How much time passed since the release of your site until the first sale?

1 month for me 

I haven't had one yet. Partly i think its time of year with summer slump and also my port is mostly isolates and i think real backings sell better.

Quote from: picture5469 on August 14, 2013, 19:36
my port is mostly isolates and i think real backings sell better.

FYI: There might be a problem with your site ? Your front page has an enormous white space under the menus.

there is no problem, you don't see the flash banner 

Quote from: bhr on August 14, 2013, 19:51

Quote from: picture5469 on August 14, 2013, 19:36
my port is mostly isolates and i think real backings sell better.

FYI: There might be a problem with your site ? Your front page has an enormous white space under the menus.

I am online since day 1. First sale happened a few days back.

However, for the first couple months I had just 10 test images up. Then I started to slowly upload in earnest (I have currently 560 photo online and about 3000 to go).

This is a long term project for me. It'll need time, lots of work and patience. First sale was just reaching an early milestone of something that can grow into a game changer for us. Just my 2 cents.

First sale was back in April and have numerous sales since.

Sales were down a bit in July, but August is off to a great start with 11 sold images so far.

My suggestion... don't spend too much time customizing your site and homepage ---> just add great images.

Most of my traffic seems to be coming straight from Google image search. Most of my visitors never even see the home page.

When I create new content, I add it to my Symbiostock site first to allow Google time to index it. After a few days I will upload it to Shutterstock, 123RF... etc.  So far, it seems, that Google prefers to show my content on the image search results from my SY site because it was indexed on my SY site first.

I have also created numerous images that I have only uploaded to my SY site, and several of them have sold!

Thanks again to Leo for making all of this happen!

Quote from: daveh900 on August 14, 2013, 21:59

Thanks again to Leo for making all of this happen!

+ 1,000

Quote from: daveh900 on August 14, 2013, 21:59
First sale was back in April and have numerous sales since.

Sales were down a bit in July, but August is off to a great start with 11 sold images so far.

¨
Congratulation with those amazing results already!

I Wonder if I  must doing something wrong; I have almost 4000 Pictures; have been running since (almost) the beginning but have not a single sale so far. More disturbing to me is the very low number of views I have (only 1 today for example and not more than 5/& 6  a day those last weeks ....).

I havent yet done much for the SEO, have started optimizing with yoast but it will take quite a long time!

Thanks to Leo to have put this together; it is an exiting project, but discouraging as well sometimes....
Jean

Quote from: jeancliclac on August 15, 2013, 19:37

Quote from: daveh900 on August 14, 2013, 21:59
First sale was back in April and have numerous sales since.

Sales were down a bit in July, but August is off to a great start with 11 sold images so far.

¨
Congratulation with those amazing results already!

I Wonder if I  must doing something wrong; I have almost 4000 Pictures; have been running since (almost) the beginning but have not a single sale so far. More disturbing to me is the very low number of views I have (only 1 today for example and not more than 5/& 6  a day those last weeks ....).

I havent yet done much for the SEO, have started optimizing with yoast but it will take quite a long time!

Thanks to Leo to have put this together; it is an exiting project, but discouraging as well sometimes....
Jean

That is surprising as your photographs are great

Jean just keep working at it.  It takes time for Google to index.  Do you use Google Webmaster Tools?  I started with it last week then got Yoast started this week to make the sitemaps.  It's currently indexing my urls and checking google a few of my images are indexed but not findable when doing an image search unless I get really specific with it.

I haven't gotten a sale yet and I do hope doing all of this will make that become a reality.

[/quote]

That is surprising as your photographs are great
[/quote]

Thank you for your kind appreciation!

I must have missed something important that makes my site invisible.....
jean

Quote from: Anita Potter on August 15, 2013, 19:49
Jean just keep working at it.  It takes time for Google to index.  Do you use Google Webmaster Tools?  I started with it last week then got Yoast started this week to make the sitemaps.  It's currently indexing my urls and checking google a few of my images are indexed but not findable when doing an image search unless I get really specific with it.

I haven't gotten a sale yet and I do hope doing all of this will make that become a reality.

Thank you Anita,
No I dont know Google webmaster. I feel a bit stupid, but I dont know how in practise I should do to get my Pictures indexed by Google; I'll read about it to check what I shall do.
Jean

No need to feel stupid.  You just didn't know about it that's all.

The sitemaps that Yoast generates will help with the indexing.  Webmaster tools will sort them by url in one column on a graph and by images in another column on the same graph.  Right now, for me, it's indexing the urls first then will probably go to the images column next.

You will probably have way more urls and images to index than I do and that will take some time to get them all indexed.  Right now I have over 3,500 urls of which under 1,500 have been indexed.  That's taken a few days to get to that point and I'm sure it'll probably be another week or so before it indexes them all.

I never really understood SEO but I'm getting a crash course in it.

Quote from: jeancliclac on August 15, 2013, 20:11

Thank you Anita,
No I dont know Google webmaster. I feel a bit stupid, but I dont know how in practise I should do to get my Pictures indexed by Google; I'll read about it to check what I shall do.
Jean

You seem to have a ton of images indexed at Google:
https://www.google.com/search?as_st=y&tbm=isch&as_q=&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&imgsz=&imgar=&imgc=&imgcolor=&imgtype=&cr=&as_sitesearch=stockabily.com&safe=images&as_filetype=&as_rights=&biw=1843&bih=924&sei=BisNUqBah_usAYfNgaAK

However, if these images were indexed at an agency already, it is likely that your images won't appear in a normal image search on Google. Try searching for your images with your keywords in Google images and see if you rank high in the results. If you find your images, see if any of them are hosted at your site.



I think your keywording could use some work as well.

Example: http://stockabily.com/image/no-entry-forvehicular-traffic-3/

The word "sign" should be in your title, description, and slug (url). I would also include the words "do not enter" as that is what that sign means to me (at least on this side of the pond). Personally, if I wanted to find an image like this, I would do a search for "do not enter sign".

Quote from: jeancliclac on August 15, 2013, 19:37

Quote from: daveh900 on August 14, 2013, 21:59
First sale was back in April and have numerous sales since.

Sales were down a bit in July, but August is off to a great start with 11 sold images so far.

¨
Congratulation with those amazing results already!

I Wonder if I  must doing something wrong; I have almost 4000 Pictures; have been running since (almost) the beginning but have not a single sale so far. More disturbing to me is the very low number of views I have (only 1 today for example and not more than 5/& 6  a day those last weeks ....).

I havent yet done much for the SEO, have started optimizing with yoast but it will take quite a long time!

Thanks to Leo to have put this together; it is an exiting project, but discouraging as well sometimes....
Jean

you're also still on version 2.4.8 so should update to 2.5.6 since there are a number of minor bugs that were fixed

Quote from: Anita Potter on August 15, 2013, 20:27
No need to feel stupid.  You just didn't know about it that's all.

The sitemaps that Yoast generates will help with the indexing.  Webmaster tools will sort them by url in one column on a graph and by images in another column on the same graph.  Right now, for me, it's indexing the urls first then will probably go to the images column next.

You will probably have way more urls and images to index than I do and that will take some time to get them all indexed.  Right now I have over 3,500 urls of which under 1,500 have been indexed.  That's taken a few days to get to that point and I'm sure it'll probably be another week or so before it indexes them all.

I never really understood SEO but I'm getting a crash course in it.

Thank you Anita, I see I have still a lot to learn!

Thank you Dave; I'll do that; I found few that are from my own site but most are from the Micro stock libraries...so I suppose I'll have to learn and index them in Google.
yes keywording is always perfectible, I use quite time to revise all my existing pictures, but I see it is far from being perfect!
jean

Quote from: daveh900 on August 15, 2013, 20:33

Quote from: jeancliclac on August 15, 2013, 20:11

Thank you Anita,
No I dont know Google webmaster. I feel a bit stupid, but I dont know how in practise I should do to get my Pictures indexed by Google; I'll read about it to check what I shall do.
Jean

You seem to have a ton of images indexed at Google:
https://www.google.com/search?as_st=y&tbm=isch&as_q=&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&imgsz=&imgar=&imgc=&imgcolor=&imgtype=&cr=&as_sitesearch=stockabily.com&safe=images&as_filetype=&as_rights=&biw=1843&bih=924&sei=BisNUqBah_usAYfNgaAK

However, if these images were indexed at an agency already, it is likely that your images won't appear in a normal image search on Google. Try searching for your images with your keywords in Google images and see if you rank high in the results. If you find your images, see if any of them are hosted at your site.



I think your keywording could use some work as well.

Example: http://stockabily.com/image/no-entry-forvehicular-traffic-3/

The word "sign" should be in your title, description, and slug (url). I would also include the words "do not enter" as that is what that sign means to me (at least on this side of the pond). Personally, if I wanted to find an image like this, I would do a search for "do not enter sign".

Quote from: cascoly on August 15, 2013, 20:43

Quote from: jeancliclac on August 15, 2013, 19:37

Quote from: daveh900 on August 14, 2013, 21:59
First sale was back in April and have numerous sales since.

Sales were down a bit in July, but August is off to a great start with 11 sold images so far.

¨
Congratulation with those amazing results already!

I Wonder if I  must doing something wrong; I have almost 4000 Pictures; have been running since (almost) the beginning but have not a single sale so far. More disturbing to me is the very low number of views I have (only 1 today for example and not more than 5/& 6  a day those last weeks ....).

I havent yet done much for the SEO, have started optimizing with yoast but it will take quite a long time!

Thanks to Leo to have put this together; it is an exiting project, but discouraging as well sometimes....
Jean

you're also still on version 2.4.8 so should update to 2.5.6 since there are a number of minor bugs that were fixed

OK thanks steve I'll do that!

If you enter site:yoursiteurl.com in google search, you will see your images that have been indexed. If they are there, google has them. But lack of seo might move them farther down in the search.


I have been seo-ing since the beginning. I dont have nearly as many images as you, and have only had one sale. Not sure what conclusion you can draw from that, except, as everyone says, it apparently takes time.

Quote from: cathyslife stockphotos.com on August 15, 2013, 21:10
If you enter site:yoursiteurl.com in google search, you will see your images that have been indexed. If they are there, google has them. But lack of seo might move them farther down in the search.


I have been seo-ing since the beginning. I dont have nearly as many images as you, and have only had one sale. Not sure what conclusion you can draw from that, except, as everyone says, it apparently takes time.

Thank you Cathy, very useful experience...I can only see 15 there on the 4000, I have to wake up soon......
Jean

Quote from: jeancliclac on August 15, 2013, 21:21

Quote from: cathyslife stockphotos.com on August 15, 2013, 21:10
If you enter site:yoursiteurl.com in google search, you will see your images that have been indexed. If they are there, google has them. But lack of seo might move them farther down in the search.


I have been seo-ing since the beginning. I dont have nearly as many images as you, and have only had one sale. Not sure what conclusion you can draw from that, except, as everyone says, it apparently takes time.

Thank you Cathy, very useful experience...I can only see 15 there on the 4000, I have to wake up soon......
Jean

I noticed also that you have a number of misspelled keywords  -- you can see an alphabetical list of all your keywords aT http://cascoly.com/symbio/list.asp?list=31

on that report yours is the site with 3664 images -- you're missing some fields in the symbiocard  such as symbiostock_my_network_name on the network page as 'site name'

just noticed your site is up to 2.5.5 now...

Quote from: jeancliclac on August 15, 2013, 21:21

Thank you Cathy, very useful experience...I can only see 15 there on the 4000, I have to wake up soon......
Jean

You have WAY more than 15 indexed.

Quote from: daveh900 on August 15, 2013, 21:58

Quote from: jeancliclac on August 15, 2013, 21:21

Thank you Cathy, very useful experience...I can only see 15 there on the 4000, I have to wake up soon......
Jean

You have WAY more than 15 indexed.

Yes. Attached is screenshot of partial of first page...and it goes on from there. did you enter site:stockabily.com   ?

Quote from: cascoly on August 15, 2013, 21:27
...you can see an alphabetical list of all your keywords aT http://cascoly.com/symbio/list.asp?list=31

... or http://<your website>/wp-admin/edit-tags.php?taxonomy=image-tags&post_type=image