Google

"In America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, The Party can always find you!" -Yakov Smirnoff.

"On the internet, you can always find Google. In image posts, Google can always find you!" -W

You don't post on google, you add good descriptions and tags for your image uploads. Google sends out bots and uses those tags and description to categorize your image in their search database. How your image ranks on Google is a well kept Google secret. You can also pay for google ads. -W

You can post on google plus.

....or did you mean Google+ ? ;-) -W

Yes. You post one photo at a time. You can use google analytics to see if people are coming to your FFA Webb site. Good night

Bill, did you know that there is another artist that shares your name on Google?

I mean, have you googled your name and what do you see?

I just posted this picture to Google +

I have found if I post pictures to Google+ they are more likely to show up on Google, at least when my name is searched.....don't know if they do any other way.....

I just started getting into sending everything to google plus that would normally go to twitter and facebook..i am still trying to figure out what google plus is..ive never seen a conversation...but it takes time to figure out how things work .....on twitter...I have conversations with many followers .none of which I have ever met...but we share similar views..i like that..on facebook I have many followers who I have met (real friends and family),,,..I never share or converse with any of them on facebook - i do that in person, phone or email...google plus???? never even seen a conversation...

Here is my google plus URL https://plus.google.com/109314902249272519757/posts

not very personable is it?

looking at my stats, of how people found my page last month on analytics, and google plus was dead last at 2 clicks.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Tweet it to goose the bots.

Google+ has a special relationship with the mothership.

Pinterest also has a lot of pull in the Googleshere.

I heard a podcast the other day (sorry don't remember which for sure, may have been SEO 101) and heard mention that now that Google has all but closed down the Google+ branch of Google, people are leaving it in droves. It was already on the way down, which is why Google all but closed down the department, but now even the somewhat still hopeful photography sharing aspect is bleeding users. Methinks trying to build a following on Google+ at this point maaaaaaay not be your best plan o' action. I dunno about you, but I want every excruciating social marketing minute to count as much as possible and to have a future. Your mileage may vary.

google plus never had a good set up. it was confusing to use. last year i was banned for a good chunk of time simply because i wanted to find friends. so many were banned because of that. and any ban you got there affected youtube as well. i'm still trying to decide if instagram is worth going after or not. i'm thinking mostly teens use it, and i don't know how many are into art or have money for it.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Somebody (hint hint MIKE) should write a blog or a forum post about how to use Google analytics with FAA.

I would LOVE to have a grasp on Google+. I have never really understood how to work it, especially as it pertains to image sales and FAA.

Valerie, read Susan's post, sounds like G+ is on borrowed time.

Any picture that I upload to FAA I always click 'like', google+ (which will post it to google), twitter (which also posts it) and FB (facebook) I have set to post automatically. If you follow people on google and twitter you'll get them to follow you and retweet and regoogle your art to their contacts. Doesn't hurt.

it can't be me, i hate analytics its got to be the worst and most confusing, most useless counter there is. they give info you can't use, stuff i can't control, and its all a day late. i so wish i could use stat counter on all my pages. that would give me the info i need.

for google plus the basic thing was set up like this:

you create circles. your family, your friends, faa, etc.

on facebook, when you describe your drunk exploits, everyone heard about it. but on google you can select your circle, so just your friends hear about it. but your friends probably don't care about how much you enjoy school, so you send that out to your family, in that circle.

and so on

but the place was always hard to use, hard to find people and kind of invasive. i had to turn off my history and ID functions, every time i turned the phone on, it broadcasted my exact position. i saw where i walked that morning, and it was something i had to go out of my way to turn off. its like foursquare but automatic and far more accurate.

i used to get hits from there, but that was before the ban. my guess is many people dropped me because i was inactive and all the people i have now are from here. and i'm afraid to look for more people because they might ban me again. i send notes back to google plus because its a part of google and maybe it helps in the search some how. but i wouldn't go out of my way to do anything special on there.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

im still trying to understand reddit... i have 20 X more views there than twitter and facebook combined.. but its wird and i think their views arent worth much

Edward, "tweet it to goose the bots" has to be one of the best phrases I have seen :-)

Richard Reeve
ReevePhotos.com

Bill,did you ever tend bar in Fall River,Mass.If not,you have an identical twin.My memory has faded over the years,probably from all the drinking, but I never forget a face.lol Just wondering.

Mike and Sharon,

I looked over G+ a lot. I saw only one purpose there. If you link back to your website it rises in a Google search.
But it has not actually worked for me as promised.

Mike you at one point were trying to tell me not to go overboard using G+. Before your comments I had sussed it out.
I had figured that it was pretty useless.....unless you make a one on one very important contact for a very important business need.
Then there are so few people to interrupt any conversation that it is extremely good....is my guess....

But if you use a SM you want to cast a much larger net. I stopped as I began last winter.

Dave

Cynthia,

I nominate you to write the GA synopsis. We may never see you again. That does not mean anything meaningful
will come of it. lol

I took GA and Statcounter off my website. The site runs faster without those two plugins.

I had a site problem with plugins. I had to reinstall things. I do not know if GA is elsewhere in the plugins. It might be.
I wont be using it either way. I am making one on one contacts with designers. Mass marketing is not the name of the game.


Dave

/

Okay, so my personal opinion is as follows.

When I Google "Lisa Kaiser paintings" I see ten rows of my work. Maybe this is what you want. When I started FAA, there was a renowned artist living in New York by the name of Lisa Kaiser. Her work always trumped mine.

So I set goal. I put my work online everyday for a year and deleted easily as much. And now, my work shows up on Google search when people Google me. Many orders or commissions I get are from Google. People want a painting like what they saw on Google.

Now does Google analytics help me? Nope. Does Google plus help me? Nope. Does Twitter, Linked.in, About.me, Flickr, Pintrest, and the ten other social sites help...very little.

FAA is the only one that helps me when in a disciplined way, I post daily and write about my work. I know it's not the best answer because I really have to stay off the forum and work in order to be seen on Google.

Good luck to you, Bill.

Bill, there is another artist sharing your name so you need to compete with him.

I think quantity of works and links to your works matter more than anything, just like it does in all aspects of Google SEO. The more art you post with your name on it, the more Google associates you with art. It took awhile, but I have finally managed to knock LongLocks (my other "job" that I am slowly phasing out) to the second page when you search for me in quotes, the entire first page is all art-related stuff. Considering LongLocks has been online since 1999, I can't complain that it took me awhile, but I sure didn't do it by blogging. I even have my own Google image search now, which for the most part is very accurate, at least for the first few screen scrolls... no infiltrators. Coming back to FAA last autumn helped tremendously. So did getting serious about getting art created and out there. Always make sure your name is in your jpg titles, too!

"it can't be me, i hate analytics its got to be the worst and most confusing, most useless counter there is. they give info you can't use, stuff i can't control, and its all a day late. i so wish i could use stat counter on all my pages. that would give me the info i need. "

Yup, you got that right.

I get GA on some of the pages I own were I get data from a good tracking system. The GA is worthless in comparison, imho.

Floyd, Mike,

It GA depends on how big a marketing operation you are. If you are GM or Ford GA is probably the best info because
you are trying to marry up who watches your Super Bowl ads v how they responded with which device on the internet that day...
...even if the data actually compiles for the following day, the Monday. You do not need live data, you need big data.

But Floyd no matter how much mass marketing you do, the Fortune 500 companies that use GA among other things are miles
ahead of you and implementing massive advertising budgets.

Now if you guys want to say it is worthless for GM as well, okay. But Google means it for GM not for any of us. We have access, but
so what? Useless stuff.

Addition: I have never used MSFT's Powerpoint either, but I use Word from time to time. Software comes with the unneeded stuff as well.

Dave

I use it. And It is pretty darn usefull considering Its the only thing I got and have never used anything else. :)

in order for GA to be useful you do need to have many people coming in. but my site doesn't even show up in google unless your force the search. and the most basic things like a drill down of who went where and what pages did they just go to right now... isn't there. and when i finally find what i'm looking for, i have to bookmark it to find it again. sometimes too many bells and whistles just gets in the way. it is the only thing there so its all i have. stat counter used to work on that page, but not now. i actually had a tiny bit of real data i was able to use. but that's gone. and again i'm shooting blind.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I would love something that provided the information I want..Mike, I saw your suggestion in the suggestion box last week....I know its not the first time you have mentioned it. I get the feeling that there isnt much communciation back from the suggestion box. do they at least thank you for the suggestion and that they are working on it, or NO, thats never going to happen? Or are they just silent so you have to wait the minimum time rule to ask again and hope for a differnt result?

Mike,

When you sign up for all the Google products you get Adwords if you want as well.

I have seen your numbers with the Adwords Keyword Planner. Kind of a side subject, but you brought up web traffic.
Your traffic was something like 450 visits that was a few months ago.

I went into check what it is now. It is 320 visits for the month right now. And how many of those are our fellow artists?
Your suburbanscenes is not coming up. Might be my mistake, not sure.

Mine is much lower if it is any counselation. Just checked 30 per month.

Robert, all I get for your full name is a comedian.

Dave

If there is one thing Google is notorious for since time immortal, it's over complicating everything they touch. GA is useful but only if you're willing to bend it to your will and invest the time and frustration to learn how to do that. Also... no.

When are we going to get the long awaited expanded FAA comprehensive stats? I think it's been close to a year since it was announced or leaked. -W

Wings - I dont know how things work around here...but there is a suggestion box that comes out weekly...i think they call it suggustions for the week...For the week of 9/28 I know Mike put in that suggestion. Maybe it is more helpful or useful or maybe suggestions have more weight if more people suggest it. Please suggest it. I would suggest it too but i had a different suggestion and the rules limit me to one suggestion per week. I still live by rules are rules, not suggestions.. a standard that seems to be slipping away these days.

The expanded FAA stats are long past the suggestion stage, it was announced almost a year ago, we need a "nudge/toss us a bone" thread. -W

i'm not sure what site your tracking dave exactly, especially since i didn't think those numbers were public, but suburban scenes is a site i haven't updated for years and it was never set up for marketing, i don't advertise the site. i'm looking at adwords thing page, right now its stuck on making a report of some kind. the people that go to my site are other photographers wanting to know how i make my stuff. i found the page doesn't help me sell anything at all.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Wings - like I said..I am new here (3 months)...Its very difficult to find out how things work..takes time..anywho...maybe you will set up create a noodge discussion. And I wish there was a discussion area that was not public...thats where this stuff should be discussed..anywho... maybe thats why they never seem to answer these questions? maybe they dont want to answer them..I could go on with the guesses..I would prefer to get answers...have a good day

Hello all,

I always post in T, FB, P, and G+....just because it doesn't take any time to do that; but my Twitter numbers have not shown up for over a week now. On my FAA page they show 0 and also on my AW. I know my Twitter is working because I go to Twitter and I see where others are retweeting...so it did go through, but I just wish my numbers showed up so I could see all in one place.


If G+ and SU are not viable anymore; when will they be taken off our FAA page and will we ever see LI as an option...anyone know?

Thanks for all the info!

Roberta

i'm not sure what site you're tracking dave exactly

Mike,

Most of this stuff you know, but putting it together here for all of us.

To see Google Keywords, you join Google Adwords. There you can use the keyword planner.
When you get used to its complexities you will find it pinpoints keywords in all the mush.

Under "mike savad" you have 320 searches on Google in the last month. I guess that is for September.

Who made those searches I have no clue.

As I said I have some 30. And for both of us it has been that way for the last six months. I have checked once as of four months go.
My life as a guppy.

I think a lot of it is fellow artists rehashing things. You are on more sites and have a larger profile timewise on the internet. More
people are looking you up. How many are looking up Mike Savad as non artists potential buyers who have never heard of you or heard of
you six months earlier? That is the main question. Not many is the answer.

I see Google search as verification of our integrity, our existence, not sales directly. So if daily you had a sale anywhere on the internet to a new
customers odds are seven of those searches per week were verification of your existence before trusting you on a higher level. And paying you.
Something much more like that.

Dave

David, can you use a boolean search for keywords doyaknow? Like, can I eliminate my LongLocks searches by searching for:
"Susan Maxwell Schmidt" -longlocks