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Yessss! Now change the first line to- Headline 5- and you are there!
Way to goNot really. I formatted one page originally. When I upload I open two browser windows. One for the image I am uploading and one that is similar but previously uploaded. I select everything from the previous image and paste into the new image. All of the formatting comes along with it. Then I just change the pertinent info. Cut paste, cut paste about 5 times and a few edits. It’s not as bad as it sounds. You don’t need the mini image to get to green. I do it because I see it as another door to my website. The more ways in, the more customers. Also I can control the name and link of that image. I can’t do that with the automatically generated thumbnail. I have a small illustrator script that generates those images and I do ten at a time. It takes about 7 minutes to do 10. I upload them all at once and then edit afterwards. I set a goal of 10 images a week sometimes I make it sometimes I don’t but at least it is manageable. 1300 images or even 600 is way to big of a task to contemplate. I would never get started. I prioritize my new or exclusive images first and the images that were there before I started this process I try to chip away at. Focus on a couple a day. It’s a little like your posting on Facebook. A little at a time makes a big difference in the long run.
It really isn’t as bad as it sounds. I’m not sure what I would do if I had thousands of images but I think it would be a scaled down version or maybe use the batch editor. I am sure there is a solution.
Sorry, that image was for the home page on my baseball-softball specialty site.
This is the one for an image. Notice there are some similarities and a few differences[attachment=0:3o2j8ptj]Screen Shot 2014-01-28 at 4.52.26 PM.png[/attachment:3o2j8ptj]
Its about consistency with your focus keyword. It should be in the title and the url and also in the copy. Links to your own site and other sites help your page. Relevant but repetitive text seems to help and you need to have at least quite a few words in your description. I have a number of templates that I use and just change out the focus words and relevant info. This way I don’t need to write all new descriptions every time. No-one actually reads the text but if they do it should at least make sense.
Finally your focus keywords should use common sense. If looking for a lizard image what would you’re 12 year old type into Google? Pretty sure “stock image” wouldn’t be one of the first three words. More like “scary green lizard”. Despite what we would like to believe, agencies are not going to buy from our symbio sites. If you use the keyword “stock” you are now competing against SS, IS and DT. You are simply not going to win that battle. Stop thinking like an micro stock site and start thinking like the artist you are. People want to buy from you, you just need to help them find you.
I am attaching a photo ( I hope) of what Yoast wants. This image is “green”. Now that I know what it wants I can do this every time. It takes about 5 minutes of cut and paste and some editing.
Hope that helps
[attachment=0:3uotehhw]Screen Shot 2014-01-28 at 4.34.23 PM.png[/attachment:3uotehhw]I appreciate that. Seems like I started a bit of a S— Storm. That wasn’t my intention. I know some of these things work because I have tested them. For what it is worth, my site launched in August almost 6 months after symbio started. I am not part of the original group of sites and as far as I know I am not linked in with any of them. I might be wrong but based on the e-mails I have received regarding networking I don’t think I am. Symbio is not a sales Genie! It is simply a way to build a site if you don’t know how to program it yourself. I don’t know anything about the networking aspects but I don’t think they are going to help unless you are already doing things like titles and keywording correctly. This takes effort and anyone who says differently is lying. Just remember this… optimizing just 4 images a day creates almost 1500 “green” images in only one year.
Best
Dennis@shelma1 wrote:
So…you work in an industry that buys images, you have an insider view of what they need, and you draw that. And i would guess most sales are to them?
Can you comment on Cathy’s assertions on MSG? Is it true a few people who started out together have zillions of links to their sites while the rest of us are limited to 10?
Sorry if this is taken as a “slam.” I’m just trying to figure out why some people are getting 60+ sales per month and the rest of us are close to zero.
As far as I know besides my own sites I only have 3-4 others linked to me and at least 2 of those happened in the last two weeks. So no… I am not part of a closed circle of original symbiostockers. Also despite the way it sounds I do not know my customers. I think almost 100 % come from google images. I genuinely believe my success is in not trying to be an agency but rather trying not to be. I intentionally go in the other direction and purposely try to reach those people that have never even heard of istock. In fact “stock” is a keyword I don’t even use. My EULA is a little more forgiving and hopefully a bit less complicated. Finally my pricing makes sense. I ask myself how long would it take to steal my art and redraw it or remove the water mark and I price it around that hourly rate.
Some versions of Safari changing the extension to . HTML is costing me and others customers and causing headaches. Hoping you will find some time to explore this problem as well. Thanks Leo
You need to upload it into your user profile under personal photo.
Bumping this thread. This is a problem! I get this one at least once a month sometime more. I got another one today. This is becoming more than just a one in a thousand situation. More like 1 in 10. I believe someone else had this happen this weekend too.
Ok I’ve ironed this out- “Stock Image:” is being added to the image name during processing. It doesn’t show up as visual on the site itself but it is changing the meta. It is happening on my original site too. I bet is happening on everyone’s sites. If you check the media library and look for your uploaded images you will probably see the name with the addition. The problem is that Yoast doesn’t really like this. It’s particularly troublesome for us illustrators who would prefer to use a different term like “Vector Image” or “Clipart Image”.
In my case I would like my image name just to be the one I designated in the IPTC.
If for some reason your sites aren’t doing this perhaps you could tell me how you stopped it?
ThanksI’ve built a seo test site on a new domain. Im interested in how my images with the same info as the micros are fairing. It’s happening on all of the images on this site. It’s not a real big deal because at some point I will change the titles. But I would really like it to use a different term or none at all in the meantime.
FWIW. It seems like changing and optimizing your image info really pays off. So far there is a huge difference between the site which gets the love and the one that is upload and forget.
Its showing up in front of all my image titles on the image pages and in front of all of the large image names in the media library.
This is just a bug that happens with some versions of safari. Simply changing the .HTML to .jpg or .eps solves the problem. The file downloads correctly but for some reason safari changes the extension.
Hi all, this is not really my style but Leo has asked for some success stories so here is mine. 13 sales today! All symbio. Granted 6 were from the same customer ordering the same image (which I had to refund 5 times) but the rest were legit. This was hands down the best self hosted day I have ever had. Most of the images were seasonal but nevertheless people are finding my images and choosing to buy from my sites direct. This network is amazing and I know that my success today was in no small part due to all of the effort that many of you have put into your sites. A big thank you to Leo and everyone else who has had a part (big or small) in making this network work!
Ok I followed these instructions but my browser just stalls when I try to upload the new symbio theme. What am I doing wrong when uploading this theme?
