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7 minutes ago, ACC said:

log into dashboard, scroll down, alamy measures for views and zooms.  Your ranking is 1/2/3 stars top left of dashboard page.

 

That isn't quite right. Go to Alamy Measures and you can see your CTR (click through rate). Click on Your images to get access to a report on what images of yours have been viewed, zoomed and sold. Your CTR is one part of your Alamy rank, which determines where your images appear in search results but there is no sure way you can see what your Alamy rank is - Alamy keeps that a secret.

 

As Colblimp says, the stars refer to your ranking in the QC system. If you fail inspection you may, repeat may, see your QC rank reduced, which probably leads to your images being subject to closer scrutiny. 

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Brilliant..thanks all.  I can now see my QC rank is three stars...my CTR is zero....and most of my images have 1 view but no zooms....my optimised images seem to come up in searches on the first few pages....so I remain hopeful....I still only have a few hundred images yet though. Thanks!

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38 minutes ago, Brian Vickers said:

Brilliant..thanks all.  I can now see my QC rank is three stars...my CTR is zero....and most of my images have 1 view but no zooms....my optimised images seem to come up in searches on the first few pages....so I remain hopeful....I still only have a few hundred images yet though. Thanks!

Brian, thank you for asking this question, I had no idea what a zoom was, and no idea what my ranking was, as I only have 224 images so I am way down the ladder.

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You need to add a couple thousand more images, and you’ll get a few zooms, and depending on the kinds of images you have, a few sales. Some people sell with a couple of hundred images that happen to be what is in demand. Well keyworded and captioned, which is as important as the image is. The two go hand in hand.

Some people who have 5000 images seldom sell, because:

1.  Too many similars, effectively reducing 5000 images to a couple of thousand

2.  Ho-hum images of Canada geese and mallards, cats, dogs, poorly taken flowers

3.  Mostly one subject like cars, trains, etc. that may occasionally sell but is not of general interest to most buyers

4.  Poorly developed images that are dull, or taken in harsh light, have a color cast, horizons in the middle, and a multitude of other things that may be wrong.

5.  A very good, contrasty, colorful image but who wants a picture of Aunt Hattie’s hat? Or Uncle’s foot? Or a clump of grass with dew on it? No matter how artistic.

And no, I haven’t looked at your images so I’m not talking about your portfolio! Just general problems, and I have, in the past, seen portfolios like that! That said, I probably have a few of those crappy images myself because I didn’t have a clue what stock was about when I started.:o

Betty

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9 hours ago, Brian Vickers said:

Thanks Kelv....I don't know about yours but mine all show one view, no zooms and no sales.

More or less same here one zoom though, must have been done by mistake :) 

 

8 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

You need to add a couple thousand more images, and you’ll get a few zooms, and depending on the kinds of images you have, a few sales. Some people sell with a couple of hundred images that happen to be what is in demand. Well keyworded and captioned, which is as important as the image is. The two go hand in hand.

Thank you Betty 

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Kelv, I took a peek at your images. I only zoomed one, of the baby jay waiting for food. (I like birds :D

You have the Latin name in the tags, which is good. You also need to put that in the caption. The caption is as important as the body of tags. Also in the caption and tags, put the location.

”Baby jay fledgling, scientific name, patiently waiting for food. Location. If a buyer is doing an article about birds found in and around a certain area, they might search “bird (location)”

Put fledgling in the tags.

Betty

Oh, and in my part of the world, I would have:

Bluejay fledgling, scientific name, perched on a branch and patiently waiting for food in Wichita, Kansas, USA.

The extra here is the common name of the jay.

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Kelv, Betty is spot on.  This forum is full of great advice like hers.  I have just under 5,000 images but my zooms and sales are low because I shoot 85% hard news for Alamy Live News so have a very specific buyer sub set compared with stock - but I can earn good money from a photo that is used.  I am not a brilliant technical photographer like many here ( I will keep learning!)  but news photography requires a slightly different approach.  

 

The advice that I have picked up as per Betty is quality, quantity and variety.  A common question is "what sells" and the answer is almost everything!  I am sometimes amazed at photos I sell.  One key, as Betty has indicated, is to think about what the buyers might want rather than what you like.  There appears to be two types of shooter in stock on here.  One is the fireman approach, Shooting a lot of photos across a wide range.  The other, just as successful, is the sniper who shoots a much smaller number and whose  portfolio is in the low thousands, but they are very selective, prune out their portfolios frequently and are very focussed.  

 

Keyword and captioning are also key.  I spend more time keywording and captioning then re keywording and captioning than I do taking photos - although in my case this is because hard news photos change context over time so have to be re keyworded.  

 

Zooms and sales, unless you are in the top 20% of contributors who get 80% of sales can be very erratic, - feast and famine so do not become disheartened by long periods of drought.

 

The other thing that I have found useful is to look at the portfolio of those who are successful (and if you follow these forums it became obvious - togs like Reg Snapper).    This is not to copy them but to look at quality and viewpoint from those who have worked out what the buyers want and how to supply them.  I also look closely at their key words and captions so I can improve on my approach.  I find all this a fascinating learning journey .  Good luck....

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Ok, ok. Don't tease the new folks. It is, of course, RedSnapper. One thing I have learned about the people who sell frequently is that ALL of their images are excellent quality. I know that numbers can help, but only if you can keep up the quality.

 

Paulette

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Thanks for all of the information and for taking the time.  I'm trying to 'optimise' all of my images though only a few hundred loaded at this time....not sure if that is absolutely necessary so I'm now adopting a strategy of getting them on sale as soon as I shoot and endeavouring to go back and to optimise as soon as I can later.

 

I'd welcome any feedback on my images so far...quality, content or keyboarding etc...if any of you have the time to give them a look that would be fantastic.....thanks again I really appreciate the information above.

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5 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Kelv, I took a peek at your images. I only zoomed one, of the baby jay waiting for food. (I like birds :D

You have the Latin name in the tags, which is good. You also need to put that in the caption. The caption is as important as the body of tags. Also in the caption and tags, put the location.

”Baby jay fledgling, scientific name, patiently waiting for food. Location. If a buyer is doing an article about birds found in and around a certain area, they might search “bird (location)”

Put fledgling in the tags.

Betty

Oh, and in my part of the world, I would have:

Bluejay fledgling, scientific name, perched on a branch and patiently waiting for food in Wichita, Kansas, USA.

The extra here is the common name of the jay.

Every day's a schoolday. I didn't know it was commonly Bluejay, I thought the bluejays* were a sports team!

I'd therefore caption: Blue Jay (bluejay) fledgling, Cyanocitta cristata, perched on a branch ...

And make sure you keyword both Blue Jay and Bluejay, because the search engine isn't that clever as to read them as the same.

 

*Ha! Now I discover they're the Blue Jays!

 

Hmmm, in the past year (since 1 April 2017) no searches in AoA on Bluejay; one on Bluejays (resulting in a mix of sports and birds, many of the bird photos have no Blue Jays in them, :-(  Some are Western Jays, Scrub Jays, one is a Steller's Jay and some have no jays in them at all)

More searches on Blue Jay and Blue Jays.

 

Except that the bird in Kelv's photo is a Eurasian Jay (Garrulus glandarius) (normally called simply Jay)

So now I'd caption Eurasian Jay, Garrulus glandarius, fledgling,  perched on a branch patiently waiting for food in <location>. And I'd put Eurasian Jay, Jay and Garrulus glandarius in the keywords. Also corvid and I'd have a long debate with myself about crow, which is technically correct, as it's a member of the crow family, but when we 'say' Crow, we 'mean' Carrion Crow.

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4 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

 

Oh, and in my part of the world, I would have:

Bluejay fledgling, scientific name, perched on a branch and patiently waiting for food in Wichita, Kansas, USA.

 

Question - what's likely better in the caption for US State locations?   Spelled out or usual state abbreviations - i.e. Texas or TX?  Or include both?  Image searchers probably look for either. 

 

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48 minutes ago, Cryptoprocta said:

Every day's a schoolday. I didn't know it was commonly Bluejay, I thought the bluejays* were a sports team!

I'd therefore caption: Blue Jay (bluejay) fledgling, Cyanocitta cristata, perched on a branch ...

And make sure you keyword both Blue Jay and Bluejay, because the search engine isn't that clever as to read them as the same.

 

*Ha! Now I discover they're the Blue Jays!

 

Hmmm, in the past year (since 1 April 2017) no searches in AoA on Bluejay; one on Bluejays (resulting in a mix of sports and birds, many of the bird photos have no Blue Jays in them, :-()

More searches on Blue Jay and Blue Jays.

 

Except that the bird in Kelv's photo is a Eurasian Jay (Garrulus glandarius) (normally called a Jay)

So now I'd caption Eurasian Jay, Garrulus glandarius, fledgling,  perched on a branch patiently waiting for food in <location>. And I'd put Eurasian Jay, Jay and Garrulus glandarius in the keywords.

 

5 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Kelv, I took a peek at your images. I only zoomed one, of the baby jay waiting for food. (I like birds :D

You have the Latin name in the tags, which is good. You also need to put that in the caption. The caption is as important as the body of tags. Also in the caption and tags, put the location.

”Baby jay fledgling, scientific name, patiently waiting for food. Location. If a buyer is doing an article about birds found in and around a certain area, they might search “bird (location)”

Put fledgling in the tags.

Betty

Oh, and in my part of the world, I would have:

Bluejay fledgling, scientific name, perched on a branch and patiently waiting for food in Wichita, Kansas, USA.

The extra here is the common name of the jay.

Thank you, Betty, Cryptoprocta and Ian so much, I seem to spend more time with a dictionary and wikipedia (and still don't find enough info), than taking photographs, and then I'm so critical about them I reject most of them, I'm also so self conscious about taking images with people in that I wonder if I'm suitable for this... Betty thank you for giving me a zoom, some things money can't buy.:)

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12 minutes ago, Kelv said:

 

 Betty thank you for giving me a zoom, some things money can't buy.:)

Sorry, but I'm pretty sure a contributor's zooms are excluded from statistics unless they sign in as a buyer. For obvious reasons:ph34r:

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1 hour ago, Brian Vickers said:

Thanks for all of the information and for taking the time.  I'm trying to 'optimise' all of my images though only a few hundred loaded at this time....not sure if that is absolutely necessary so I'm now adopting a strategy of getting them on sale as soon as I shoot and endeavouring to go back and to optimise as soon as I can later.

 

I'd welcome any feedback on my images so far...quality, content or keyboarding etc...if any of you have the time to give them a look that would be fantastic.....thanks again I really appreciate the information above.

You're creating the kind of images that will sell for stock to UK news sites and others that could work in more diverse markets.   It's pretty much a numbers game so I would focus on getting up into the thousands of pictures and the sales will start to be consistent. 

 

 

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27 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

Sorry, but I'm pretty sure a contributor's zooms are excluded from statistics unless they sign in as a buyer. For obvious reasons:ph34r:

I'm crushed... I presumed that would be the case though.

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2 hours ago, Kelv said:

 

Thank you, Betty, Cryptoprocta and Ian so much, I seem to spend more time with a dictionary and wikipedia (and still don't find enough info), than taking photographs, and then I'm so critical about them I reject most of them, I'm also so self conscious about taking images with people in that I wonder if I'm suitable for this... Betty thank you for giving me a zoom, some things money can't buy.:)

Sorry to say, Kelv, my zoom doesn’t count. Only certain registered buyers zooms count. :(

Dont be afraid to shoot people. Walking by a storefront, doing things. You don’t need releases, you list them editorial, no release.  Either RM or RF editorial. But remember property counts, too. That storefront is someone’s property and requires a release to be sold RF. But RM or RF editorial works.

 

If this is confusing for you, ask questions. We’ve all been where you are when we began. 

 And for the rest of you, blue jays or bluejays are what we see in Oklahoma and Kansas.  Probably Texas, too, and beyond.  As we go west, I’ve seen mountain Jays. Not sure how many different jays we have in the U.S. I know of a Stellar Jay.

 

As far as the caption goes, I usually just say USA. But in the tags, US,USA,U.S.,U.S.A.,United States. That string sometimes takes up too much caption space I want to use for other words.

Betty

 

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22 minutes ago, Betty LaRue said:

And for the rest of you, blue jays or bluejays are what we see in Oklahoma and Kansas.  Probably Texas, too, and beyond.  As we go west, I’ve seen mountain Jays. Not sure how many different jays we have in the U.S. I know of a Stellar Jay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay

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10 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Sorry to say, Kelv, my zoom doesn’t count. Only certain registered buyers zooms count. :(

Dont be afraid to shoot people. Walking by a storefront, doing things. You don’t need releases, you list them editorial, no release.  Either RM or RF editorial. But remember property counts, too. That storefront is someone’s property and requires a release to be sold RF. But RM or RF editorial works.

 

If this is confusing for you, ask questions. We’ve all been where you are when we began. 

 Betty, Just thank you for browsing through my images, and the advice

10 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

 

 

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