How to make links to our Alamy pictures for marketing and selling?

[PhotoSoren]

Please help with questions about how to best make external links to individual pictures in Alaymy and to specific collections after your own needs.

I have been many years with Alamy with satisfying results in the first years. But after some very depressing reactions to - in my mind - well prepared submissions I have taken a break for all too many years.

Anyway now I want very much to get up on the horse again and want to combine my new submissions with using my knowledge of SEO and online marketing.

For this I have a number of questions I haven't been able to find described in the Forum or elswhere.

To be able to contribute to marketing of your own Alamy stock photos you need to be able to direct potential customers to exactly the pictures you want them to see. - And you want the promoted webpages with your pictures to do as good a job as possible for being indexed in Google etc. and to keep up with the competition in future searches there.

1.) What is the best url for an individual picture to show for a customer?

- I think I have found the answer, like the following webpage:
http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-St-Peter-s-Basilica-Vatican-City-Rome-Italy-evening-atmosphere-2737428.html
But my problem is how to find all other similar webpages with each one of my pictures?

2.) How to link to all my pictures?

I can use the blue number under my name in the Forum post, like
http://www.alamy.com/search/ImageResults.aspx?&xstx=0&userid={874A0412-C428-44DF-9576-D3554D17C917}&name=photosoren
Here I took away what went into the url after my forum name photosoren. At the moment it will list 148 pictures what is the small amount I have at present at Alamy. When I go on to the second search page the url become very, very long, and when I go back to the first page this url is also becoming a nightmare.

Strange enough if I use my photographer name Soren Breiting through the advanced search option the result:
http://www.alamy.com/Search/ImageResults.aspx?xstx=0&pseudoid=B7DB38F8-FB9B-43C0-8B86-F7D85BF51D5D&name=Soren+Breiting&st=11
Will only show 87 of my pictures. What is behind this reduction?
(If I remove at the end of the url: st=11 this search will also show all 148 pictures)

3.) How to make the url for a subsection of my pictures?

It could be all the pictures from a specific country, or all bird pictures e.g.
If I first search for all my pictures using the above url (with the st=11 removed) and then add
+birds
I actually get what I want, see
http://www.alamy.com/Search/ImageResults.aspx?xstx=0&pseudoid=B7DB38F8-FB9B-43C0-8B86-F7D85BF51D5D&name=Soren+Breiting+birds

That is fine for a promotion ( I hope) but do anyone know if Google and others will keep search results in the Google database?
In general I think permanent webpages like the above .html page are much better than the dynamic search result pages.
Do anyone of you have experience to highlight these concerns or any further advice?

Thanks a lot in advance for your time and insight.
Soren
(Denmark)

[Guest]

A roundabout way to curate your own sub-collections is to use lightboxes and use that url for direct marketing.

[Andrew Spiers]

Groups of photos can be added to a lightbox which generates an nice clean link.

 

There is no easy way to link to an individual photo (I have asked Alamy). The options are;

 

1. Add one photo to its own lightbox.

2. Copy the really long URL and use a URL shortener (i.e. bit.ly)

 

I have asked if Alamy can have an easy way to link to an indiviual photo. It has been added to the 'list' but they make no promises.

[PhotoSoren]

A roundabout way to curate your own sub-collections is to use lightboxes and use that url for direct marketing.

 

Thanks Geoff,

That is a good idea. But my problem is then that it will be with very long url,like:

http://www.alamy.com/lightbox/mylightbox.aspx?srch=foo%3dbar%26st%3d0%26pn%3d1%26ps%3d120%26sortby%3d2%26qt%3d%26qt_raw%3d%26qn%3dsoren%2520breiting%26lic%3d3%26mr%3d0%26pr%3d0%26aoa%3d1%26creative%3d%26videos%3d%26nu%3d%26ccc%3d%26bespoke%3d%26apalib%3d%26ag%3d0%26hc%3d0%26et%3d0x000000000000000000000%26vp%3d0%26loc%3d0%26ot%3d0%26imgt%3d0%26dtfr%3d%26dtto%3d%26size%3d0xFF%26archive%3d1%26name%3d%26groupid%3d1930%26pseudoid%3d1930%26userid%3d{529AED59-1D0A-4538-A238-4B9B3ABDC662}%26id%3d{529AED59-1D0A-4538-A238-4B9B3ABDC662}%26a%3d%26xstx%3d0%26cbstore%3d1%26lightbox%3d%26resultview%3dsortbyPopular%26gname%3d%26gtype%3d%26apalic%3d%26simid%3d%26cap%3d1%26nasty%3d%26saveQry%3d%26editorial%3d%26t%3d0%26edoptin%3d%26customgeoip%3d#/1/0/1/67e76013-4748-4a19-aec9-82c4e2ed9bd7

(=10 lines long !!!)

and that isn't good for Google or others.

If I use an url shortener, I am not sure if that will help the real url to be kept in Google.

Any other ideas?

Soren

 

[PhotoSoren]

A roundabout way to curate your own sub-collections is to use lightboxes and use that url for direct marketing.

 

Thanks Geoff,

That is a good idea. But my problem is then that it will be with very long url, =10 lines long !!!

and that isn't good for Google or others.

If I use an url shortener, I am not sure if that will help the real url to be kept in Google.

Any other ideas?

Soren

 

[PhotoSoren]

Did you take a look at this?

When a customer searches on my site www.arterra.be via the Alamy search box, all he finds are Arterra pictures.

 

Cheers,

Philippe

 

Thanks Philippe.

Yes, I am aware of 'my own Alamy search box' and webpage like: http://www.alamy.com/stock-photography/874A0412-C428-44DF-9576-D3554D17C917/Soren%20Breiting.html 

 

The url format is fine, but that will never turn up in the search engines unless you search for some of the few words in it and include the name of the photogapher - remember all photographers will have more or less the same webpage, so that will go as 'duplicate content' in SEs, I think.

Best - Soren

 

[PhotoSoren]

Groups of photos can be added to a lightbox which generates an nice clean link.

 

There is no easy way to link to an individual photo (I have asked Alamy). The options are;

 

1. Add one photo to its own lightbox.

2. Copy the really long URL and use a URL shortener (i.e. bit.ly)

 

I have asked if Alamy can have an easy way to link to an indiviual photo. It has been added to the 'list' but they make no promises.

 

Thanks Andrew.

 

Is it true, that a lightbox can get a nice short url ?

I think I can help you a little here with the url for individual pictures:

 

If you make a search in Google with

writing   site:alamy.com Andrew Spiers

It will come up with plenty of webpages, and many of them will be nice static html-pages with one of your pictures, like:

http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-British-Flag-Flying-25082435.html

So it seems that Alamy has fulfilled that task from their to-do list :-)

My problem as mentioned was to find all the relevant webpages with this excellent format, of cause with the aim to make my own contribution to the online visibility of these webpages (= with my individuel pictures) that weren't already indexed in Google (or other SEs).

Best - Soren

[Andrew Spiers]

Is it true, that a lightbox can get a nice short url ?

 

Yes, this is one of my LightBoxes - www.alamy.com/lbx.asp?1280040

 

What I have asked Alamy for is something like -  www.alamy.com/image.asp?ABC123

 

Where ABC123 is the image ID.

 

Andrew

[PhotoSoren]

 

Is it true, that a lightbox can get a nice short url ?

 

Yes, this is one of my LightBoxes - www.alamy.com/lbx.asp?1280040

 

What I have asked Alamy for is something like -  www.alamy.com/image.asp?ABC123

 

Where ABC123 is the image ID.

 

Andrew

 

 

Thanks again Adrew (and to Geoff, too about the lightbox option).

 

When I follow your advice for a lightbox, I get a url like: http://www.alamy.com/lightbox/mylightbox.aspx#/1/0/1/a08d3767-35fa-40d8-8df6-f15f273e7616 - not at all as smart as yours?

 

Do you mind telling me what is the trick to get your smart url?

 

- And sorry that I couldn't solve your request for a one picture url.

 

Best

Soren

[Andrew Spiers]

Go to My Alamy > Lightbox > Share

 

This will email you a short link to your lightbox

[RedSnapper]

So you want to do something like this?

http://www.artswebwales.com/oriel/bigpic.asp?picID=591&catID=15

or this

http://www.artswebwales.com/oriel/bigpic.asp?picID=1514&catID=10

 

 

km

[PhotoSoren]

Thanks km / RedSnapper,

For me I am not sure if a 'pop-up' is the best and most permanent 'webpage' to link to.
As written in my original post about linking to individual Alamy Pictures, I would prefere html pages with a search engine friendly url, like:

http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-Photographer-and-pony-England-2737438.html

where the part of the url, not visible here in the post:
'stock-photo-Photographer-and-pony-England'

should be helpful for the ranking in Google / the searchengines.

Best
Soren

[RenePi]

I am using Pinterest to collect all my images from various stock agencies and made a board for my Alamy and Stockimo images today

 

http://www.pinterest.com/renepi/my-alamy-portfolio/

 

For me personally I think ti is a pretty nice way to make a collection of all my images!

 

Also my Pinterest is linked to FB and Twitter accounts, so everything I share is automatically also shared there!

[scotstock]

All you need to link to an individual photo is something like http://www.alamy.com/search/ImageResults.aspx?qt=CPFHC2 with the appropriate image ID.

 

For the display page it only needs the http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-Bamburgh_Castle_on_the_Northumberland_Coast_England-48286135.html without the rest of the alphabet soup. Alamy will now complain that leaving the rest off will upset their site housekeeping...

 

For a pseudonym it's http://www.alamy.com/search/ImageResults.aspx?qn=scotstock

[Windmillskies]

Thanks RenePi for the idea - really like what you did with the Pinterest board, will try that as well.

 

Martin

www.windmillskies.com