After reading my story “
Getting Images Seen” on how Getty Images orders search returns John Lund did some searches for his own images on the Getty web site. He came up with some additional insights. Check out the full text of his article on his
blog.
Today, the biggest problem for professional photographers is how to get their images seen by potential customers. Most photographers would agree that the way to get the widest possible exposure for their work is to get their images on gettyimages.com. Sources at Getty Images tell me that 96% of the company’s sales come from images customers find on the first three pages of the search returns. Customers have a choice as to how many thumbnails they want to see on any given page -- with a maximum of 100 allowed -- so three pages of images would be a maximum of 300.
Picnache.com has put together a list of the top 1000 keywords used by customers to search for stock photos in the last 6 months to 2
years. This dataset was compiled from about 500,000 searches and
prioritized according to which words were used most frequently.
Here are links to a few items I spotted on the Internet that are worth reading. They include observations on the Getty Images search engine, World Assignment photographers and Should I Work For Free.
Grover Sanschagrin of PhotoShelter has published a very interesting analysis entitled “What Google Trends Says About Wedding & Stock Photography, and Photo Websites,” complete with charts that illustrate the trends.
In the investment world it is a proven strategy to diversify your portfolio. The same is true as a professional photographer. This article explores different ways to diversify your income from printed coffee mugs to fine art prints to pay-for-click advertising...and the time to start is now!