Quote from: grsphoto on July 17, 2013, 20:59

My portfolio is much smaller but I have had similar results.  But, I have read here and other places as well, that sales percentages of incoming traffic is very small.  200- 300 visits is closer to zero than to where we want to be before we will see consistant sales.

Something else to consider is google and SEO likes change and new.  you shouldn't just build a site and forget about it, you should makes changes, add images, add links to blog posts to keep the crawlers coming back to check your site.

But that is exactly what I do not have time and energy to do. I don't expect to get massive traffic directly via Google, that will not happen, ever, unless I use the services that some of those spam posts offer - to generate fake traffic at a "small" monthly fee. No thanks. Like I said, my hope is that the traffic will come from the Symbiostock global search engine, just as people find my pics via the search engines of the agencies.  Hopefully the search engine will have enough visibility and become a factor in the microstock world. That is the big potential I see in Symbiostock. Maybe naive? If you tell me that will not happen, I will instantly forget about Symbisostock and about selling my pics directly. Should I? If I only wanted traffic via Google, there are other ways of doing it, but  I would not be interested. Like I said, my vision is that Symbiostock becomes a factor in the microstock world, and that I can be a small part of it.

Quote from: cascoly on July 17, 2013, 22:37

for the global search engines to attract customers, sym site members need to link to and promote  those engines

how many pages & iMages from your site has google iNdexed?  without doing some seo work, your site isn't going to get noticed.  and if you're not being noticed, other members are less likely to include you in their network list.  symbiosis means it works both ways

Hey, if it comes to it, I will do my part to get traffic into the network, don't misunderstand me, but what I fail to understand is how linking to fifteen other sites will boost my sales?? Isn't the potential 1000 times bigger with a global search where potential customers can choose between (hopefully) millions of photos based on keywords rather than klicking away in an endless network where you find 10-15 sites at the time? Isn't the vision to compete with the big agencies like that?

 

that's what some of us believe & would like to experiment with;

I am definitely joining, just have not gotten my site going yet. Hope to start next week.

Following some private messages from ppl already using the platform, i will be starting building my SS website.
One question though... Since i have access to aged and high ranked domains, will it be better to use one ?

A lot of good photographers (including myself  from countries where Paypal is not working (Russia (well, Russia only to some degree), Belarus, Ukraine) cannot use Symbiostock.

Following some private messages from ppl already using the platform, i will be starting building my SS website.
One question though... Since i have access to aged and high ranked domains, will it be better to use one ?

Great!
Really cool
Your site is already at http://symbiostock.info, we have 72 sites and 77201 images now.

Very good question. All new market ideas should start by that.

What's holding me back from joining Symbiostock:

1. It's still under construction obviously
2. It runs on Wordpress. In my experience, very heavy, slow, long loading times. A big minus (sorry, I like the idea of wordpress but not the results most of time).
3. Hosting. I would love to have the website + the hosting in the same package. + hosted in a country that respect individual rights and privacy (not in China or USA for instance).
4. Seems complicated. I don't want to go into development, designing web pages etc..  Downloading an app or soft, then designing, then finding a host, then publishing, managing, maintenance etc.. Too complicated.

 But the idea is great. Uniting artists to build their own platform to sell their work at decent prices directly to buyers. Not being screwed by some agencies with some blur pricing structure and T&C. This is how I understand and appreciate it.