Posted by Blaine K Owens on February 26, 2008 at 9:14 PM
How well are your websites performing for you as a means to make sales? Are websites really worth the set up fees and monthly hosting expenses associated with them?
Posted by Richard Wong on February 26, 2008 at 9:22 PM
even if you make $0 from your site directly, it's not very expensive to have one anyway. Mine costs $40 / yr. the potential benefits far outweigh that.
Posted by Don George on February 26, 2008 at 9:26 PM
Blaine,,,My website works great for me. However I"m able to advertise my site by handing out brochures at our Art Shows and galleries. If I wasn't able to advertise the site I believe the traffic would be low. However its a great marketing tool and I only pay around $220. a year for hosting. This fee is also a write off on my buisness tax. You only have to sell a couple of images to make up the cost.
Posted by Ed Cordes on February 26, 2008 at 10:05 PM
I get a lot of hits and enquiries re images. Many use the website as an online portfolio so people go to it then call me to order an image. I don't sell much directly off the site, but it is a valuable resource for my customers.
I think that websites for photographers, as well as for any business out there trying to get more attention on what you're selling or showing, build credibility and are a very inexpensive way to achieve that goal. The main thing is not to rely on people finding your website through the search engines, but to alert people to your website address via offline advertising (biz cards, postcards, handouts at tradeshows, and so forth, like recommended above). Since I build websites for clients who sell services, I know how to do search engine optimization; it's time consuming to learn, but it's a good thing to also know when using a website to market your business. I just wouldn't rely on the search engines solely, and neither does anyone else I now who's trying to make a buck from their website.
Posted by Eric Peterson on February 27, 2008 at 11:42 AM
I use my website more as a portfolio. It gives a person the opportunity to look at images without feeling rushed or "hovered over". Also it allows access for many more people over a wider geographic area to see my work. And unlike a business card they can send it to others over email.
I'm really, really ambivalent about having a website, as evidenced by our 17 years running a successful photo business without one. Visibility with our targeted client base hasn't suffered, and frankly we get more new clients from yellow page listings than almost anyone can cite for their web sites.
The abuses of posted photos on sites are legend. A close friend manages three sites for their three businesses. She's always in a fight with the lurking linkers. She also gets between 500 and a 1000 junk emails a day to her sites, all of which have to be sorted daily to find the new clients. She's investing 2-5 hours a day to the three sites together, and is seriously rethinking her whole approach to using them to market herself. No inspirations yet, but when she calculates how much new business they generate, she ruefully estimates that her internet time is worth about 13 cents an hour.
Yet I have another friend who has given up on most of his stock agenciess and instead is running his own stock sales from his own site. And making a comfortable living it at it. But that's with his wife working the site and business contacts full time to free him up to shoot.
It's definitely possible to use a web site to augment your business, but I'm convinced it's a case of "you get what you pay for," whether the currency is dollars and cents or precsious hours that could be spent doing something else. Slap a web site up for a few dollars and "visibility," and that's about all you're going to get. Along with the linkers and spam.
We're designing our site as much as possible to spit in the face of lurking linkers, spammers and casual browsers. It's entirely a professional serivces site with its key features being protected porfolios for client reviews. That will provide a venue for contracted clients to review things we shoot for them, and no one else will get access.
But we're going to use the same system of protected portfolios for "stock" sales. Each category is going to have one or at most two representative photos on the cover page and they'll be plastered with enough gunk to make them useless to linkers. Anyone wanting to see more is going to have to contact us by email, and just one contact isn't going to get them access to a portfolio. We're going to have a "conversation" of several email exchanges to define their interests before we assemble a porfolio of select images for their review, accessible only by password.
Yeah, I'm not the least bit interested in serving the casual tire kickers, Looky Lous and linkers. It might cost me a small percentage of impulse buyers, but I am betting that our planned approach will provide a very professional contact point for serious clients, while producing serious dialog about photo sales rather than the magic of "hit counts."
Posted by Steve Foss on February 27, 2008 at 4:13 PM
My Web site has generated few print sales, although I get inquiries pretty often from people who like what they see, would like to buy but want something just a bit different than what they saw. In those cases I have low-res files handy to show them as examples, and that can lead to business.
Mainly, my Web site is my total business portal. I offer portraiture, wedding photography and guided photo excursions, and while some categories offer more detail than others (we're in the process of making some substantive changes), it ensures that people who contact us already know the styles of photography I do and how I approach things. I don't have a gallery or a store, nor even an office to meet clients.
We nearly eliminate spam by not posting an actual e-mail address in the "contact us" category, but a form they fill out with their comment/question and their own e-mail address, and that gets autoforwarded to our Web master (well, WebMISTRESS, who is my mate). That simple step kills most spam.
I'm happy to answer any and all questions over the phone, but my business cards propel clients to my Web site, and so does the advertising I do. I also moderate a couple online photo boards, and the link to my Web site in my signature brings business to the Web site. Lastly, my Webmistress is a master at embedding key words in search engines, so anyone who has my name can use any of the popular online search engines and use the name a couple other key words and find the site easily. These days, a TON of business is done with Web sites as connection points.
As someone who's been working to build a business in the last couple years, the Web site has been vital. If I'd been around and in business as long as Hank, I probably wouldn't be as excited about it because I'd have a BIG network of past clients to keep the referral ball rolling.
"As someone who's been working to build a business in the last couple years, the Web site has been vital. If I'd been around and in business as long as Hank, I probably wouldn't be as excited about it because I'd have a BIG network of past clients to keep the referral ball rolling."
I think that's a key point, Steve. Our business model is built around providing local services with the remote contacts more like bonus points or found money rather than our key target.
We're not willing to spend our valuable time on a site unless it meets our hard and fast standards for return on the investment of time and money. If a site requires a lot of time, yet I get more business and generate more income from other means, I'll dump the site faster than a humming bird's heartbeat.
A well done website gives you a method to show what you have and can do. Very few folks seem to make a living off their website (yes, that means some do). Seems like having a website is like what use to be like having a fax. If you are in business, you need one (with the exceptions maybe noted in earlier responses from the already well established photographers). My costs run about $250/yr for the hosting. I have had one sale of a multiple set of images that generated about $750. That has paid for a few years of hosting...so, I am happy with that. I constantly am generating hits...so, at least someone likes what I do! hahahah My website is displayed on my photography business cards as matter of factly as though it was my mailing address. If you do not have a website, then folks may feel you do not have enough images to have a website and may disregard you (exceptions already noted above) as a non-professional. Having a free account with all sorts of other peoples ads all over your pages is not going to help you either. Having a website will let people know you are out here and you can use all sorts of advertising to point them to your site. The search engine issues are huge. There are just too many images of various things out there to think that YOUR image is going to show up in the first few pages.
So, yes, I think most photographers should have some kind of web site. I would not expect to generate many sales directly from someone finding your site by themselves. I would not spend ridiculous hours working on your site (except to get it started and figuring out all you want to have on your site (photos, marketing, image protection, address data, your specialties, a bio, and etc.). Once your site is up, your process should be pretty time limited and efficient for uploading images and or deleting images you once thought were great but now should be edited out.
By having a website, I am able to show off what I do in my community (and of course on the web). People in my community now understand that I am a photographer. I am asked to do jobs now because folks have seen the site and want me to do something for them. So, while I do not get dollars directly from the images posted on the site, I do get jobs BECAUSE I have images posted on the web for them to see.
You will have to decide what you want your website to do. If you want to generate a living income from it, then you better pay to have "real" professionals build it for you (not your neighbor's son!). Stay away from "free" sites loaded with others ads. Be sure you do not wind up spending more time in web maintenance than you do in shooting images and "working" your images. Remember that very few photographers make a living from their websites alone.
Some pro sites have methods to block linkers. I use it, but have never bothered to see how well it is working. I know there is free software that will attempt to find any links to your site. This can be used from time to time and perhaps you can get money from the linker when he has really really abused you. You should have it stated clearly that all images bear your copyright and must have your permission to be used in any format. On the other hand, the more people are linking to your site, the better chances that your site will be listed higher in the search engines. So,.....don't know the answer to that issue.
Oh yeah, and as stated by a member earlier, if you are running your photography as a bonefide business, your website related costs can be used against your taxes. Interestingly, I have never heard anyone state that they have created a dollar value for their website time that they can use against their tax basis, too!!
Gee, sometimes I ramble. I'm going to have to go out and shoot something to compensate for my computer time!
"I am asked to do jobs now because folks have seen the site and want me to do something for them. So, while I do not get dollars directly from the images posted on the site, I do get jobs BECAUSE I have images posted on the web for them to see. "
In our business model and check book, about 80% of our income is from photography-for-hire of one sort or another. Your point is well taken and one of the best reasons I can conceive for having a site, if in fact that's the outcome. As Steve pointed out already, we have a large base of established clients from whom we garner repeat sales as well as referals.
We budget 5% of our gross for advertizing (equally split between print, direct mail and radio ads) mostly for seasonal and special events in the studio. We can pretty closely track the return on that investment. We tried 10% without noticeable increase in sales, while investing less than 5% seemed to cut sales.
But our gross income fluctuates pretty directly with the local economy. Things were a bit slow around town in 2007, and as a result our business flow dropped by a little over $30,000 from 2005 and 2006. Not insurmountable and not larger than we've endured before, but we have to suck it up one way or another as we have before.
I have no confidence that a site and the time devoted to it will increase our local sales as significantly as our 5% advertizing budget. But if it could result in distant sales to moderate the fluctuations in our local economy, then that's a different situation. It might even result in a change in our business model and strategy. I guess in that light running a site for a couple of years would provide value as a test, if nothing else. But as with our advertizing experience I'll be studying the relationship between cost/effort and income from a site, and we'll have to adjust in response.
Posted by Steve Foss on February 28, 2008 at 12:54 AM
Hank, I doubt a Web site would help you much locally. You have a somewhat unusual geographic situation, and of course your business is tremendously well known within that landscape and a certain distance outside your immediate surroundings.
But these days a Web site seems almost a requirement, and with the attention-getting techniques mentioned earlier could be a good way to expand business and diversity the revenue stream. Diversifying income is particularly important in the stagnant economy that seems to be looming. Too late now to get ahead of that if there's not already a Web site, but it can be a GREAT portal if it doesn't raise your costs much.
Hosting is cheap. Costs me about $100 per year. It's the Web design/maintenance that has saved me thousands of dollars, because my spouse is a longtime computer graphic designer who has been doing a lot of Web site design. A Web site design from the ground up that is professional and attractive can easily cost over $2,000, and THAT'S a serious investment consideration for many photographers. And then there are the ongoing maintenance costs of updates and so forth.
It takes a fair amount of work to generate enough profit (not revenue, profit) to cover over $2,000+ in costs. Heck, in Alaska dollars that might even be $5,000 or more. I feel for ya, buddy.
My biggest concern is the time commitment and the financial return for my time. E.g., would it make more financial sense to add 10 hours a week of web site management to my current schedule, or simply to up my writing commitments? Worse yet, I'm on the road 5 months a year and will have to manage the site sporadically and from afar. My wife has crowned me with the job and it's in my lap no matter where I go. $2-5,000 a year isn't hard to recoup, but lost time away from more lucrative ventures is a killer. That's basically 1-3 days of shooting fees, and I could recoup the money on one new job resulting from the site. But if I'm putting in 500 hours a year (10 hrs a week) into site management with no more income than that, I'm working for somewhere between $4 and $10 an hour. I can do that well as a Walmart greeter, and in my current hesitant frame of mind it sounds like a lot more fun than running a site.
Posted by Steve Foss on February 28, 2008 at 5:39 PM
Hank, while there is some ongoing maintenance required, once the site is up and running and in its finished form it really takes care of itself. My wife just checks the site e-mail once a day and that's the end of her work unless we want to do a redesign. Of course, getting it up and running in the first place is a real time drain.
That's good to know. The friend spending that much time on her sites keeps them really dynamic with new material all the time, but my ambitions would run more along the lines of your experience.
Posted by Bass Sears on March 16, 2008 at 12:59 PM
Just as a small technical addition to the above discussion, anyone who hosts their own site should check into whether their host offers hotlink blocking. Many of them do now (I use HostMonster and have been very happy with them) and they offer tools to prevent anyone from using a link to your photos on their own site (you specify which sites are allowed to pull images, all others are blocked).
FWIW,
-- Bass
Posted by Ron Niebrugge on March 16, 2008 at 3:41 PM
In my experience, nothing comes close to providing the return on your marketing dollars as a website.
Posted by David Senesac on April 30, 2008 at 8:21 PM
One of the biggest misconception with all the new photographers is that there are people with big bucks in their pocket that are roaming the web looking at all these photographer galleries for prints they will then plunk several hundred bucks down for. Ask any small name long time art fair or gallery exhibiting photographer and they will laugh and then tell you almost all their online sales are from people that actually saw the prints exhibited in a gallery or fair booth and then maybe picked up a business card or remembered the name and later went to the website to check out the fine details. Only a moron would buy a big print sight unseen for $400 over the web because there is simply way too much garbage being printed way too large with digital artifacts and such. Every time we visit our urban art fairs perusing the various photo booths, I have to shake my head at some of what is being offered. Even in places like Carmel there is a fair amount of poorly printed material up on walls in galleries. Thus most real buyers get a look first. Now it is true if one has a major reputation and name that customers do so sight unseen. And it is true there is a lot of buying of cheaper sub $100 imagery going on. Some photographers do well with all manner of inexpensive stock slapped on mats and shrink-wrapped. Like others have essentially related above, websites are a peripheral marketing tool.
Wow, David. I'm stunned. I sell prints for much more than $400 from my web site to people who have never seen my work before and are inspired to buy them because they find them meaningful and inspiring. In about half the cases such a sale will follow some email exchange (also initiated from the web site) but it is not uncommon at all to make a "cold sale".
I'm sure a lot of people who are moved to buy a print based primarily on its emotional/visual qualities, even in a web presentation, will find your sweeping characterization very offensive.
Guy
Posted by Jerry Greer on April 30, 2008 at 10:31 PM
I'm with you Guy! Hey David, I just sold 2 prints for over a $1000 each over the web.
Since I do not have a 'brick and mortar' presence out there from which to sell my work, I use my website as a marketing tool and on-line portfolio. I give contacts my business card and/or one of my nicely printed 'leave-behind' cards. Each of these refers to my site and I have made sales in this way.
I have also had folks contact me for a sale based only upon the web image. Feedback from these customers has been very positive.
A well done, nicely organized site is a great tool, and well worth the investment, in my opinion.
Guy, you and Jerry have pretty good reputations, have superb material, and are well published. That is why I made a point about relative reputation. This topic has been kicked around on other boards for years and I'm sure you two are well aware of it haha. One can of course spend a lot lot of money getting their websites marketed and I'm sure there are some photographers that have been successful by that route alone. However for the average peons, that isn't the case today with a zillion sites all over vying for attention. There are some pretty big photographer names I won't mention of course online and embarrass them, that can't come close to making a living on their website sales. Why else would so many top pros be doing the workshops? Because they have to. They have to go out and exhibit, do workshops, and keep banging on publisher's doors.
The following is a link to a comment from just one of several boards I could point you to. The person runs the board that is probably the most prominent on the art fair circuit:
"It's not so much about design, though having a great looking web site
with logical navigation (and a lot of other design tips) does help.
It's more about content and being able to target people who may be
interested in purchasing. Most artists that do art shows hardly see traffic that doesn't come
from them being seen at shows."
David, I don't disagree about making a living from web site sales. I don't know anyone that does. What bothered me was your characterization of people who buy art online as "morons". As the title suggests, the question was about using a site as a marketing tool. Considering the relatively small investment, having a medium visited by thousands of people a months and with almost unlimited capacity to showcase your work, make announcements, advertise services etc. is hard to argue with.
Guy, you are right about that characterization I should not have made and in hindsight and reflection regret doing so. In fact my statement is counterproductive to the very customers I personally have been hoping would be out there for the sake of my own business. And some of those customers doubtless know more than I do, especially so with art professionals. There are doubtless some savvy art buyers that have the knowledge and skill to know when they are looking at a website of a photographer that is likely quite genuine, knowledgeable, skilled, and knows how to produce quality prints. Certainly one reason on my own site that I go the extra distance to present an understanding of that quality. Then too there are the majority, mostly unsophisticated online buyers who want art for their homes and offices that would be wise to only buy online from those with notable reputations or what they have first seen.
Discussion
23 repliesThe abuses of posted photos on sites are legend. A close friend manages three sites for their three businesses. She's always in a fight with the lurking linkers. She also gets between 500 and a 1000 junk emails a day to her sites, all of which have to be sorted daily to find the new clients. She's investing 2-5 hours a day to the three sites together, and is seriously rethinking her whole approach to using them to market herself. No inspirations yet, but when she calculates how much new business they generate, she ruefully estimates that her internet time is worth about 13 cents an hour.
Yet I have another friend who has given up on most of his stock agenciess and instead is running his own stock sales from his own site. And making a comfortable living it at it. But that's with his wife working the site and business contacts full time to free him up to shoot.
It's definitely possible to use a web site to augment your business, but I'm convinced it's a case of "you get what you pay for," whether the currency is dollars and cents or precsious hours that could be spent doing something else. Slap a web site up for a few dollars and "visibility," and that's about all you're going to get. Along with the linkers and spam.
We're designing our site as much as possible to spit in the face of lurking linkers, spammers and casual browsers. It's entirely a professional serivces site with its key features being protected porfolios for client reviews. That will provide a venue for contracted clients to review things we shoot for them, and no one else will get access.
But we're going to use the same system of protected portfolios for "stock" sales. Each category is going to have one or at most two representative photos on the cover page and they'll be plastered with enough gunk to make them useless to linkers. Anyone wanting to see more is going to have to contact us by email, and just one contact isn't going to get them access to a portfolio. We're going to have a "conversation" of several email exchanges to define their interests before we assemble a porfolio of select images for their review, accessible only by password.
Yeah, I'm not the least bit interested in serving the casual tire kickers, Looky Lous and linkers. It might cost me a small percentage of impulse buyers, but I am betting that our planned approach will provide a very professional contact point for serious clients, while producing serious dialog about photo sales rather than the magic of "hit counts."
Mainly, my Web site is my total business portal. I offer portraiture, wedding photography and guided photo excursions, and while some categories offer more detail than others (we're in the process of making some substantive changes), it ensures that people who contact us already know the styles of photography I do and how I approach things. I don't have a gallery or a store, nor even an office to meet clients.
We nearly eliminate spam by not posting an actual e-mail address in the "contact us" category, but a form they fill out with their comment/question and their own e-mail address, and that gets autoforwarded to our Web master (well, WebMISTRESS, who is my mate). That simple step kills most spam.
I'm happy to answer any and all questions over the phone, but my business cards propel clients to my Web site, and so does the advertising I do. I also moderate a couple online photo boards, and the link to my Web site in my signature brings business to the Web site. Lastly, my Webmistress is a master at embedding key words in search engines, so anyone who has my name can use any of the popular online search engines and use the name a couple other key words and find the site easily. These days, a TON of business is done with Web sites as connection points.
As someone who's been working to build a business in the last couple years, the Web site has been vital. If I'd been around and in business as long as Hank, I probably wouldn't be as excited about it because I'd have a BIG network of past clients to keep the referral ball rolling.
I think that's a key point, Steve. Our business model is built around providing local services with the remote contacts more like bonus points or found money rather than our key target.
We're not willing to spend our valuable time on a site unless it meets our hard and fast standards for return on the investment of time and money. If a site requires a lot of time, yet I get more business and generate more income from other means, I'll dump the site faster than a humming bird's heartbeat.
So, yes, I think most photographers should have some kind of web site. I would not expect to generate many sales directly from someone finding your site by themselves. I would not spend ridiculous hours working on your site (except to get it started and figuring out all you want to have on your site (photos, marketing, image protection, address data, your specialties, a bio, and etc.). Once your site is up, your process should be pretty time limited and efficient for uploading images and or deleting images you once thought were great but now should be edited out.
By having a website, I am able to show off what I do in my community (and of course on the web). People in my community now understand that I am a photographer. I am asked to do jobs now because folks have seen the site and want me to do something for them. So, while I do not get dollars directly from the images posted on the site, I do get jobs BECAUSE I have images posted on the web for them to see.
You will have to decide what you want your website to do. If you want to generate a living income from it, then you better pay to have "real" professionals build it for you (not your neighbor's son!). Stay away from "free" sites loaded with others ads. Be sure you do not wind up spending more time in web maintenance than you do in shooting images and "working" your images. Remember that very few photographers make a living from their websites alone.
Some pro sites have methods to block linkers. I use it, but have never bothered to see how well it is working. I know there is free software that will attempt to find any links to your site. This can be used from time to time and perhaps you can get money from the linker when he has really really abused you. You should have it stated clearly that all images bear your copyright and must have your permission to be used in any format. On the other hand, the more people are linking to your site, the better chances that your site will be listed higher in the search engines. So,.....don't know the answer to that issue.
Oh yeah, and as stated by a member earlier, if you are running your photography as a bonefide business, your website related costs can be used against your taxes. Interestingly, I have never heard anyone state that they have created a dollar value for their website time that they can use against their tax basis, too!!
Gee, sometimes I ramble. I'm going to have to go out and shoot something to compensate for my computer time!
Troup
In our business model and check book, about 80% of our income is from photography-for-hire of one sort or another. Your point is well taken and one of the best reasons I can conceive for having a site, if in fact that's the outcome. As Steve pointed out already, we have a large base of established clients from whom we garner repeat sales as well as referals.
We budget 5% of our gross for advertizing (equally split between print, direct mail and radio ads) mostly for seasonal and special events in the studio. We can pretty closely track the return on that investment. We tried 10% without noticeable increase in sales, while investing less than 5% seemed to cut sales.
But our gross income fluctuates pretty directly with the local economy. Things were a bit slow around town in 2007, and as a result our business flow dropped by a little over $30,000 from 2005 and 2006. Not insurmountable and not larger than we've endured before, but we have to suck it up one way or another as we have before.
I have no confidence that a site and the time devoted to it will increase our local sales as significantly as our 5% advertizing budget. But if it could result in distant sales to moderate the fluctuations in our local economy, then that's a different situation. It might even result in a change in our business model and strategy. I guess in that light running a site for a couple of years would provide value as a test, if nothing else. But as with our advertizing experience I'll be studying the relationship between cost/effort and income from a site, and we'll have to adjust in response.
But these days a Web site seems almost a requirement, and with the attention-getting techniques mentioned earlier could be a good way to expand business and diversity the revenue stream. Diversifying income is particularly important in the stagnant economy that seems to be looming. Too late now to get ahead of that if there's not already a Web site, but it can be a GREAT portal if it doesn't raise your costs much.
Hosting is cheap. Costs me about $100 per year. It's the Web design/maintenance that has saved me thousands of dollars, because my spouse is a longtime computer graphic designer who has been doing a lot of Web site design. A Web site design from the ground up that is professional and attractive can easily cost over $2,000, and THAT'S a serious investment consideration for many photographers. And then there are the ongoing maintenance costs of updates and so forth.
It takes a fair amount of work to generate enough profit (not revenue, profit) to cover over $2,000+ in costs. Heck, in Alaska dollars that might even be $5,000 or more. I feel for ya, buddy.
My biggest concern is the time commitment and the financial return for my time. E.g., would it make more financial sense to add 10 hours a week of web site management to my current schedule, or simply to up my writing commitments? Worse yet, I'm on the road 5 months a year and will have to manage the site sporadically and from afar. My wife has crowned me with the job and it's in my lap no matter where I go. $2-5,000 a year isn't hard to recoup, but lost time away from more lucrative ventures is a killer. That's basically 1-3 days of shooting fees, and I could recoup the money on one new job resulting from the site. But if I'm putting in 500 hours a year (10 hrs a week) into site management with no more income than that, I'm working for somewhere between $4 and $10 an hour. I can do that well as a Walmart greeter, and in my current hesitant frame of mind it sounds like a lot more fun than running a site.
FWIW,
-- Bass
...David
I'm sure a lot of people who are moved to buy a print based primarily on its emotional/visual qualities, even in a web presentation, will find your sweeping characterization very offensive.
Guy
I have also had folks contact me for a sale based only upon the web image. Feedback from these customers has been very positive.
A well done, nicely organized site is a great tool, and well worth the investment, in my opinion.
-PB
The following is a link to a comment from just one of several boards I could point you to. The person runs the board that is probably the most prominent on the art fair circuit:
"It's not so much about design, though having a great looking web site
with logical navigation (and a lot of other design tips) does help.
It's more about content and being able to target people who may be
interested in purchasing. Most artists that do art shows hardly see traffic that doesn't come
from them being seen at shows."
Larry (Berman)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/artshow_photo/message/41795
Guy
...David