It’s no secret that Erin and I love our blog. Our blog is much more to us than simply a glimpse into the recent weddings and engagements that we’ve photographed – it’s also a journal of our lives, both photographically and personally. We’ve really enjoyed sharing our journey with all of you over the past few years, and we look forward to sharing more in the future.

For those of you just starting out, I can’t emphasize enough the value of having a blog. Seriously. If you’re debating between a blog and a website, I say blog it up! Not only is having a blog a great way to showcase your recent work to your clients and their loved ones, its also a great place for potential clients to get a glimpse into who you really are beyond a formal portfolio.

There’s a ton of options available as far as blogs go – but here I’m going to talk about what our blog is, and how we went about setting it up.

Our blog is a hosted WordPress blog that we’ve customized using the Pro Photo Theme from Jared Henderson over at Netrivet. The WordPress software is completely free, and the theme that sits on top of the software is super reasonably priced, especially considering the power it has straight out of the box. You can check out the theme here, and if you enter the coupon code “theyoungrens” upon checkout, you can save yourself some cash.

The thing that we love about this theme is how easy it is to control all kinds of customization options on the back-end. Everything from colors, layout, and fonts to image controls and advanced SEO settings can be controlled directly, with a few clicks. Sure, you could design something similar from the ground up yourself, but it would take FOREVER and you’re a photographer, so you should probably be spending your time taking photographs and sharing them, right?

Jared (the man behind the curtain) has done a killer job in his support section of walking through the installation process with the theme and the WordPress software, so head on over there for all the nitty gritty details. It might sound a little complicated, but trust me, it’s not bad at all. If you’re super computer-shy, you can even get a full-service install of the Pro Photo Theme on your server for an additional fee.

WordPress is a super-cool blogging platform, and I thought I’d give you my top 3 most favoritest things about WordPress. Here’s the full feature list.

1. Plugins. This is definitely my favorite thing about WordPress. The platform was built in such a way that you’re able to download and install thousands of plugins available for free from the WordPress website. Want your blog to be iPhone compatible? There’s a plugin for that. Want to optimize your blog for search engines? There’s a plugin for that. At last count, there was over 6,000 free plugins available for WordPress.
2. Scheduled Posts. Want to write 5 posts today and then have one post each day over the next 5 days? No problem, it’s built in. Love it. You can literally have blogs post while you’re on vacation without even logging in to your blog.
3. Open Source. When a piece of software is Open Source, it essentially means that the code behind the software isn’t protected by copyright and therefore can be modified by anyone. Typically, open source software is also free, so everyone wins. What this means for WordPress is that there’s constantly a bunch of uber-genius programmers working to refine the application and make it better.
4. Bonus! CSS Support. I know I only said I’d give you my top three, but I’d be remiss to not mention that I just LOVE the way I can further customize anything I can think of on the blog through the use of CSS.

Regardless of what blogging platform you choose, I just really want to encourage you to get out there and begin blogging if you aren’t yet. It may seem daunting at first, but I promise it’s totally fun!

Remember, if you decide to grab the Pro Photo Theme, use the coupon code “theyoungrens” to get $10 off the theme.