How Many Is Good?

Don't pay too much attention to this stat.

people say that visitors are all/mostly bots. I do however agree that views mean nothing, it's only sales that count.

I believe that views do matter; after all, without viewers there would be no sales!

However, it only takes one viewer -- the right viewer -- the buy your work, and views don't correlate to sales. I've sold a piece that only had 3 views, and I've sold pieces that had hundreds of views. You never know when, or if, it might happen.

It's best to focus on regularly listing the best work you can create, and getting that work seen by as many people as possible. One of those people just might be your buyer! :-)

It's a numbers game. The more views the better. I don't know what would be considered "good", but I'm always trying to think of ways to get people to view my work.

1,000 in 2 months is better than some I've seen that have been here for a couple years.

Qualified views matter.

In other words not all views have the same value. Are they views coming from your blog and are people who are interested in your work or are they views from high school kids looking for a photo for their history paper....Its no different then an art gallery set up in a fancy part of town vs. the local strip mall. The quality of viewers will be different.

So the question is - what are you doing to create a flow of quality views?

I sold an image yesterday that had been on here for probably 18 months but only had 40 views. It had slipped through the marketing cracks, but the right key words saved it. So, in a way, it's not about the views except when it is. It only takes one, as Wendy said. But each view, whether real or from a bot, does increase exposure even just a little. Are you posting links to social media and e-mailing folks where to find you? How are your keywords? Like Edward asked, "what are you doing to create a flow of quality views?"

Case in point about keywords. You are missing a pretty obvious set of keywords in this image --



"statue of liberty"

You also need to make sure how your keywords are going in. In the above image you have "new" "york" and "city" as seperate keywords when I would guess you meant to put it in as "new york city." Same thing with your name. They are showing up on different lines so anyone trying to click on it to find more by one would actually find more by "kim" instead.You have "usa" but don't have "america"

there is no good number - if each visitor was a sale that would be good. if you have none, that no. if you have a 1000 pictures its not great, if you have 1 then it's a different thing. while i haven't added up as of late i usually made the avg of about 2000-3000 hits a day. is that good? again it depends.


---Mike Savad

?? who knows what the best number of hits is. I've been here about the same amount of time and I have about 3200 views mostly because I post to Twitter a fair amount. Are those quality views? I have no idea (and FAA doesn't really seem to have useful stats). I really have NO idea which views are from twitter, which are from people searching and which are from bots. The city the view is from gives you a hint but still...

But, overall, I think views absolutely matter. The more views the better the odds of selling something. So bringing in more views is always a good idea.

I count a quality view as a view from either the area I live and shoot in or the area where I took a picture. Since most of my shots are from the Carolinas, anything I get from the Carolinas is good. (Even though there are a few FAA artisits from around here that view me) The views from outside the area that are not obvious bots could be quality. First, about half of my sales come from outside the Carolinas. Second, folks from the Carolinas do move elsewhere from time to time! None of them moved to Kiez, that I am aware of.

Kim's keywords are hurting his views though.

I agree with that Joseph - I occasionally get views from my home state (and close by cities). I assume those are people who found my images through the search engine (but you never know).

I sell on another site and I've shipped pictures of New England to all over the USA so yes, it's possible views from other states are transplants.

To answer your question, it is meaningless.
The bots go crazy on faa on certain images.....I have 2 right now that haven't been seen by anyone 'real' in years but the bots have attached themselves relentless

Before I started marketing in earnest here I made sales with fewer views. I was pulling in through Google and the search which does not attract bots. By the time I reached 1,000 views I had made about 5 sales. Now I do 1 Twitter tweet and get 35 so-called bots and maybe a few real views, but not so many sales from them. So the quality of the views is down for me. The highest quality visitor is on who has already arrived at the site and using the search to find art to buy. The only thing better than that is people who know your work and came in to view it. Lower quality views are through social media where you can create an interest in your work from people who are not planning to buy at that time.

I still pull in a lot through the search and through targeted marketing so my sales per view are good despite more bots. BTW a lot of the so-called "bots" are actual views. The locations are proxy servers for wireless companies and social media and are generated when someone from another area accesses your image through that server.

Kim, welcome to FAA! My suggestion to you would be to stop worrying about views and start concentrating on your descriptions and keywords, like Joseph said. I've been here 8 months and only have about 5500 views, but I've made several sales in that time, and I'm pretty sure part of the reason why is because I try to put relevant info in the description and to max out the keywords with relevant search terms. Of the pieces in your portfolio that I looked at, you have no descriptions and very few keywords that don't necessarily have anything to do with the image. Take this one, for instance:



Without a description, you are virtually invisible to Google, so no one will be finding this that way.

Your current keywords are: danger, kim, lessel, blue, red, symbolic, railway, train, stress, blood, pressure

I'd suggest adding: railroad, railroad crossing, signal, lights, flashing lights, red lights, warning, stop, caution. If you need help coming up with more, just ask on the forum. There are always plenty of people willing to add to the list. Meanwhile, general terms like "symbolic" aren't as helpful since all art is symbolic of something. Also, phrases like "blood pressure" should not be separated by commas, otherwise you're going to get people looking for pictures of blood and finding a train signal. That looks bad for the site, and it won't get your work found by the right people.

Good luck!