facebook page. Use it as your watermark. You want to develop a specific branding mark.
5. Vistaprint is a good website to get "starting up" items. They have cheap business cards and other materials--return address labels, notecards, etc. For each product, you can upload your own design so that you aren't stuck with their premade templates. You have to pay a few dollars extra to upload your own design, but it's a one time fee per product. Remember to use your logo on everything!
6. To build your portfolio, offer to shoot families (or babies, maternity, seniors, weddings... whatever your interest lies in) for very cheap, and offer digital files. For my first three weddings, I did it completely for free. I just asked if I could shoot behind the hired photographer for the day and offered the disc of digital files to the bride and groom.
7. Be confident and never let people know that you may have no idea what you are doing! Always have a smile on your face.

Hopefully these tips give you a few ideas to get your business off the ground. If I could rewind three years back, I definitely would have done a few things different. But with hard work, I am happy at where I am right now. I wish the best for you!