Getting Views And Sales

Yes that's the harsh reality. The things that appear at the top of the search are from people who are big sellers - but not necessarily on those particular works. If you're a big seller, everything you have goes to the top of the search, even if it's never sold. At least that's my understanding.

Votes, favorites, comments and features count a little in the search algorithm but sales of the image, sales by the artist and relevant keywording count MUCH more.

An artist that has a thousand sales can post a new image and that image will be in front of an image with a thousand comments votes and favs from an artist with no sales assuming the keywording is the same.

So I can take my biggest selling image and put the same keywords on all my work! That'll do it! LOL!

how do you know they weren't featured in groups?

what exactly is chosen is a mystery, as they never seem to rotate. but mostly they are the ones that sell a lot, so they are on the top. the views and such don't do much any more because people abused the system. and anyone can make a group and feature people, so i don't think that holds a lot of weight.

mostly you can't rely on the search, you have to bring people in.

i suggest you should make galleries so it's not a pile of work, upload more work and advertise on the outside.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

You could until we remove all keywords from all your work for spamming.

It is not the keyword sales that matter anyway the relevancy as compared to the search term.

Example. If I search for shrimp boats Pensacola Bay and there is an image that has that exact phrase between the commas it will do better in the search than an image that has shrimp boats and Pensacola Bay separate tags all other things being equal.

Constance... take this with a grain of salt... if you can afford to buy thousands of dollars worth of your own art you probably get better search raking.
I sell occasionally, but I do not buy my own prints, last year I had about $7200 in commissions. I never buy my own prints, I would if I did art shows or had a retail outlet where I would sell them. I don't.

I too do not show up in searches. Well maybe on page 100 I never dig that deep nor will anyone else, I'm sure. It is what it is. Success breeds success. How to get success is usually connected to how much money you're willing or can afford to spend.

I am using the sponsor page system but haven't seen my work show up because of that either. Not mad about it, it's not about art on sites like this, nor about fairness, is about money. That's just how the world operates.

I used to work in a place where people were paying money to get help to lose weight, but the performance of the counselors wasn't judged on if their clients lost weight, it was judged on how much food they sold to the clients. So the more food a counselor sold to the client, the more praise was heaped on them. ;-) Like I said it'a about money.

Welcome to FAA. Perhaps Mike will post is links here so you can read more about working on the outside as the inside is a bit harder nut to crack.

Jeffery Johnson
Photo Captures by Jeffery

Buying your own work (from your member account) doesn´t help your search ranking.

Buying thousands of dollars of your own work would be gaming the system. If there is a way to game it someone has tried it. That was what the vote trading groups were designed to do. The problem was you had crap work getting 100s of glowing comments. That is one of the reasons votes comments and favs don't count that much; way to easy to game.

Could you spend four grand and game it that way? I suppose but what if the work still didn't sell? I can think of much better ways to spend four grand like perhaps advertising. That way OTHER people buy your work and you get paid.

JC "he problem was you had crap work getting 100s of glowing comments."
That's true. I see that as a problem too.

It's really a no solution situation. Like I said, it is what i is. I stopped worrying about it. I set up my domain ginettefineart.com just for FAA... promote my domain and hope i get enough to pay some bills.

I´m not a big seller here on FAA, so I´m the last one to give any advice. But I know one thing: trying to fool the search is the most ineffective way to sell your pictures!

JC:

There are artists that do lots of art shows, that buy their own prints to sell at those shows, they don't try to game the system, they just buy their own art to resell, I know on another POD site they do that. If it goes toward visibility I think so there.

Myself I don't because I don't do shows and I can't see a reason to buy my own art.

you could buy your own work from a collector account and it might help, unless the rank is based on total dollars, then no. and if one were to buy it and send it back all the time, they would be tossed from the site most likely. and they still lose on shipping which is quite high.

the better sellers don't have to buy their own work, buyers do that instead.

and even if one were to game the system like that, and just because its on the top now, doesn't mean sales will roll in. people have to like it first and if your biggest customer is yourself, you wont' be in business for that long.

i'll post the links as requested, unless it was sarcastic, then oh well.

Marketing 101 by Mike Savad
Why Your Work May Not Be Selling - By Mike Savad
Evaluating Your Own Work To Sell – By Mike Savad
How To Critique And Edit Your Own Work For Better Sales

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

When a company starts to buy their own stocks to support the quotation ...

Mike... do you think anyone who buys their own prints must be gaming the system, I am weirded out.

I know artists that do NOT game they just buy print to sell at their art shows. But the ones I know are on "that other POD" site and they do lots of ART SHOWS selling lots of prints!!!

To reiterate,... not everyone buying their own art is gaming the system that is a very cynical way to look at fellow artist. Geesh!

I have a customer who bought about 10 grand of original art from me last year. I sometimes include gifts like small watercolors in her orders. I bought a pillow here on FAA from my account to have it shipped to her as a surprise GIFT. I won't do that again. She loved the pillow, great advertising. But like I said wouldn't want to be accused of gaming buy buying a pillow. Geesh, such paranoia!

Colin.... when artist post here on FAA they do not have stock. POD stand for Print on Demand. So there is no stock.

Mike no wasn't sarcasm. I didn't want to re-post the links and then again would have to copy it and then add the html code for the links.

Jeffery Johnson
Photo Captures by Jeffery

if your buying it for a purpose then no. but i do think that some do think that, yes. but they buy only cards, but i don't think cards count or count for much in the sales. i've heard of people saying they should do this for themselves. impossible to know how many have tried this, but i don't think it worked for them. no one will accuse you of gaming the system and how would we know? and why should we care? if you want to buy things then do it. don't need the guilt trip on yourself.

@jeff, just checking, because i've been posting that cluster a lot lately.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I see nothing wrong with buying for a purpose. Again, this IS selling art not suddenly having 1000 prints in your garage that you have to donate to Goodwill

"I see nothing wrong with buying for a purpose" yes JC that is what I was talking about.

@JC One must have a big garage for that many prints especially if they are framed.

About the only way to per say game the system would be to purchase as a collector but if one were to buy ones own works for giving or re-selling then it wouldn't count toward an outside sale. Personally if one is printing for shows and the like would be better off having it printed locally.

Jeffery Johnson
~ Photo Captures by Jeffery

I buy a few things once a year so that so that I can QC the products myself. I just last week ordered a few notecards, an unframed print on matte paper, and a poster. I think I might order a pillow and/or duvet cover if I decide I want to offer those products.

A couple months ago I ordered a print for my neighbor who can't figure out the internet, (and I gave her my pricing on the print), and then today I ordered a huge metal print to sell at the gallery.

I think many people order their own work at about that pace. It never occurred to me that there were people trying to manipulate the numbers by buying up their own work in quantity. Ultimately self-defeating, as others have mentioned.

Jeffery... some POD sites do count drop ship buys in sales ranking. There are some successful artists, indie type like myself, not corporate resellers, that buy for art shows and buy from their own galleries because they like the convenience of having it all in one place, picking framing, and not having to upload and deal with another print entity. It's quick. I was contemplating maybe offering some prints as special offer promotions,on my 2nd website ginettecallaway where I sell my originals but if I sell through my site directly, and buy it from FAA through my galleries to have it dropped shipped to my buyer, or have them shipped to me and then I embellish them with extra paint before shipping to my buyer, but if it won't count as a successful sale as far as exposure and ranking, I could sell a thousand prints and it would not matter as far as ranking on FAA and it may look suspicious as far as "doing something funky and weird" on FAA

I may just as well buy from another drop ship printer like Canvas Giclee Printing for example.

I haven't done print sales directly from my shopify ginettecallaway site yet, because of time restrains. I rather put more time in actually painting. But I did think if I bought and dropped shipped it to my buyer it would count toward exposure. So now the word it it doesn't. Well that's was a very enlightening lesson.

Cynthia... if an artist can resell the prints he/she buys, in HUGE NUMBERS why wouldn't they buy them? I know many artist that sell prints at art show in huge numbers. Actually more prints are sold at art shows then originals. If I ever do art shows again I will probably do embellished prints instead of logging my original art around.

if i could sell the prints in large numbers, i wouldn't have them printed here, i would go to a local printer. this site puts a mark up on all prints because they are outsourced. and if i'm getting them that way, i can sign them as well.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I usually use my local print place too. I've often thought about purchasing something from here outside of my member account to see the process for the buyer and hopefully get better ratings, since I have yet to sell anything on here. Not a big deal to a lot of you, but I'm excited that I almost have 100 followers, and approaching 10,000 views. Would be nice if that helped in search, but I think you have to be a big seller or promoter. You have to pull people outside of FAA to view your work directly. Market, market, market.