We could use some good advice!

[HeY iTs ScOTtY]

photography....super hard to sell online. there is just so much of it its crazy to think someone would buy yours or my pictures online. not saying your photos are bad i didn't even look but out of my experience thats just what i think. i sell quite a bit online but its only because i tell my clients and the people i take pictures of the go to my site to get their pictures. i wouldnt even dream of selling any of my still life to any stranger just passing through. its like what big mike said people are just not willing to buy online.

as for sites i use fototime.com to display and sell most of my pictures. they offer a lot of products and print good quality. they are also very cheap for a membership. i think i paid 25.00 for a year. thats where i have most people get their pics from. the only ones i don't get there are the ones i want edited and enhanced.

 

[statesofminds]

Thanks Scotty and everyone else for your advice and suggestions! I really appreciate all of your help :thumbup:. I am currently looking into all of the sites everyone has listed and hope to make a choice by this weekend. By all means though, if anyone has another idea, I am game! The more options, the better!

Like I said earlier, we are getting many visitors to Shutterbug, but no sales. The visitor count tripled in our second month (even with folks from here checking it out to give feedback, it is a marked increase, I think)! I have done much of the promotion through Twitter and it has worked well for that site. However, using Twitter has not in any way worked for our blog (admittedly, the content needs to improve somewhat). I notice that there are few views at all-people are not following the link whether its one they recognize like Dan States | States of Minds: Wild Photography or a shortened one like Dan States | States of Minds: Wild Photography; we simply don't get visitors. Has anyone else had any experience like this? A good friend who's been helping me get up and running is in IT and has worked some magic, and has a few other ideas, but I am curious if anyone here has any advice and experience for something like this. Thank you again!
Dan

 

[pharmakon]

Typically for blogs content is King. You need to find a way to create something that will keep people coming back for more. I also think the blog could use a facelift. I find the text area is a little narrow for my liking, the links almost blend in with your opening paragraph, and nothing really draws me in to the site.

Also make sure you are tagging your posts appropriately, and maybe try to find other bloggers with similar topics that are willing to trade links.

I think you have a good start here and something to work with, you just have to keep driving new traffic and posting new content to keep any return visitors entertained. Best of luck to you.

 

[statesofminds]

Thanks Pharmakon! I am new to writing for the web, for the most part, so I am constantly looking to improve my content-and I will certainly look into the tags as soon as I can think clearly (it's quite late). We made some changes to the color scheme to make the entire blog more appealing to the eye-and help the links stand out better. While we couldn't do much about the narrow text, my friend was busy this evening making many positive changes to the layout and features-it looks much different and better now than before! Here's the link, if anyone wants to see and give some ideas Dan States | States of Minds: Wild Photography

However, my problem is mainly that too few people have given it a chance so far-ie, for each Tweet about our Shutterbug gallery, we get 25-40+ visitors, while we get 0-3 visitors to the blog per Tweet; so it may have nothing to do with the blog at all (content, layout, etc.). Maybe it's the the folks in general on Twitter or maybe the Tweets I make are not right...if anyone wants to see some of those messages posted, feel free to look me up under statesofminds on twitter.

 

[thriveCanada]

I think the sites are great, but the traffic needs to increase. I built a site that's owned by Getty that sells images. We got 4.3 million visits a year and about 3k in sales a day. It was about 7 transactions a day. This should give you some ratios.

 

[statesofminds]

Thanks you for the input ThriveCanada-we certainly appreciate it and are glad you liked the sites. Holy cow, those are some numbers and ratios you quoted! I can only dream . Any ideas for us on how to increase our views and sales? By the way, I will certainly look at Getty! What site were you talking about-I'd love to get an idea, if it's OK with you. Thanks again!

Dan

 

[statesofminds]

Thank you, everyone, for all of your kind advice! After much shopping around, I decided that Zenfolio has a good set of features for a reasonable price, so I set up a gallery on a trial basis to see what people think. If anyone wants to look, please feel free-and let us know what you think! Zenfolio | Dan States

Thanks again!