Domain Name Search Engine Ranking

A good domain name for your photography or art website is a must. If you are a solo artist or solo photographer you can simply just use your name for your website. Search engine ranking is achieved with proper keywording. Try to create keywords that are closely related to the most common words yet at the same time unique in itself. For instance take the word artist. This is a top level keyword in which likely will be somewhat difficult to take first rankings in the search engines. If you add your name and or a descriptive word about the type of art or photos you offer will be much more successful at finding a better search engine placement. Use as unique descriptions as possible for best results. Submit to artist and art directories. This is also important in establishing relevant links to your website that are similiar in topics. Be choosy who you link to and who also links back to you. You dont want to be caught up in a bad neighborhood of useless and potentially harmful links. If you submit to general directories be sure to submit your art site or photography website to the proper category because quite often many directory administrators will not correct this for you or they will simply just delete your site for improper category placement among many other directory submission errors. Be sure to use accurate spelling and avoid keyword stuffing when submitting to these directories. Well established and high ranking directories will not be easy to get placement as some of the directory owners can be quite choosy. Keep your description simple and straight to the point as to who you are and what you have to offer. Use the proper official name of your website if requested rather than loosely strung keywords. It also looks much more professional when using proper titles and accurate descriptions. Be sure to read all the rules, terms and conditions when submitting to a website directory.

Home Based Photo Studio Lab

Many artists and photographers prefer to sell only prints, cards and other stationary items from their images instead of licensing their original images for commercial use. Many thirds party print on demand websites offer services that will help with the production of the prints and cards themselves. There are free options but usually there is always a catch and limitations. Paid services allow for room but overall it will still cost plus commission. Retain all your earnings by setting up a home photo studio lab. This will require some time and investment but then the artist or photographer will have complete control with everything including all control of costs.
 One can get started on a low budget by purchasing a good quality photo printer to produce smaller and sellable 4x6 or 5x7 prints or perhaps spend a few dollars more and purchase a level entry professional wide format photo printer that is capable of larger sizes and more features. Suitable printers can be found for a thousand dollars or much cheaper if one is really lucky to come across a good deal over the internet. Canon and Epson offer high quality photo printers that produce excellent results.
 The problem with using third party print on demand websites is not knowing what your photos will look like before they get to your customers. You can always order your prints before hand from the third party being used to be sure that your prints will be sellable. This normally requires purchasing your own prints sometimes with a discount but can be inconvenient because of a waiting period for shipping. It could also be very expensive if you have a lot of images you would like to sell. In many cases when it comes to the photography and art industry there is simply just very few cheap cuts when it comes down to selling your images as prints. However, all is not lost. One can invest in a high quality wide format photo printer for much less in the long run. Photo printers in this price range are capable of printing fairly large images and creation of greeting cards if so desired. If you decide you would like to sell your images as posters then this would require a much more expensive printer because of the poster size itself. Remember the larger the image the more costly it will be to produce which in turn affects the retail price of the print itself. One must consider the cost of ink and type of photo paper that is to be used when producing the images to print.
 The advantages of owning your own photo printer is that you will be able to judge what your images look like before selling and if changes are needed to improve the image itself before putting to market. This in turn makes the whole process much easier, faster, simpler and much less expensive. You will also appreciate having total control over the printing production of your photographs and art in the comfort of your own space.   

Don't Sell Your Photos For Next To Nothing

There are a variety of ways one can sell their art and photography. The trick is to watch that you don't allow usage or sell your art and photographs at a mere pittance of their actual worth. In other words don't settle for just pennies. You deserve much more than this for the images you create. Why should someone else be the one to profit more than you off your creations? Print on demand photo sites such as Red Bubble, Imagekind, Deviant Art and similar sites offer prints for sale using your images. There are pros and cons to this approach. It is easy to get started using a free account, uploading photos and hopefully to make a few bucks or cents when someone buys a print of your image. The downside of this is the amount of money you receive is virtually next to nothing unless you are very lucky to sell an awful lot of prints of your images. This is also goes for greeting cards, posters and any media where your art and photos are used as the basis of the product. Quite often many of these print on demand sites want exclusive royalty free rights to your photos. In other words you will have to agree to their terms not to sell your images in the same fashion from another print on demand site. This also holds true for stock photography sites. In my opinion this is totally unethical and is totally a disadvantage to the rightful copywriter owner of the image itself. Therefore it is very important for an artist or photographer to read the fine print, terms and conditions before signing up with a print on demand photo website or stock photo website. Do research on the sites and read user reviews by googling everything you can find out about how such sites work. It would be well worth the time before its too late and the artist falls into great disappointment. It is just not worth it otherwise to jump into a sticky situation in hopes of making a few measly bucks from your hard work. Yes, creating art and obtaining that perfect photo shot can be time consuming. Don't just give it away. Artists and photographers have to put bread on the table too! This is especially true when one is new to this type of business. The newcomer of an artist or photographer can be easily duped into an uncomfortable situation because someone wants your images for very little or at worst free maybe in return for a simple credit. Don't fall for it. This will not pay the bills nor be good for your self esteem. However, there are those individuals who don't mind these technicalities of selling images from print on demand and stock photo sites. Much all depends on the person's desired niche if they wish to sell their photographs and artwork as cards, prints, posters, mugs, keychains, etc. Remember that the company or person with the printing business will prosper more than the artist who allows usage of their images for very little in return. A decent premium home printer with premium printing paper can do the same thing. This way the artist can print as needed when someone requests a print. Even greeting cards can be created from home with a home printer. The only limitations of a home printer is photo sizes. Posters for example would require a commercial sized printer which can run in the thousands of dollars which is probably not feasible for those on budget. Another and probably the best alternative is to sell your art and photos from your own domain and website as digital art downloads and photo downloads. This way one can set their own license terms, prices and have complete control over the images. That way if another company or individual wishes to use one of your images for mass production of products such as posters, mousepads, postcards, etc, the artist or photographer can state his or her usage license and fee for the usage of the photo. This way a much higher price can be asked for the photo art or photograph requested according to quality, style, popularity, size and type of usage (non-commercial or commercial) of the image itself.  

Transform Your Photos To Art

Photography itself is a wonderful art form in itself.  Amazing images can also be transformed to photo art using graphics software. This can produce some very unusual and interesting photos which in turn provide more pictures for your photo album or online gallery. Photoshop and its cheaper alternative the Gimp provide many fine tools and filters that can turn a plain photographic image to a fine piece of art. For example why not add some digital painting effects to that boring old landscape image to produce a museum like painting. Perhaps that common photo of everyday trees and flowers could become an abstract art form with added colors and distortions. Why not just simply turn a photo to a black and white image with added grain for that old fashioned look. The possibilities are endless. One single photograph can be taken to produce a photo art series collection if the objects in the photo itself allow it. From experience some photographic images simply produce better photo art images than others. Its all a matter of testing colors, filters etc to produce that one of a kind photo. The important thing is too have fun and only keep the best of photo art pictures for publication and selling. Study the image closely. If it doesn't look quite right it probably isn't. Usually one will know in an instant if a photograph is suitable for a photo art piece after applying a few effects. Most photographic images are useable for photo art creations. More experienced Photoshop users will likely find it much easier than novice users. Novice Photoshop users can simply experiment with the various filters till they see something that catches their eye. That is okay too because some of the best photo art is created at random.

Photoshop Versus the Gimp

Every digital and graphic artist knows about Photoshop. There is also the open source bitmap editor, the Gimp which is completely free to use for personal and commercial use. It is just a matter of preference. Here we will discuss the benefits and downfalls of both graphics programs.
Photoshop is commercial and very expensive. It is almost always considered the standard for a professional artist or photographer. The upgrades are not free and thus adds another cost in keeping up  with the latest Photoshop updates. The benefits outweigh the cost if one can afford it. Photoshop has many excellent photo editing tools but also has a steep learning curve. The good news is that there are many free tutorials to be found on the intenet on using Photoshop to its fullest potential. The Gimp, on the other hand also has many tools and filters that is totally free to use. Updates are always free and thus is the most economical graphics editor for the casual artist to the professional. 

The Gimp however lacks a shape tool that is similar to Photoshop. One can make very basic shapes in the Gimp. Photoshop, however has a much more advanced shape creator which is a very important tool for artists especially graphic artists. This is probably one of the major differences in Photoshop and the Gimp. Other than that both programs are both excellent for digital imaging and photo retouching.  It is just a matter of how much one wants to spend on graphics software. If one is just starting their out new, the Gimp is the way to go. Another alternative would be to find an older version of Photoshop which would be cheaper. This can be done by searching on Ebay or Amazon. This is not easy to do these days because those rare older copies of Photoshop still maintain their value. People are hanging on to their prized possessions and when they do appear they are snatched up as fast as they are listed. 

Software and Tools For New Artists on a Tight Budget

Are you and or artist and photographer who is wanting to promote your work but are on a limited budget?   Here are some tips and suggestions.
First of if you cant afford a new DSLR camera, go for a high end point and shoot camera such as Canon.  Some of the high end point and shoots are better than the lowest price DSLR cameras.  You can find a high end point and shoot for around 3 or 4 hundred dollars and perhaps even cheaper.  You will also need a photo editing program such as Adobe Photoshop or the Gimp.  The latest version of Photoshop CS5 is very expensive but there is an alternative if you prefer Photoshop over the Gimp.  You can still buy an older version of photoshop 7 from Ebay for much cheaper.  It does run on Vista if you set your compatibility mode correctly.  This version of photoshop does not require the annoying activation that the newer versions require.  There are tons and tons of free filters that run well on Photoshop 7.  Just Google it.  Photoshop 7 has all the basic photo editing needs you can want.  I have found that the only difference between this version of Photoshop and the newer version of Photoshop is that there are a few more features such as content aware and 3D tools.  However, you will pay much more for the latest version of Photoshop just to get these features which is really not necessary if you only need to do simple image editing to prepare your photos for the market.
There are many photo stock sites where you can sell your photos.  Many of these sites have a strict criteria for the photos that you submit which can be somewhat discouraging.  Photos can be rejected often and it is very time consuming.  There are sites where you have much more control over the photos you submit.  One such photo site is Clustershot.  You can upload your photos for free and set your own prices.  If you have your own website or blog, you can sell prints, cards and downloads with FotoMoto.  All one has to do is sign up for a free account with FotoMoto.  They give you a script and you paste it into your website.  It grabs your photos that you want to sell and adds them to your secure online store with FotoMoto.  The FotoMoto script then adds buy buttons automatically underneath all your photos located on your website.  One can also have many websites registered with Fotomoto to sell photos.  People can then choose to buy your photos from your website.  Once they have selected their order it takes them to the secure checkout with Fotomoto.  This is a super idea especially if your site does not have SSL which is required to accept credit cards.  Both Clustershot and Fotomoto take approximately 15 percent from your photo sales.  This is acceptable considering selling photos on one of the major stock sites may only give you a few dollars each or less for your photos.
It is never easy one way or the other to sell photos and artwork.  It is a lot of work, time and effort on the part of the individual.  Most will not make any money overnight because there are factors such as the bigger competitors, search engine optimization, setting up a website and many other things.  It definitely can be a  24/7 job.  However, if you love photography and art time will have no meaning.  

Getting Backlinks To Your Photography Site

Finding good quality or even lesser quality backlinks to your website  is no easy task.  After all links means more traffic and a higher search engine recognition with a higher page rank.  All new websites always start at the very bottom.  It can be at times a very slow crawl just to even move up a little especially on the Google ladder. 
There are many directories where one can submit their site  There are thousands of directories which means it would be very time consuming unless you are willing to pay a high price for a SEO company to get the job done for you.  Even then there is no guarantee.  For a lot of us money means a tight budget for the business.  
Most free submission directories are very slow to review and list a new site unless of course you are willing to pay for it.  Sometimes it takes months to get listed.
My theory is if a lot of unknown or new websites and blogs get together and link up to each other with similar topics and interest then this will help in getting more SEO quality page rank and backlinks for everyone.  Then one way is just to sign up with all the free directory services you possibly can.    

Just beware that submitting to web directories is very time consuming. Generally, the more established directories are not free. There is normally a backlink required or a submission fee to get your photo website listed if it is approved.      

Protecting Your Photos From Theft

The only secure solution to really protect your photos is not to post them on the internet at all. That however is not the best solution if you want to show your work to the world which can lead to potential sales. From recent experience, there is always going to be some idiot who thinks they are above the law when it comes to copyright infringement and image theft. Most countries protect your works automatically when they are created and when it becomes available on the internet. It is very important to always specify ownership of your images and to heavily watermark them with copyright, logos, etc.
Never upload the full resolutions of your photos on the internet. Always use a much smaller resolution of the original and stamp it heavily with a watermark. It is best to use a clear watermark where others can at least still view the image. No amount of coding for your website will prevent thieves from stealing your photos. Once it is posted it can be stolen. There are methods such as disable right click, print screen and so forth to deter image theft but it cannot be totally stopped. Low versions of your photos that are heavily watermarked is the best legal statement that the image belongs to you.
Another alternative is to sell your images on CD or DVD. This way you could have a registered owner with a unique key. However, there are still drawbacks to this because cds and dvds can be shared easily with others and ripped. This method could also be a slow down in sales because most people want their product for download immediately once they pay for it. This could be perhaps used as a backup selling source with a registered owners list so you know who has a copy of you photo disc. This would make it much easier to track illegal usage and distribution of your pictures.

Those Bad Photo Shots May Be Good For Something

Have you ever had photo shots that didn't turn out so well. Perhaps the picture had a bad angle or poor composition. Well, there is still hope for that rotten photo to come in handy providing it is not out of focus or a poor resolution. Even then the worst of the crop can do with a complete makeover. This is where photo manipulation does its job.
Powerful editing programs such as Photoshop have many filters and plugins that can do amazing transformations. Camera shots that didn't go well usually are good candidates for abstraction photo manipulation. This is because it is the easiest form of digital editing to achieve with photographs that contain unwanted bad lighting, uneven color, and so forth. All these faults in a photo can be completely controlled by added effects, color control, and much more. It is just a matter of experimentation till you come up with a unique design or look that catches your eye. The end result is a completely new picture that can be worth something and one more added to your photo collection.

The image above is an example of extreme photo manipulation.  Although the before photo is not entirely undesirable it could use simple editing such as cropping and perhaps removing the stump in the background.  Overall, this photo has many possibilities.  It can be edited just enough to leave it in its natural state or completely altered to create a new image.   

The Difficult Task Of Getting Your Photo Site Noticed

There are many ways to cuts costs in setting up your own commercial website for selling photos. However, the task of trying to get your photo site ranked in the search engines can be daunting. A higher ranking in the search engines means more traffic. Traffic exchanges can be useful for the short term so do not hesitate to use them if you so desire. From experience, once you stop using traffic exchanges the visitor rate will drop if your site is very new. Submitting to free search engines and directories are useful but be aware that it could take months before your photo site is even listed. The reality is that it could take two or three years for a site to become fully developed on the internet unless your willing to pay for sometimes very expensive advertising. This is not always feasible for someone on a tight budget.


Good backlinks are hard to get unless you pay for them. There are a few free sites for artists that will help you get a little higher on the search engines. One such site is artistsites.org. Another one that can aid the “starving artist” is Artist-Listing.com. The latter has a free membership as well as a paid memberships that allow you to showcase more of your work than the free version. There are also some free hosting sites that rank well in the search engines that can help get you to the top of the pages quicker. Trading links is fine as long as the link is related somehow to the subject of your site. There are also social networking sites.


In the long run it will take time and patience to get your photo site noticed if you do not really want to pay for the extra expenses of promoting your site.

Clustershot Saved

The photo site Clustershot will not be closing down.  Thanks to a successful auction, the new owners will keep Clustershot alive.  This is good news for its members and other artists and photographers who use this site.  Way to go! 

Unfortunately, I would hoped that Clustershot would return but it did not happen. It was sad to see it go because it was such a good starting point for those who wanted to sell photos online.

Bye Bye Clustershot

I have mentioned previously about Clustershot.  Clustershot is a website where one could sell and buy photos.  The uniqueness of this site is that there were no heavy restrictions on submitted photos such as the more well know stock photography sites.  This was an advantage for those trying to break into the business of selling their art and photos for a little extra income. 
Clustershot has acknowledged on their website that they will be closing down sometime in February 2011.  This is such a shame because it is a nicely layed out and attractive website.  Being a member myself, I will have to find alternatives for selling my artwork and photos.  I found one such site, FotoMoto.  Perhaps I will give these guys a try.  It is free to join and they only take a small percentage of your earnings.  There is really nothing to lose here.  There is also FotoTime which has a free and paid account.
Clustershot has also mentioned that they will take a reasonable offer for the site.  So maybe, there is still some hope that Clustershot will have a saviour.  We will just have to wait and see.   

Traffic Exchange Just For Photographers

Regular traffic exchanges can bring much traffic to your new photography website but most of the traffic will mainly click on by without even hardly giving a second look to your site. That is because most traffic exchange users are seeking traffic themselves as quickly as possible to their own websites. At first when I pursued this method it seemed promising when my traffic stats went up considerably however still no sales. Even when setting my traffic to specific targeting it still did little.
So I googled some more for other methods to help promote my photography site. Yes, I have submitted to the search engines and free web directories. Then I stumbled up on something that really caught my eye. It is a new traffic exchange just for photography. I thought to myself that this was a neat idea because it is an exchange focused just for photos. Pretty neat, hey! It is also free to join too which is an added bonus. So for all you aspiring photographers just check out the link at the top of this blog. There is nothing to lose except letting it pass on by.

Time And Patience

Okay, you have your business venture all planned out and your ready to set up your website. Now one of the most difficult tasks is driving traffic to your new website or online store. You can pay enormous amounts of money on advertising or pay for internet traffic. Sometimes this is not feasible for some people who are starting out on a tight budget.
One site that will help promote your site is Link Referral. There is a free and a paid upgrade version. The point of this site is that you read and review other sites for credits to help promote your own site. One can also submit their URL to all the free web directories and major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Writing articles in relation to your website and submitting articles to the free web directories is also another way one can help get their website recognized. Another alternative is to blog, blog, blog.
You can advertise your site by blogging and linking everything together. It is also advisable to keep the content updated and add new content frequently. This will help the search engines find you easier. It can also help to have as many different blogs as possible on many different subjects each including the links that you want to guide traffic to your website without seeming too self promoting and pushy.
All the above suggestions can be put to use but will not get you the business overnight. It takes much time and patience. Internet marketing and advertising is the most time consuming part of setting up an online business which requires much time and patience from the proprietor. Many have given up after a few months of trying. The fact is it may take a couple of years or more to get an internet business established with a steady stream of traffic.
So one would be advisable to hang on to their day job a little longer before considering making a living with an online business. The upkeep and maintenance of an online business is a 24/7 job especially in the early stages. It is just a matter of being fully dedicated.

Cheap Indoor Studio

I love to take outdoor photos. I also love taking macro shots indoors of still life. My living quarters is already quite cramped as it is. Therefore, I have no room left to set up a professional studio. Renting space in an office building is out of the question. So, it came to thought if I just wanted something small and compact to snap pics of the little things of life, why not just use a simple piece of black or white fabric as a photo backdrop tacked to a wall. It's as simple as that.
All one has to do is purchase some cheap fabric at Walmart or any other store that sells fabric. It would be good to have both black and white material for use as your backdrop. A few thumbtacks or tape and good lighting and you're set to go. It only takes a few moments to set up a little studio and take it down when not in use. This easy to do studio can also be adjusted to size as needed according to the amount of material needed to serve as the backdrop.
One will never be able to tell the difference if the pictures were taken in a professional studio or at home in your own kitchen or livingroom. It is the most economical way to get those macro shots or any type of shot that requires a simple backdrop. Cheap and easy!