Question About Galleries

Hi Susan... Just wanted to comment re your "Down South" gallery. It seems the images are re Texas and Oklahoma. Most people think of Savannah, Charleston, Atlanta, Montgomery, Birmingham, Jackson, Mobile, New Orleans (Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana), etc. as "Down South". I am from the Deep South and have also lived in numerous areas of Texas...a world of difference, even though Texas is sometimes referred to as "Southern". It's often a difficult distinction depending upon your perspective, where you are from or where you have lived. I would guess that the best advice re your gallery questions would be from those who have thousands of images. I'm just getting started here, so don't know the finer points of entry, navigation, exit. You've got some great images. Good luck to you.

Sarah,

I've struggled over what to call that gallery. First it was just Oklahoma (where my permanent home is, except I'm in Australia right now). But I have a lot of images from Texas as well. Texas and Oklahoma really aren't anything. We aren't really the Southwest or the South. I guess we're just Mexico's Canada. When people over here ask where I'm from and I say Oklahoma, they either break out in the song, Oklahoma or look blank and I tell them, "We're on top of Texas," and they get it. But I'm open to suggestions on what to call that gallery. It's a problem....and thanks for liking my pictures.

And another question for people reading this. How do I organize the pictures INSIDE A GALLERY? I can organize my galleries in relation to each other, but really don't know how to organize them internally.

Thanks!!

Call it Texlahoma!

To move images around within a gallery open the gallery while signed in. At the top click Edit This Gallery then scroll through the pictures. To move a picture click the Position button.

Your Travels gallery has 216 images,. It seems redundant to have a general gallery of travels when you already of galleries from different places. Some of those images don't seem to have anything to do with your travels.

I wouldn't put this in Travels:

you should have as many galleries as you have subjects but not too many or it will be confusing. i think only a small percentage land on the gallery page, and those are the ones that look for you by name. the others eventually get there. you don't want to duplicate shots if you can prevent it. if the image appears to many times in different galleries, the confused buyer may think they saw that gallery and leave. i try to restrict it to no more than 3 galleries, usually only 2, but mostly 1.

i've seen people put the same set of images in 10 galleries, don't fluff it up just to make the store look bigger. or try to help the customer in that way. if the image is a landcape, its not going to also fit into trees, water, and other things (i've seen in other stores).

your name is too large on many of these pictures by the way.


i'm going to guess and say this won't print do to size of name.

your galleries are confusing. at the very least all travel stuff should line up in a row and not be scattered. a lot of the pictures you have in those galleries could have been taken anywhere. a chair, signs, etc in the aussie section - most are still lives and many that are not interested in that location may miss the stills you have in there. unless you have specific sites and locations, i'd divided it up for what it is. then you have a huge gallery called travels, that simple repeats everything again in a big pile. with the same stills in that.

many of the things in there don't fit the them of travel, and some have a snap shot look and probably shouldn't be there anyway. but we aren't talking about that.

then you have a digital section, but all the galleries already have digital stuff in them, so i don't know what that section is about.

the remembrance gallery has totally random things. i would never expect to see xmas and boats there. random stills etc. all of these should be in its own section like - anything marina, or animals, or the holidays. keep it general. this one also repeats everything else, making it really confusing. if your going to have angels, keep them to just one folder.

a quick tip... straighten your images, many of them are crooked.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

i think the down south, and the actual travel images should be in that... however this is why i made a city section - all cities end up in that. this way the people down south that consider that north aren't confused, and remember - people in other countries will have no idea what your talking about.

you can arrange the pictures just by renumbering them. but they jumble as you add more. it's not worth it.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

There are some good suggestions here, Susan. I have my galleries organized by place, then by subject, time of day (light), seasons, color, and architectural details. I have images in more than one gallery, but not more than 2 or 3. I think that people might be looking for a certain place, season, color, or have a liking for a particular subject, so I've tried to cover those bases. I'm not at all sure that it's the best organization, but it's the way I have it.

Susan, I'd call your local pics gallery 'Oklahoma and Texas'. Simple and to the point.

I call my own local gallery 'The Texas Zone' -- mostly because Texas, to me, is like an endless episode of The Twilight Zone. ;-) Also because people looking for my Texas images can still easily recognize the proper gallery by title. I put some things in there that are not 'obvious' Texas shots, but always explain the Texas connection in my descriptions.

BTW, Texas and Oklahoma are considered part of the South Central United States -- though not generally thought of as 'the south', 'down south' or 'the deep south' as we know it from literature and films. Geographically south, but that's about it. The Census Bureau (for whatever reason) uses the term 'West South Central States' for Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas.

West of what . . . only the Census Bureau knows for sure. ;-)

I would say very few customers initially find you via the gallery landing page except those you send to your site. (Which are the most valuable btw)

That said, say someone finds an image via the search. They go, WOW, I want to see more then click on your page. That is where galleries come in handy. example: If perhaps someone finds one of my Chesapeake Bay images and loves it and wants to see more. I live in FL now and all my recent images are from the south. That is not what they are looking for. But if they land on my gallery page, they can go straight to the Chesapeake Bay gallery and poof, they have what they want.

In order of making it to the top.

1. Art Auctions

2. Art Galleries

3. Online

If your work sells through a top auction house (about 8 in number), you are near the top. If your work sells in the top galleries (about 80 in number) your work may slowly move you close to the top. Online? You are probably never going to reach the top.

This is according to Artist Daily.