Poor Discoverability

[Steve Lalich]

I have been on Alamy for almost a year now with no sales for my food photos. I have sold many images on Shutterstock and Adobe. Am I doing something wrong? It says I have “Poor Discoverability”. What do I need to do? Thank you!

 

Steve Lalich

[Dave Richards]

On 05/04/2022 at 17:39, Steve Lalich said:

I have been on Alamy for almost a year now with no sales for my food photos. I have sold many images on Shutterstock and Adobe. Am I doing something wrong? It says I have “Poor Discoverability”. What do I need to do? Thank you!

 

Steve Lalich

What images do you have on those other two stock sites? Are they the same ones you have on Alamy?

[meanderingemu]

forget poor discoverabilty display, that's a mislabel.  

 

as for are you doing anything wrong, i would say your captions don't really describe what is in the image

 

Let's take

 

Soup images for the food industry. 

- Image ID: 2G4NYTM

 

Solid image

 

What kind of soup, what is in the image bowl/plate.  If you want to licence your images people need to find them

 

Then i look at your Keywords

 

Where is the Cheddar? The tortilla?   How can this be both a Bisque a Minestrone and a Chowder? 

 

 

 

If people don't find your image they will not licence it.  

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by meanderingemu

[Martin L]

Steve

Your captions need a serious going over.

They should describe exactly what is in the image. 'Soup Pictures For Catering Industry' just won't cut it.

Alamys search engine needs quality captions along with equivalent keywords that should reflect what is in the caption as well as others.

Good luck

 

Jean-Francois beat me to it  😄

 

 

 

[meanderingemu]

the other thing i will let other address regarding "am i doing something wrong", is focussing on food at Alamy as i have no expertise there. 

[Michael Ventura]

Steve, your food photos are very good but your caption and tags are terrible.  You need to be accurate.  The captions are often very vague and then the tags are all over the place with few really true to what is in your photo.  Forget about “Poor Discoverability” and just concentrate on describing exactly what it is that you photographed.  Adding words that are not relevant is not helpful for you, the buyer and for Alamy.

 

 

With this image above, I counted 22 tags of things that were not in the photo or even associated with the photo.  I am not trying to be mean, but only helpful.  The better the tags and captions the better the chances for good sales!

Edited April 6, 2022 by Michael Ventura

[Chuck Nacke]

45 minutes ago, Michael Ventura said:

Steve, your food photos are very good but your caption and tags are terrible.  You need to be accurate.  The captions are often very vague and then the tags are all over the place with few really true to what is in your photo.  Forget about “Poor Discoverability” and just concentrate on describing exactly what it is that you photographed.  Adding words that are not relevant is not helpful for you, the buyer and for Alamy.

 

 

With this image above, I counted 22 tags of things that were not in the photo or even associated with the photo.  I am not trying to be mean, but only helpful.  The better the tags and captions the better the chances for good sales!

Steven,

 

I agree with Michael 100%  As I have written many times, I spend more time researching my caption information, ITPC, as I do preparing images.

Who, What, Where and Why.

 

As to licenses I do have a small number of images on another large library and I just got a Three page statement of licenses and in total it would

not equal one average license from Alamy.

 

Chuck

[Shergar]

Check 

appetizerbakedbatteredbeerbreadedbreakfastbroilcakescarrotschipscrabdinnerfast foodfast-foodfilletfishfrench friesfriedgrilljapaneselemonslobsterlunchmainperchpotatoesrestaurantsaladsalmonsavoryscallopsseafoodshellshrimpsushiswordfishtacostartertrouttunavegetableswhitefish 

 

I think you might have misunderstood how tags work on Alamy, you have listed more seafood that's not there than is. Pictures are great. You might need to go back and  tag them again. Whats your CTR looking like?

Edited April 7, 2022 by Shergar

[Colin Woods]

Absolutely do not be tempted to add keywords just to give your images the green Discoverable label. Just describe your images - sometimes you can completely describe an image in half a dozen keywords, others will take many more. Discoverability is Alamy coarsest tool and it should be removed. They seem to like it so we have to do the next best thing and pretend its not there. I have 23k images here, of which 400 are Discoverable. You have 2200 images so its a do-able project to go through them all and delete any non-relevant keywords.

[Ed Rooney]

 

Steve! To write a useful caption and worthwhile tags, you must think like a buyer. Someone who needs an illustration for a piece in a magazine or online is not concerned with 'for the food industry.' By using tags that don't say what's shown in your image, you're pointing buyers away from your stuff. 

[Dave Richards]

Steve, the other guys who have responded have nailed the main problem you have and provided the advice you need in that regard.

I would however return to my original question: What images do you have on those other two stock sites? Are they the same ones you have on Alamy?

[M.Chapman]

In addition to checking whether new contributors can submit 3 images that comply with image QC, why oh why don't Alamy also do a keyword/caption check? Is server space and processing power now so cheap they don't care???

 

Mark

Edited April 7, 2022 by M.Chapman

[Michael Ventura]

44 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

In addition to checking whether new contributors can submit 3 images that comply with image QC, why oh why don't Alamy also do a keyword/caption check? Is server space and processing power now so cheap they don't care???

 

Mark

Yes, agree. At least on the first submission before they go live on the site…just to see if they understand how the captions and tags work!

[meanderingemu]

52 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

In addition to checking whether new contributors can submit 3 images that comply with image QC, why oh why don't Alamy also do a keyword/caption check? Is server space and processing power now so cheap they don't care???

 

Mark

 

 

Maybe this should be included in the "Exciting New Opportunity" of Shutter Hub X Alamy Collaboration.