I’ve previously covered Side Gigs That Pay Over $100k, with photography being the avenue I chose. After all, if you love what you do, it won’t feel like work.

What started out as a hobby, I’ve traveled the world and now call Las Vegas home as a pro portrait photographer, and I also run 1kCreatives.com, a site that helps photographers (and other creatives) earn their first $1000/mo.

While there are a lot freelance websites where you can advertise, or market your business, there’s only a handful that I think are worth it. Before continuing down this list, I would encourage that you read my post on How to Start a Photography Business, where I lay everything out step-by-step. Because the truth is, there are a lot of steps to take before you even think about advertising your business.

The Best Websites to Advertise and Market on for Photographers, Ranked in Order, Starting With the Website That Generates the Most Leads…

#1 – Google – The Organic Side

Shocker. No surprise here. As a photographer, if Google and Instagram isn’t in your top 3, you’re probably doing something wrong.

There’s two paths here – but they’re closely related. You want to rank organically, but also locally. 

The top spot is the local maps pack, where I rank #1. For the organic rankings, I’m ranked #3 (or #4).

If you want to see where you’re ranked, make sure to do it in an Incognito Window in Chrome, as Google does sometimes personalize your search results, and would naturally rank your website higher for you.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a science in of itself, so I won’t go to in-depth. Instead, I’ll provide you with the Pareto’s Principle approach… essentially you’ll need really good content that generates backlinks. For local rankings, reviews have the biggest influence. If writing isn’t your forte, you could try ClearScope or Fiverr for writers who know about photography, but I would caution you on using Fiverr for other SEO purposes.

If you do plan to write yourself, utilize a tool like MarketMuse for on-page optimization.

#2 – Google Ads – The PPC Side

No matter your SEO efforts, there is a Google Sandbox (though Google does downplay this). Because of this you likely won’t rank for competitive keywords for at least a a few months.

Here’s where Google Ads comes into play – but they must be setup correctly.

You’ll Pay Per Click (PPC) on Google, thus you don’t want to spend money advertising to people that won’t convert.

I’d start with setting up “phrase match” keywords based around your speciality. Simply advertising for “photographer” attracts people searching from everything about photographers – it could be jobs, information, or niches in photography you don’t work in, such as food, boudoir, etc.

Instead setup keywords targeting your niche and city, for example, if I was starting today this is how I would target:

• Targeted keywords, eg. “Portrait Photographer Las Vegas”, “Elopement Photographer Las Vegas”, etc.
• Target by Household Income, eg. with portrait packages starting at $400, my services do skew to those with more disposable income, thus I set my highest budget for household incomes over $150k, and titrate my bid adjustment down according to lower household income brackets.
• Target by area, for most, you would target people who live within a 5-10 mile radius of your location. But it does depend on your location, when I lived on the island of Maui in Hawaii, a popular tourist destination, I wanted to target people on the mainland who are planning to travel to Hawaii.

#3 – Yelp – Businesses hate yelp, but you have to be on there

People may trust Yelp, but most businesses hate Yelp. They filter a good chunk of your genuine reviews and it’s becoming a pay-to-play system. With that being said, it doesn’t cost anything on the organic side (just ignore or politely decline their frequent sales calls).

My advice, get listed, get reviews, optimize your profile. It doesn’t require a lot of your time and you will get leads from it. People who find you on Google will also cross reference on Yelp, etc. to make sure you’re legit so it’s wise to build a profile here.

#4 – Facebook – Be sure to utilize local groups

Facebook is much more than creating a business page – what 99% of photography businesses will do and think they’re done. It’s the same mistake I made and of course, for the first decade, I might have a lead or two trickle in from Facebook, but nothing serious.

Now, of course there is success to be found that way, I know photographer moms who are absolutely killing it on Facebook. Because that’s the platform moms spend most of their time on.

But for me, Facebook groups is where I get most of my leads on Facebook. Join your local Facebook groups, Maui has many with tourists asking questions, including many searching for photographers, drop your service every now and then without being to spammy and boom – free clients.

You could also pay for Facebook Ads, but I haven’t found them to be worth my time / too profitable.

#5 – Instagram

When I lived on the mainland, Instagram wasn’t a huge source of leads for me.

Now that I live in Maui, the demand for photography here is a little higher and a lot of people search hashtags, eg. #MauiPhotographer, #MauiPortraitPhotographer, etc.

At the time of writing, I have a paltry 300-something followers on Instagram, and I don’t post too often, but I do get a handful of leads from Instagram every month. I know I could scale this if I posted more but you know, good ‘ol imposter syndrome as a photographer, never posting anything because I suck, etc. 😂

#6 – Thumbtack Pro – Pay Per LEAD

Like Yelp, I have a love/hate relationship with Thumbtack as well. I’m going to go in-depth on my next blog post on here, so if you’re reading this now a day or so after this has been posted, just search this blog for Thumbtack and you’ll find my in-depth review.

#7 – Fiverr – Worth Exploring

We’ve covered Fiverr many times on this blog, statistics show that is one of the most popular freelance websites – right up there with Upwork. While they focus mostly on business gigs, they’re expanding beyond that and a lot of creatives, photographers included are now on the platform.

Unfortunately for most, the platform does cater to buyers on a budget – hence the name “Fiverr”… a website that started out as a website where you can buy anything for $5. Fiverr is definitely worth exploring for newer photographers who’s working on developing a portfolio. I’ve posted a few video production gigs on their because I’m looking to build my portfolio there. It’s free to post, but Fiverr does take a hefty cut at 20%.