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Advice on my portfolio


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Hello everyone!

 

I'm relatively new here but have already learned (I believe) a lot from this forum. I also see that you are very helpful in providing comments and suggestions to newcomers. I hope this can be applicable to my case too. I'm definitely already aware of some shortcomings when it comes to my portfolio but would be very interested to hear your opinions.

 

Some stats: Contributor since February 2017; 1,797 images on sale, 1 sale for 5, 6,000 views, 22 zoom.

 

Thank you very much in advance!

 

Cheers

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Welcome Tomas.  I see all your images are RF so I suspect you are coming from MS.  I assume you will make sure that all those unreleased people images are marked as "editorial only".  I think you have some strong saleable material there.  I would go easy on the stark landscapes that don't show much of interest, like K3PJR5 and HNNF10, and possibly tighten up some of the similars in series such as the Nene geese in Hawaii. 

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You have lots of interesting images which should have a market.

As well as what Reimar says, especially re marking unreleased RF as 'editorial only', I think you need to clean up your keywords a bit.

I just looked at file # KCJ9TP, and you have these words which aren't seen in the image at all:

air ( it's everywhere, and doesn't need keyworded except in exceptional cases!), army (the caption says it's police), bayonet, crime, control, cutter, demonstration, emergency, festival, (if it is a festival you should name it in the caption and keywords) festivity, weapon, weapons, and some others which are dubious, at best.

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Thank you all for this very useful advises! Much appreciated. Reimar, right, I do come from MS and still learning about Alamy.

So, I will first look at RF versus editorial issue.

 

I see also very well the point on keywording. Thanks for that too. And also on similars. Frankly, I'm still not quite sure what is precisely consider similar but I'll have a look at the forum to find out. But all in all, I understand that your rather suggest to simply delete some of the images.....as I suspect this might be better for the CTR ranking.....

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On 11/23/2017 at 02:10, Gryf said:

Thank you all for this very useful advises! Much appreciated. Reimar, right, I do come from MS and still learning about Alamy.

So, I will first look at RF versus editorial issue.

 

I see also very well the point on keywording. Thanks for that too. And also on similars. Frankly, I'm still not quite sure what is precisely consider similar but I'll have a look at the forum to find out. But all in all, I understand that your rather suggest to simply delete some of the images.....as I suspect this might be better for the CTR ranking.....

My opinion of similars is this. When you have more than 5 images of the same subject.  Shot from the same angle. 8-10 shots of a dog romping in the yard.  Yes,  each pose may be different because the dog is moving around, but pick two or three of the best and only upload those. So you have a distant shot of a landscape in horizontal. Then you have a vertical shot of the same scene, distant also. Then you zoom in, make a horizontal and a vertical. You have 4 of that same scene, but you’ve served any buyers wanting horizontal or vertical, or distant or closeup. 

I have seen a whole Alamy page in years past of a scene, and it was hard to tell any differences between them. When there are that many, my eyes glaze over and I find myself uninterested in looking at any of them out of sheer boredom.

Besides the fact that a lot of views of the same subject hurts your Click Through Rate which can ultimately cause your images to sink toward the back pages of a search.

I’m sure there are other contributors here who can explain it better, or have a different perspective about how many similars are too many.

Betty

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Looked at a random image, chose the one of the reindeer.

 

First, there is no such word as reindeers.  The plural of reindeer is reindeer.  Same if one or many.

 

The image is in Norway, so why is Finland a keyword?  Don't add incorrect place names to increase views.

 

And as others have said, you do have too many similars.  Views mean nothing.  Getting views for incorrect keywording will only hurt your rank and with the competition on Alamy, you need to be on the first few pages of a search to be seen.

 

Good luck.

 

Jill

 


 

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I also looked at a random image, KCGA9K, which caught my eye as it is a lovely photo of a scenic lake.    I would combine keywords  "Lofoten Islands" together.  Like others have mentioned, there are some keywords which don't seem very relevant, and will lead to views but no zooms which will hurt your ranking.  For example, at least to my eyes, I don't see any hikers or people clearly  in the image.  I see a house in the image, but don't see a village.  Is there a name for this lake?  If so, add it to the keywords and the caption. 

 

You have some very nice scenic images.

 

Maria

 

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9 hours ago, Jill Morgan said:

First, there is no such word as reindeers.

 

 

But there heve been 11 searches in the last year for terms that include 'reindeers'... (and there are 3000+ images with that keyword)

Sometimes gramatical correctness can work against real world effectiveness

 

km

 

Reindeers sled 1 0 2 97 2.06
reindeers in the woods 1 0 1 35 2.86
santas and reindeers 1 0 1 41 2.44
reindeers with blue eyes 1 0 1 2 50.00
Reindeers sleds winter 1 0 1 21 4.76
reindeers yorkshire 1 0 0 0 0.00
reindeers harrogate 1 0 0 0 0.00
reindeers uk 1 0 0 164 0.00
reindeers 3 0 0 300 0.00
Reindeers sled winter 1 0 0 66 0.00
santas and reindeersf 1 0 0 0 0.00
blue eyed reindeers 1 0 0 0

0.00

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25 minutes ago, RedSnapper said:

 

 

But there heve been 11 searches in the last year for terms that include 'reindeers'... (and there are 3000+ images with that keyword)

Sometimes gramatical correctness can work against real world effectiveness

 

km

 

Reindeers sled 1 0 2 97 2.06
reindeers in the woods 1 0 1 35 2.86
santas and reindeers 1 0 1 41 2.44
reindeers with blue eyes 1 0 1 2 50.00
Reindeers sleds winter 1 0 1 21 4.76
reindeers yorkshire 1 0 0 0 0.00
reindeers harrogate 1 0 0 0 0.00
reindeers uk 1 0 0 164 0.00
reindeers 3 0 0 300 0.00
Reindeers sled winter 1 0 0 66 0.00
santas and reindeersf 1 0 0 0 0.00
blue eyed reindeers 1 0 0 0

0.00

 

Interesting. Anyone know Alamy’s position on this? Correct grammar and spelling only or should we tag anticipating common errors like this? What about US versions of English words eg colour/color?

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12 minutes ago, ACC said:

 

Interesting. Anyone know Alamy’s position on this? Correct grammar and spelling only or should we tag anticipating common errors like this? What about US versions of English words eg colour/color?

 

What do you think?

 

If it's relevant stick it in. But only if it's in the image. AoA is your friend.

 

wim

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2 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

Alamy have said here, quite recently, that the deliberate inclusion of spelling mistakes may be penalised by the search engine in future So, your call.

 

Yes it's always better to teach the client. NOT.

 

You learn from the client. The client teaches you.

Unless you're Steve Jobs.

 

Researching Nikola Tesla, AoA in recent years has come up with these searches:

Nikola Tesla (correct)
Nikolai
Nicolai
Nicole
Nikolas
Nicholas
Nikols
Nokola

and I probably have missed a couple too.

 

wim

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17 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

Alamy have said here, quite recently, that the deliberate inclusion of spelling mistakes may be penalised by the search engine in future So, your call.

It must one bright engine if it can tell if it was deliberate or not.

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21 minutes ago, andremichel said:

It must one bright engine if it can tell if it was deliberate or not.

 

It will have a list embedded of every word in the English language according to the Oxford dictionary. If your word does not match the image will be thrown out.:D

 

Allan

 

 

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47 minutes ago, Allan Bell said:

 

It will have a list embedded of every word in the English language according to the Oxford dictionary. If your word does not match the image will be thrown out.:D

 

 

 

On what basis do you make this claim that images will be rejected for errors in tagging?

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38 minutes ago, RedSnapper said:

 

On what basis do you make this claim that images will be rejected for errors in tagging?

 

Images? Clients!

The Queen's English ¹) - or you're out. 

 

¹)  ‘Ever deeper into national denial we plunge, while the world looks on aghast at a once-sensible country affirming an act of collective self-harm with all the state pomp it can muster.’ 

Not said by the Queen in her speech, but by a commentator noting what she should have said.

;-)

 

wim

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I do occasionally include incorrectly spelled variations of keywords when tagging images. And it's paid off in that I've seen my images appear in searches using wrongly spelled keywords. So I'll take my chances with the superintelligent Alamy search engine of the future. Wonder if it will be named Hal? 

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1 hour ago, Kukkudrill said:

I do occasionally include incorrectly spelled variations of keywords when tagging images. And it's paid off in that I've seen my images appear in searches using wrongly spelled keywords.

 

Ditto.

 

EDIT: I've also sold images on the very same basis.

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4 hours ago, spacecadet said:

Didn't you see the :D your end?

 

Thanks Mark. Of course I was joking.

 

Yes I intentionally put misspellings in my keywording tagging too.

 

Allan

 

 

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23 hours ago, spacecadet said:

Alamy have said here, quite recently, that the deliberate inclusion of spelling mistakes may be penalised by the search engine in future So, your call.

 

id like them to sort out blatant false keywording as a priority

 

spelling mistakes seem to be a minor issue compared to the deliberately false keywording

 

Alamy are in the business of selling images - so if reindeers sells images why take action?

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