September 22, 2025 • 12 mins
This episode tackles the common dilemma photographers face about whether blogging still matters compared to Instagram posting. Meredith’s husband explains that blogs aren’t meant to directly bring clients but to provide long-term value, authority, and useful resources. He stresses quality over quantity, advising website owners to focus on fewer, stronger posts instead of weekly filler or AI-generated content. This helps build credibility, avoids “garbage” blogs, and makes websites more valuable to both Google and real users.
Timestamps
[0:00] Introduction and listener question setup
[0:24] The Instagram vs. blogging dilemma
[1:18] Why Instagram success still matters
[1:41] What groups say about blogging frequency
[2:47] Social media posting expectations vs. reality
[3:55] Why blogs shouldn’t be written to sell directly
[4:38] The problem with old, broken blogs
[6:35] “Garbage” blogs and how they harm SEO
[7:43] Quality over quantity: monthly vs. weekly blogging
[10:35] What makes content truly valuable
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Meredith's husband (00:00):
Got a question today and this is a
question I've gotten a number oftimes from photographers in my
consulting world smallbusinesses people struggle with
this.
I've seen people struggle withthis a lot, even if they're not
asking this question, and fromwhat you have said in talking
about what you hear in yourgroups and your online courses
and those sorts of things, thisis something people are talking
(00:22):
about there, okay, so would youplease read the question?
Meredith (00:27):
Yes, it is, hey, meredith's husband.
I'm a family photographer and Ipost on Instagram almost every
day.
I keep hearing otherphotographers say I need to blog
too, but, honestly, I've nevergotten a client through my blog.
Is this still important, orshould I just focus on Instagram
, since that's where people findme?
Meredith's husband (00:49):
Okay, this is a great question.
Meredith (00:51):
It is a great question and I hear it often.
Meredith's husband (00:54):
First, good job in getting clients from
Instagram.
Yeah, you're doing somethingright, yeah.
Okay, I don't know how that's,I'm not a big social media user
or marketer, et cetera, but ifyou're getting clients that way,
congrats.
Nice job on that, yeah.
Second, like I said, I see andI hear this dilemma a lot for
people.
Meredith (01:14):
Yeah, because you want to know where you're putting
your eggs.
Meredith's husband (01:17):
Right.
So my question to you, meredithyes, from what you are hearing
in your groups, what is theconsensus around what
photographers should do on theirblog in terms of timing, how
often they should blog and whatthey should blog about?
Just kind of, what's thegeneral feeling.
Meredith (01:34):
Well, it depends, because they're different groups
.
There's one group that I'm inthat's very much social media,
social media post you know Xamount of times.
And then there's also the groupwhere that's kind of I had AI
write this blog for me, so thatwas easy.
Meredith's husband (01:50):
Right.
So how often do people thosephotographers in your groups?
How often are people sayingthat you need to blog?
Meredith (01:58):
I think it's like once per week.
Meredith's husband (02:00):
Okay, yeah, that's kind of.
That is similar to what I getfrom people who I speak to.
They are under theunderstanding that I should be
blogging every week.
Meredith (02:08):
Yeah.
Meredith's husband (02:09):
What about?
Let me just, and for my ownknowledge, what is the consensus
in those groups about?
If you're using social media,if you're marketing on social
media, how often should you beposting?
Meredith (02:18):
I think a lot of people on social media.
Meredith's husband (02:21):
Yes, just social media.
Meredith (02:23):
Social media at least three times a week.
Meredith's husband (02:25):
Yeah, so from what I hear in my, so when
I'm part of a marketing team,there's always a social media
team.
Right, there's a content teamthat takes care of blogging,
there's a social media team,there's me, there's an organic
team, and we all work together.
But I know that the socialmedia team, their goal is always
to post multiple times per day,every day, on whatever platform
(02:47):
you're active on, multipletimes on all those platforms,
and you really should be activeon at least three platforms, so
that's a lot of posting.
Meredith (02:53):
Oh my gosh, who has time for that?
Meredith's husband (02:56):
Yeah, well remember that's a team.
Meredith (02:57):
Oh right, so you're hiring them to do it, right?
Meredith's husband (02:59):
And it's their job.
So to me, I mean, yeah, you'reright, who has time to do that?
To me, posting four times a dayon every social media platform,
compare that to even once aweek, which you don't need to do
for your blog that is a lot,but anyway.
So I'm just kind of comparingthe two baskets that we want to
split our eggs into Okay.
(03:20):
So my first response to thisquestion and there's a lot here
and there's kind of a lot tounpack the person who asked that
I've never gotten a clientthrough my blog Okay, well, my
response to that is and you'renot going to, you're not
supposed to.
You're not supposed to writeblogs that you're trying to sell
your services to.
If that's your approach toblogging, you're doing it wrong,
(03:42):
right?
Okay, occasionally, you mighthave a blog where you announce a
promotion or something or somesort of special announcement, or
you announce maybe, like youhave mini sessions.
This is something I hear.
Right, people do a certain timeof the year, they have mini
sessions, they blog, theyannounce it and they get things
that way.
Okay, that's an exception, butin general, you don't blog in
(04:06):
order to get business, and I'llget more into this in a second,
the other reason I like thisquestion is because, like I said
, I've come across a lot ofpeople who I think struggle.
They don't necessarily ask thisquestion, but they struggle with
this concept, and I say thatbecause I often see especially
photographers with like oldblogs, like we'll review their
site, and they have a bunch ofreally old blogs.
Maybe they were carried overfrom their previous site, or
(04:28):
sometimes even two and threeversions of their previous
websites, and the blogs nolonger even work.
Like the images are broken, thetext doesn't display, and I've
seen this many times.
And when we go over this, I'mlike well, what's your rationale
here for keeping these online,because these are completely not
even usable to a person?
(04:49):
And the response is usuallysomething along the lines of
well, I was told that's whatGoogle likes and my response is
what?
On what planet?
I don't say this exactly, buton what planet do you live,
where you think Google is goingout and looking to reward sites
that have tons and tons of blogcontent that doesn't even
(05:12):
function, it doesn't even work,like there's no text there?
Meredith (05:16):
I don't think that we actually go back and check them.
We just are like oh, it's goingto take care of itself.
Some magical way.
Meredith's husband (05:25):
But my point is, when we go back and I'm
working with a student and we goback and we look at their blog
and we find these things,sometimes they say like, oh yeah
, I know of those and I leftthem there on purpose because
that's what Google likes.
People tell me those blogs aregood for SEO.
So let me ask you as a user,meredith Zinner, so I would
(05:45):
consider that blog to be garbage.
Okay, it's not worth anything.
You, as a user when you go outand you use Google, are you
looking for garbage?
Are you looking for pages thatdon't work and have no content
and just are garbage?
Meredith (06:01):
No, so why would you think that Google is?
I think people think honestlythe more I throw at it, the more
chances I have of somethingsticking.
Meredith's husband (06:11):
Yes, so a blog like that is garbage, right
, right, a lot of garbage.
If you produce a lot of it, alot of garbage is still garbage.
You're making your situationworse.
You are burying your website ingarbage.
You are appearing to Googlelike you are a big pile of crap,
your website.
(06:31):
Okay and I'm being pretty bluntbecause I want to make a point
I appreciate it.
Meredith (06:38):
I appreciate your lemmings.
Meredith's husband (06:41):
Let me get back to when I said blogging in
order to get clients is thewrong approach.
Let me talk a little bit aboutthe wrong approach.
A wrong approach and a betterapproach.
Okay, I would say rather thantrying to focus on producing one
blog every week, okay, that's52 potential pieces of garbage
(07:03):
per year.
Focus on maybe one decent blogpost per month.
That's 12 perhaps better blogposts.
That is so much better.
Okay, so imagine if you'reGoogle comparing two different
websites that you arepotentially, and one of them has
one blog every month and it hassome valuable content there,
(07:24):
yeah.
And one of them has one blogevery month and it has some
valuable content there, yeah,and the other one has 52.
Every single week it pumps outmore stuff that is completely
useless.
Meredith (07:31):
Now can you give an example of something completely
useless?
Meredith's husband (07:34):
Well, one example is blogs that are
carried over from previous sitesand they don't even function
right anymore.
The images are broken, theydon't look right, they don't
work Okay, that's one example.
Clear images are broken.
They don't look right, theydon't work.
Okay, that's one example.
Another example is like, let'ssay, as a blogger, a website
owner, you go to chat GPT andyou say I am a children's
(07:57):
photographer, write a blog forme.
Yes, what value is that goingto have to readers out there?
Okay, number one, let me.
That was a rhetorical question.
I guess All chat GPT is goingto do is they're going to go out
and they're going to look atother blogs.
Regurgitate?
Yeah, they're going to.
So they're not creatinganything new or unique.
They're not creating your voice.
Even if you train it to writelike you, in your tone, in your
style, that's not your voice, inthat you are the originator of
(08:20):
that content, right Okay?
Meredith (08:26):
Intrinsically, there's nothing new there.
Meredith's husband (08:28):
There's no value there.
Ai.
So increasingly, people aregoing to AI to do searches.
So if you're doing that, here'swhat you're doing as a website
owner you're going to AI andyou're saying blog about
children's photography.
Are you then expecting AI tosomeone else's search to cite
(08:48):
the blog that AI wrote as aresource to this other person?
Like no, that's not going tohappen, right, okay?
Meredith (08:55):
But people think, oh, it's easy, and all these sites
are offering to do this.
Meredith's husband (08:59):
Yes, and here's a new.
Yeah, I know Exactly.
Meredith (09:02):
And people are like great, that saves me so much
time.
Meredith's husband (09:05):
That leads to another potential problem.
Like you can go and create 10blogs per day, yeah, in like
less than an hour you couldcreate probably 100 blogs a day
in an hour.
There is going to be and therealready is an absolute explosion
in the amount of AI-generatedblogs out there.
The amount of content is goingto just mushroom.
(09:26):
You're not going to get aheadby doing the same thing that
everybody else is doing.
If somebody had a magic buttonand I know all these websites
and all these companies arepromising-.
Meredith (09:35):
Promising a magic button.
Meredith's husband (09:38):
The magic easy button.
Just enter your keyword andpress, click and we'll generate
a blog.
It's going to put you right onthe top of Google.
Okay, well, how many peoplehave that same button?
Right?
There's only one spot at thetop of Google, right?
Okay, you see my point here.
I do 100%.
My point is use common sense.
Right, try to use common sense.
Think as if you were Google.
(09:58):
What type of content would youwant to put at the top of your
rankings or put in the resultsof your AI searches?
Meredith (10:05):
Valuable Something original please.
That caters to your question.
Meredith's husband (10:11):
Now that obviously begs the question well
, what is good content?
What is valuable content?
Meredith (10:16):
Yes, it does.
Meredith's husband (10:18):
Well, we've already said what it's not.
It's not just plugging yourkeyword into ChatGPT.
Now my response there's nolimit to the number of
potentially good blogs or thetypes of blogs that could be
good, so I can't tell youexactly what to do.
Meredith (10:32):
Clearly.
Meredith's husband (10:37):
My advice there must be something that you
are good at you as aphotographer, you as a business
owner, you as a website owner,you as a professional, a person.
There's something that you do,hopefully in your professional
world, that you are really goodat.
You are better than otherpeople.
Yes, okay, share somethingabout that.
Make it valuable.
Like, how many times have Isaid make your blogs a resource
for people.
Meredith (10:55):
Yes, a gazillion.
Meredith's husband (10:56):
If you can do that once per month, even
once per quarter, that's so muchbetter than just pumping out
useless information onto yourblog every week.
Meredith (11:07):
Right, it's almost like a cookie cutter.
You know that everyone's like,but mine's shaped like a
Christmas tree, mine's shapedlike a bird, I have a giraffe,
but it's all the same cookie.
Yes, you know, the dough is allthe same.
Meredith's husband (11:20):
Yeah, that's actually yeah.
Yes, yeah, that's a goodanalogy.
Meredith (11:24):
My Venmo is.
Meredith's husband (11:25):
There's no reward for lots of garbage.
Meredith (11:28):
This is true.
Meredith's husband (11:29):
Don't race to the bottom of the bin.
Meredith (11:31):
Yes.
Meredith's husband (11:32):
All right, I hope this helps.
Got a question today and this is a
question I've gotten a number oftimes from photographers in my
consulting world smallbusinesses people struggle with
this.
I've seen people struggle withthis a lot, even if they're not
asking this question, and fromwhat you have said in talking
about what you hear in yourgroups and your online courses
and those sorts of things, thisis something people are talking
(00:22):
about there, okay, so would youplease read the question?
Meredith (00:27):
Yes, it is, hey, meredith's husband.
I'm a family photographer and Ipost on Instagram almost every
day.
I keep hearing otherphotographers say I need to blog
too, but, honestly, I've nevergotten a client through my blog.
Is this still important, orshould I just focus on Instagram
, since that's where people findme?
Meredith's husband (00:49):
Okay, this is a great question.
Meredith (00:51):
It is a great question and I hear it often.
Meredith's husband (00:54):
First, good job in getting clients from
Instagram.
Yeah, you're doing somethingright, yeah.
Okay, I don't know how that's,I'm not a big social media user
or marketer, et cetera, but ifyou're getting clients that way,
congrats.
Nice job on that, yeah.
Second, like I said, I see andI hear this dilemma a lot for
people.
Meredith (01:14):
Yeah, because you want to know where you're putting
your eggs.
Meredith's husband (01:17):
Right.
So my question to you, meredithyes, from what you are hearing
in your groups, what is theconsensus around what
photographers should do on theirblog in terms of timing, how
often they should blog and whatthey should blog about?
Just kind of, what's thegeneral feeling.
Meredith (01:34):
Well, it depends, because they're different groups
.
There's one group that I'm inthat's very much social media,
social media post you know Xamount of times.
And then there's also the groupwhere that's kind of I had AI
write this blog for me, so thatwas easy.
Meredith's husband (01:50):
Right.
So how often do people thosephotographers in your groups?
How often are people sayingthat you need to blog?
Meredith (01:58):
I think it's like once per week.
Meredith's husband (02:00):
Okay, yeah, that's kind of.
That is similar to what I getfrom people who I speak to.
They are under theunderstanding that I should be
blogging every week.
Meredith (02:08):
Yeah.
Meredith's husband (02:09):
What about?
Let me just, and for my ownknowledge, what is the consensus
in those groups about?
If you're using social media,if you're marketing on social
media, how often should you beposting?
Meredith (02:18):
I think a lot of people on social media.
Meredith's husband (02:21):
Yes, just social media.
Meredith (02:23):
Social media at least three times a week.
Meredith's husband (02:25):
Yeah, so from what I hear in my, so when
I'm part of a marketing team,there's always a social media
team.
Right, there's a content teamthat takes care of blogging,
there's a social media team,there's me, there's an organic
team, and we all work together.
But I know that the socialmedia team, their goal is always
to post multiple times per day,every day, on whatever platform
(02:47):
you're active on, multipletimes on all those platforms,
and you really should be activeon at least three platforms, so
that's a lot of posting.
Meredith (02:53):
Oh my gosh, who has time for that?
Meredith's husband (02:56):
Yeah, well remember that's a team.
Meredith (02:57):
Oh right, so you're hiring them to do it, right?
Meredith's husband (02:59):
And it's their job.
So to me, I mean, yeah, you'reright, who has time to do that?
To me, posting four times a dayon every social media platform,
compare that to even once aweek, which you don't need to do
for your blog that is a lot,but anyway.
So I'm just kind of comparingthe two baskets that we want to
split our eggs into Okay.
(03:20):
So my first response to thisquestion and there's a lot here
and there's kind of a lot tounpack the person who asked that
I've never gotten a clientthrough my blog Okay, well, my
response to that is and you'renot going to, you're not
supposed to.
You're not supposed to writeblogs that you're trying to sell
your services to.
If that's your approach toblogging, you're doing it wrong,
(03:42):
right?
Okay, occasionally, you mighthave a blog where you announce a
promotion or something or somesort of special announcement, or
you announce maybe, like youhave mini sessions.
This is something I hear.
Right, people do a certain timeof the year, they have mini
sessions, they blog, theyannounce it and they get things
that way.
Okay, that's an exception, butin general, you don't blog in
(04:06):
order to get business, and I'llget more into this in a second,
the other reason I like thisquestion is because, like I said
, I've come across a lot ofpeople who I think struggle.
They don't necessarily ask thisquestion, but they struggle with
this concept, and I say thatbecause I often see especially
photographers with like oldblogs, like we'll review their
site, and they have a bunch ofreally old blogs.
Maybe they were carried overfrom their previous site, or
(04:28):
sometimes even two and threeversions of their previous
websites, and the blogs nolonger even work.
Like the images are broken, thetext doesn't display, and I've
seen this many times.
And when we go over this, I'mlike well, what's your rationale
here for keeping these online,because these are completely not
even usable to a person?
(04:49):
And the response is usuallysomething along the lines of
well, I was told that's whatGoogle likes and my response is
what?
On what planet?
I don't say this exactly, buton what planet do you live,
where you think Google is goingout and looking to reward sites
that have tons and tons of blogcontent that doesn't even
(05:12):
function, it doesn't even work,like there's no text there?
Meredith (05:16):
I don't think that we actually go back and check them.
We just are like oh, it's goingto take care of itself.
Some magical way.
Meredith's husband (05:25):
But my point is, when we go back and I'm
working with a student and we goback and we look at their blog
and we find these things,sometimes they say like, oh yeah
, I know of those and I leftthem there on purpose because
that's what Google likes.
People tell me those blogs aregood for SEO.
So let me ask you as a user,meredith Zinner, so I would
(05:45):
consider that blog to be garbage.
Okay, it's not worth anything.
You, as a user when you go outand you use Google, are you
looking for garbage?
Are you looking for pages thatdon't work and have no content
and just are garbage?
Meredith (06:01):
No, so why would you think that Google is?
I think people think honestlythe more I throw at it, the more
chances I have of somethingsticking.
Meredith's husband (06:11):
Yes, so a blog like that is garbage, right
, right, a lot of garbage.
If you produce a lot of it, alot of garbage is still garbage.
You're making your situationworse.
You are burying your website ingarbage.
You are appearing to Googlelike you are a big pile of crap,
your website.
(06:31):
Okay and I'm being pretty bluntbecause I want to make a point
I appreciate it.
Meredith (06:38):
I appreciate your lemmings.
Meredith's husband (06:41):
Let me get back to when I said blogging in
order to get clients is thewrong approach.
Let me talk a little bit aboutthe wrong approach.
A wrong approach and a betterapproach.
Okay, I would say rather thantrying to focus on producing one
blog every week, okay, that's52 potential pieces of garbage
(07:03):
per year.
Focus on maybe one decent blogpost per month.
That's 12 perhaps better blogposts.
That is so much better.
Okay, so imagine if you'reGoogle comparing two different
websites that you arepotentially, and one of them has
one blog every month and it hassome valuable content there,
(07:24):
yeah.
And one of them has one blogevery month and it has some
valuable content there, yeah,and the other one has 52.
Every single week it pumps outmore stuff that is completely
useless.
Meredith (07:31):
Now can you give an example of something completely
useless?
Meredith's husband (07:34):
Well, one example is blogs that are
carried over from previous sitesand they don't even function
right anymore.
The images are broken, theydon't look right, they don't
work Okay, that's one example.
Clear images are broken.
They don't look right, theydon't work.
Okay, that's one example.
Another example is like, let'ssay, as a blogger, a website
owner, you go to chat GPT andyou say I am a children's
(07:57):
photographer, write a blog forme.
Yes, what value is that goingto have to readers out there?
Okay, number one, let me.
That was a rhetorical question.
I guess All chat GPT is goingto do is they're going to go out
and they're going to look atother blogs.
Regurgitate?
Yeah, they're going to.
So they're not creatinganything new or unique.
They're not creating your voice.
Even if you train it to writelike you, in your tone, in your
style, that's not your voice, inthat you are the originator of
(08:20):
that content, right Okay?
Meredith (08:26):
Intrinsically, there's nothing new there.
Meredith's husband (08:28):
There's no value there.
Ai.
So increasingly, people aregoing to AI to do searches.
So if you're doing that, here'swhat you're doing as a website
owner you're going to AI andyou're saying blog about
children's photography.
Are you then expecting AI tosomeone else's search to cite
(08:48):
the blog that AI wrote as aresource to this other person?
Like no, that's not going tohappen, right, okay?
Meredith (08:55):
But people think, oh, it's easy, and all these sites
are offering to do this.
Meredith's husband (08:59):
Yes, and here's a new.
Yeah, I know Exactly.
Meredith (09:02):
And people are like great, that saves me so much
time.
Meredith's husband (09:05):
That leads to another potential problem.
Like you can go and create 10blogs per day, yeah, in like
less than an hour you couldcreate probably 100 blogs a day
in an hour.
There is going to be and therealready is an absolute explosion
in the amount of AI-generatedblogs out there.
The amount of content is goingto just mushroom.
(09:26):
You're not going to get aheadby doing the same thing that
everybody else is doing.
If somebody had a magic buttonand I know all these websites
and all these companies arepromising-.
Meredith (09:35):
Promising a magic button.
Meredith's husband (09:38):
The magic easy button.
Just enter your keyword andpress, click and we'll generate
a blog.
It's going to put you right onthe top of Google.
Okay, well, how many peoplehave that same button?
Right?
There's only one spot at thetop of Google, right?
Okay, you see my point here.
I do 100%.
My point is use common sense.
Right, try to use common sense.
Think as if you were Google.
(09:58):
What type of content would youwant to put at the top of your
rankings or put in the resultsof your AI searches?
Meredith (10:05):
Valuable Something original please.
That caters to your question.
Meredith's husband (10:11):
Now that obviously begs the question well
, what is good content?
What is valuable content?
Meredith (10:16):
Yes, it does.
Meredith's husband (10:18):
Well, we've already said what it's not.
It's not just plugging yourkeyword into ChatGPT.
Now my response there's nolimit to the number of
potentially good blogs or thetypes of blogs that could be
good, so I can't tell youexactly what to do.
Meredith (10:32):
Clearly.
Meredith's husband (10:37):
My advice there must be something that you
are good at you as aphotographer, you as a business
owner, you as a website owner,you as a professional, a person.
There's something that you do,hopefully in your professional
world, that you are really goodat.
You are better than otherpeople.
Yes, okay, share somethingabout that.
Make it valuable.
Like, how many times have Isaid make your blogs a resource
for people.
Meredith (10:55):
Yes, a gazillion.
Meredith's husband (10:56):
If you can do that once per month, even
once per quarter, that's so muchbetter than just pumping out
useless information onto yourblog every week.
Meredith (11:07):
Right, it's almost like a cookie cutter.
You know that everyone's like,but mine's shaped like a
Christmas tree, mine's shapedlike a bird, I have a giraffe,
but it's all the same cookie.
Yes, you know, the dough is allthe same.
Meredith's husband (11:20):
Yeah, that's actually yeah.
Yes, yeah, that's a goodanalogy.
Meredith (11:24):
My Venmo is.
Meredith's husband (11:25):
There's no reward for lots of garbage.
Meredith (11:28):
This is true.
Meredith's husband (11:29):
Don't race to the bottom of the bin.
Meredith (11:31):
Yes.
Meredith's husband (11:32):
All right, I hope this helps.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!