MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: Peter on September 09, 2008, 11:34
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I have a personal webpage for a year now, and it is time to re-new my domain, but I dont see how the site helped me in terms of sales. Do you have personal web site, and do you think it helps you?
I think I wont re-new my domain, it is just waste of money and FTP space. Not popular enough.
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Before turning to microstock I used mine a lot for self-promotion. I use it now for the vanity email address and as a handy spot for people to download stuff they bought from me directly. It also gives me more credibility on the few occasions I give someone a business card.
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I have a personal website that I sell prints from for when I do photoshoots (models, weddings animals etc).
It also has my stock library on, where I sell licensed and royalty free images.
The hosting company takes care of taking the money and sending out the prints / digital files.
It's all about promotion though, I send flyers out regularly for my website.
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I think if you need a local presence -- as in doing weddings, freelance, etc. -- a personal website would be a big plus. But if all you're doing is stock, I don't see how it would help much (hence, why I have done one). After all, there is no way I could attract the amount of traffic to my personal site that iStock does, for example.
But if others have different experience, I'd love to hear about it. I have the server space and ability to build a site, just don't see the benefit.
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I have a personal website that I sell prints from for when I do photoshoots (models, weddings animals etc).
It also has my stock library on, where I sell licensed and royalty free images.
The hosting company takes care of taking the money and sending out the prints / digital files.
It's all about promotion though, I send flyers out regularly for my website.
Same with me. I'm using SmugMug, and it's fantastic.
I've only had mine for a few months though and am slowly building it up, so I don't have anything to report. But I do like the fact that I can send potential clients and buyers to my own site instead of an agency.
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If someone likes your micro work they might look at your profile. If you are in the same area they might click through to your website so they can look up your contact information. They might meet with you and commission you for a huge shoot.
I read in a domestic paper about this happening to a microstock photographer once. He had a lot of agricultural photos and I think it was Cargil who liked his work on the micros and contacted him through his website.
Unless, of course, all you do, and all you ever will do is stock, I'd say how can you consider NOT having a website these days?
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Personal web sites, accounts on eBay, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, etc... can all be used to drive traffic to your portfolio. Since my portfolio for photos is so small, I get a TON more referral compensation than I do from downloaded images. And most of that comes from links on over a hundred web sites and accounts that I manage.
For my videos, I drive a TON of traffic to my portfolio from eBay and I have seen my sales jump considerably since I started doing this as well as getting referral money from sales of stuff that isn't mine.
Simply create a home page that has nothing but links to your portfolios and some good sites like this one. Then, for dynamic content stick some RSS feeds on the page so that there is useful information for people to find in search engines. You'd be surprised how well that works.
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How did you use facebook to drive traffic to your portfolio?
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I created a "sampler" video of my motion design stuff and uploaded it to my Facebook account. I then joined several groups related to documentaries, commercials, etc.. (the groups that would tend to be interested in buying stock footage). Added my video to those groups and included a link to my portfolio.
I did something similar with some of my artwork and got one person who happened to have an StockXpert account to buy one of my images. But I don't have enough of a still portfolio to attract much attention.