Posted by Jim Erhardt on April 19, 2009 at 9:25 AM
...that is typically how many "unique visitors" surf on to the NPN website every month! These visitors generate nearly 2 million page views monthly, the vast majority of those views in our galleries and forums. An eye-opening stat - last month alone, the "View Large Photo" link was clicked over 16,000 times!
Based on site stats and page view patterns, it is obvious that the vast majority of these visitors do not actively participate on the site. It can also be safely assumed that many of these visitors are not photographers, but simply people who enjoy viewing outstanding nature photography. Who doesn't enjoy viewing incredible nature photos, and what better place than NPN to do so?
While NPN has catered to nature photography enthusiasts from day one, this "silent majority" has been largely ignored. Sure, we post our photos for all to view and enjoy, but in what other ways do we actively engage this huge group of visitors?
High traffic and superb search engine ranking for key phrases has long been a strength of NPN. Due to this, simply posting your work in the NPN galleries is a sure-fire way to get tremendous exposure for your work. But, there is even greater opportunity to do so and NPN will now offer its members new ways to get your work in front of this global audience.
With this in mind, we are pleased to announce our new Wallpaper Gallery. This gallery offers our visitors high resolution, high quality computer wallpaper images for their personal use. Each wallpaper file is designed specifically for desktop wallpaper use and includes the Nature Photographers Network logo, information about the subject and the photographer's copyright and personal website listing. I have populated the gallery with four of my own images to get it rolling.
Now, when those visitors would like use one of our photos as wallpaper on their desktop, they are openly invited to do so using one of the wallpaper images. At the same time, it's a great way to promote NPN and its members to the general, nature-photo-loving public! I think it's a safe bet to assume that some of these people would love to have a print to hang on a wall too.
Is there a downside to the Wallpaper Gallery? Sure, by offering these photos at higher resolutions with an open invitation to use them as per our wallpaper terms of use, there is always the risk that the unscrupulous will take advantage of it and use the files for unauthorized purposes. But such is life for the photographer who posts their work on the Internet. The way we place the logo and information on the wallpaper, it would take some expertise to remove it and be left with a commercially usable image. Additionally, we place a warning and a link to our terms of use on each wallpaper and each file is offered only as a compressed JPEG.
Because of the work required to prepare images for this use and the desire to maintain consistency of presentation, the Wallpaper Gallery is entirely "hand crafted." If you have an image you would like to submit for addition to the gallery, please contact me using my e-mail contact below. I will send you full information about the gallery, including considerations to keep in mind about photo selection, preparing your files for submission, etc.
We are also developing other means to engage this large and important group of visitors. As always, we will keep you posted!
Congratulations on such an accesible, well run form. The statistics are impressive.
The "Wallpaper" gallery sounds intriguing.
May
Posted by David Bostedo on April 19, 2009 at 4:07 PM
Cool idea Jim...I hope you've got the prep for those well scripted. It would be painful to actually do the "hand crafting". (Depending on how many requests you get of course...)
Posted by Jim Erhardt on April 19, 2009 at 4:10 PM
David, for those interested I send an email with complete instructions and links to some PSD files to make the wallpaper. You are correct - it could turn into a lot of work if I did not!
Discussion
7 repliesBased on site stats and page view patterns, it is obvious that the vast majority of these visitors do not actively participate on the site. It can also be safely assumed that many of these visitors are not photographers, but simply people who enjoy viewing outstanding nature photography. Who doesn't enjoy viewing incredible nature photos, and what better place than NPN to do so?
While NPN has catered to nature photography enthusiasts from day one, this "silent majority" has been largely ignored. Sure, we post our photos for all to view and enjoy, but in what other ways do we actively engage this huge group of visitors?
High traffic and superb search engine ranking for key phrases has long been a strength of NPN. Due to this, simply posting your work in the NPN galleries is a sure-fire way to get tremendous exposure for your work. But, there is even greater opportunity to do so and NPN will now offer its members new ways to get your work in front of this global audience.
With this in mind, we are pleased to announce our new Wallpaper Gallery. This gallery offers our visitors high resolution, high quality computer wallpaper images for their personal use. Each wallpaper file is designed specifically for desktop wallpaper use and includes the Nature Photographers Network logo, information about the subject and the photographer's copyright and personal website listing. I have populated the gallery with four of my own images to get it rolling.
Now, when those visitors would like use one of our photos as wallpaper on their desktop, they are openly invited to do so using one of the wallpaper images. At the same time, it's a great way to promote NPN and its members to the general, nature-photo-loving public! I think it's a safe bet to assume that some of these people would love to have a print to hang on a wall too.
Is there a downside to the Wallpaper Gallery? Sure, by offering these photos at higher resolutions with an open invitation to use them as per our wallpaper terms of use, there is always the risk that the unscrupulous will take advantage of it and use the files for unauthorized purposes. But such is life for the photographer who posts their work on the Internet. The way we place the logo and information on the wallpaper, it would take some expertise to remove it and be left with a commercially usable image. Additionally, we place a warning and a link to our terms of use on each wallpaper and each file is offered only as a compressed JPEG.
Because of the work required to prepare images for this use and the desire to maintain consistency of presentation, the Wallpaper Gallery is entirely "hand crafted." If you have an image you would like to submit for addition to the gallery, please contact me using my e-mail contact below. I will send you full information about the gallery, including considerations to keep in mind about photo selection, preparing your files for submission, etc.
We are also developing other means to engage this large and important group of visitors. As always, we will keep you posted!
The "Wallpaper" gallery sounds intriguing.
May