spacecadet Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 But how are your sales doing year on year? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jill Morgan Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 I can see where it can be confusing. When I do the BHZ game, I am on page 25. I just did a search for dog show (no people) Over 3,000 results and my images started showing up on page 2. So my rank must be better than I thought. Jill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 But how are your sales doing year on year? A steady climb from 2002 to 2009 despite submission being very much an occasional exercise; followed by a sharp dive and bumping along th bottom since. 2014 was marginally better than my first, part, year in 2002 (until you take inflation and reduced commission rate into account). From 2009 to 2013 and especially 2014 I started to get back to my photography more seriously and thoughtfully; in 2014 I put in a lot of effort; sales barely recovered from the lowest point in 2010/11. I made as many "sales" in 2013/4 elsewhere with much less effort but they were not good at collecting payment (some good bylines though) so I chose to focus on Alamy who are much better than most in that regard it seems. I have had one QC failure in about 5.5 years (4.5 years ago) so QC is clearly not a driver as Alamy have said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Has anyone who had fallen into the doldrums ever managed to climb back to a decent ranking and sales performance? Anyone at all? Yes, I have been on page 23 when that was the last page at 120/pp. How to crawl back? Edit, edit, edit. And think very hard about what you upload. You can shoot whatever you like, but do upload an image only if that will land on the first page for that search. And only when it has a fair chance among what is already there. Otherwise it will still hurt your CTR. And check AoA if there are in fact clients looking for that subject. Otherwise print it out and hang it on your wall. Or post it on Flickr or Instagram. Make a list of what perfect shots you would want to upload, if there would indeed be clients looking for those subjects. Check that list from time to time if there still have been no clients looking. Before you shoot, check what's already there and check Google images if the general mood and style is the same as it is on Alamy for that subject. Decide whether you want to follow the mainstream or go against it. If you want to go against it, check if this already has been done, but never used. (On Alamy that is simple: go to the rear and have a look around.) Later on when/if you have crawled back you can add more, but it will remain a balancing act for a long time. This of course is more or less what Alamy is saying as well. If you want it to be a crowd sourced / group effort thing, why not open a lightbox and let everyone choose 1 image per page from your collection. Put those in a new pseudo and hope for the best. If you want to play the Alamy game, remove all similars and keep only 1 or 2 for each subject or place. At least until your pseudo has risen a bit. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickfly Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Well, the BHZ game is over, but perhaps someone could explain the relevancy tab? A search for Bradford University returns this picture in pole position, with some of mine some way away from it... DXRYFW.If it's bad etiquette to show/comment on contributors picture posts I will remove it, but the contributor has only uploaded a couple of 'shots', and, if this is seen first, then how does 'relevant' work exactly?Edit: Question answered, picture removed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Well, the BHZ game is over, but perhaps someone could explain the relevancy tab? A search for Bradford University returns this picture in pole position, with some of mine some way away from it... If it's bad etiquette to show/comment on contributors picture posts I will remove it, but the contributor has only uploaded a couple of 'shots', and, if this is seen first, then how does 'relevant' work exactly? It's RF. The next RF will have a lower rank. RF is more or less evenly mixed with RM. In a search with more RF than RM (they do exist) RM will get pole position probably. - Oops not true: Office Team: every 8th image is RM, but the first 7 are RF. So RF has priority always. Some people have found this out early on: they rely on clients liking their style and clicking on the number beneath the image to see the rest of the images by the same photographer of the same subject. I seem to remember David Kilpatrick wrote about this. So for Venice, he would have an RF image very high up, while the rest came much further down. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickfly Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Well, the BHZ game is over, but perhaps someone could explain the relevancy tab? A search for Bradford University returns this picture in pole position, with some of mine some way away from it... If it's bad etiquette to show/comment on contributors picture posts I will remove it, but the contributor has only uploaded a couple of 'shots', and, if this is seen first, then how does 'relevant' work exactly? It's RF. The next RF will have a lower rank. RF is more or less evenly mixed with RM. In a search with more RF than RM (they do exist) RM will get pole position probably. - Oops not true: Office Team: every 8th image is RM, but the first 7 are RF. So RF has priority always. Some people have found this out early on: they rely on clients liking their style and clicking on the number beneath the image to see the rest of the images by the same photographer of the same subject. I seem to remember David Kilpatrick wrote about this. So for Venice, he would have an RF image very high up, while the rest came much further down. wim Interesting, thanks Wim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Playing the BHZ game (and I play) is irrelevant. I sometimes play virtual pool, too. Also irrelevant. The numbers that are important are sales, views and zooms, in that order. I was on BHZ page 2 for a long time. After the last reload, I find myself at the top of page 6. Yet I've had my best sales year in 2014 during the period my BHZ image dropped to the lower page. Should I spend my time thinking, worrying, trying to figure out Alamy's algorithms? No. They do what they do; I do what I do. My job is to produce a larger collection of logical stock images, subjects that I have access to, and doing a careful PP on each . . . and constantly rethinking, reviewing, working to understand my keywording. I lost over three years of production to circumstances beyond my control. Maybe I'll catch up with myself and maybe I won't. There it is. BHZ theories? I couldn't care less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Ventura Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 Playing the BHZ game (and I play) is irrelevant. I sometimes play virtual pool, too. Also irrelevant. The numbers that are important are sales, views and zooms, in that order. I was on BHZ page 2 for a long time. After the last reload, I find myself at the top of page 6. Yet I've had my best sales year in 2014 during the period my BHZ image dropped to the lower page. Should I spend my time thinking, worrying, trying to figure out Alamy's algorithms? No. They do what they do; I do what I do. My job is to produce a larger collection of logical stock images, subjects that I have access to, and doing a careful PP on each . . . and constantly rethinking, reviewing, working to understand my keywording. I lost over three years of production to circumstances beyond my control. Maybe I'll catch up with myself and maybe I won't. There it is. BHZ theories? I couldn't care less. Well put Edo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 No. Those factors are necessary but not sufficient. You also need what Ed said. I've also had my best year with falling views, static CTR, no change in BHZ and even month after month in the sinbin. NO doubt the latter will knock-on in years to come but it hasn't yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 So you are implying that one is stuffed if you have 4-5000 images but are in the backwoods of the ranking, that there is no way back? I suspect, unfortunately, that is the case. Unfortunately I started soon after Alamy, but as a part time exercise. Now I work at photography full time I can't make it work because of that history it would seem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jill Morgan Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 I think Alamy has to give the answer. Anyone else who says anything will just fuel speculation. And we already know what we should do about it: Send us your best work. So it's easy: if we have sent our best work and we are not selling, that must mean our work is not good enough. wim And to quote from elsewhere: The secret to success is high quality, original work that is well keyworded. So if one is failing then the conclusion is that my work isn;t good enough, is low quality and badly keyworded. Not really. I think there are three main reasons for having bad sales, even if you have the best quality pictures in the world: photographing too much of the same, like the umpteenth picture of the Eiffel Tower (31,058) photographing unique subjects for which ............ there is no demand, like the Zulu serotine starting with a handful of pictures (Yeah, I know. There we go again ) If you like to have numerous sales of common subjects, you need a good ranking or you'll be buried by tons of not-necessarily-better pictures (not to mention heaps of snapshot dross ) . So, what are many photographers doing wrong in my eyes? They start way too soon while they are not ready for the job. By that, I mean very little knowledge of post processing AND - particularly - THEY HAVE NO STOCK !!! They start with a medium rank but have no sales from their 150 pictures because they are lost in the mass >>>>>>>> ranking rapidly drops to the floor from which they can't recover and climb back up the ladder........ End of story! So, what should starters do? Master the needed skills. Browse your large archive and select minimum 4000-5000 varied and saleable pictures Submit those all at once to Alamy (by sending them a harddisk) This way, you also start with a medium ranking BUT have almost immediately sales so you are able to maintain that ranking >>>>> maintain your visibility >>>>> able to grow and earn more and more money. Anyway, that's how I did it and it did the job and still does (started right away with 11,000 images). Cheers, Philippe Some good advice Philippe, except that if one waits till one has 4,000 images, then by the time you have collected that many Alamy will have 100 million photos, so you will need 8,000 images, etc etc etc. As many of us don't make our living selling stock, then if I followed that advice I would have no images on Alamy right now. I have a decent ranking, sales and maintain a high CTR (usually hovers between .8 and .95). It didn't take me too long to improve my PP skills in PS and ACR (now I did use to have my own darkroom many years ago, so that may have helped) and learn to just upload those that would pass QC and few similars. Last night I decided to check on where I fell in a common subject. I searched for "white lion" and my first image showed up on page 4 of 97 pages. I thought that not too bad. I then decided to check out the images at the almost back of the pack. Of course lots were of images where you knew "white lion" was either a bad combo, or the keywords were low in priority. But when I came to images of lions I would click on the zoom. First I found images with way too many irrelevant keywords, so obviously these photogs were getting many views for searches that had nothing to do with the lion. Then I would check their portfolios and find tons of similars, where they just held the shutter down, took 20 or 30 shots and uploaded all of them. And a lot of the shots were excellent. Are all photogs aware that views can be held against you? Once I retire I plan to do this full time, but right now my other two businesses occupy me and put the food on the table and pay the mortgage. I don't think you need a huge portfolio to make sales, just a well keyworded filtered set of images. And common subjects such as Eiffel Tower, or here the CN Tower, can be sold if you target a specific type of search. I have sold 2 of the CN Tower, both where people doing the "edge walk" are visible. For common subjects you need to target specific searches as opposed to general searches such as "Eiffel Tower" or "CN Tower". But yes, its easier to sell these if your rank is already above the median. I hope to have a portfolio as large as yours one day, but it will take time. Your stuff is amazing in a field that is very very competitive. I salute you. Jill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dustydingo Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 Well, the BHZ game is over, but perhaps someone could explain the relevancy tab? A search for Bradford University returns this picture in pole position, with some of mine some way away from it... If it's bad etiquette to show/comment on contributors picture posts I will remove it, but the contributor has only uploaded a couple of 'shots', and, if this is seen first, then how does 'relevant' work exactly? It is indeed "bad etiquette" . . . and I can still see it (but have deleted it from the quote above to not perpetuate the practise). dd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedSnapper Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 420 searches in the past year for 'eiffel' and its variants 12700 searches last year for 'girl' and its variants i know what i'll be photographing km Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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