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Thank you. So if I understand correctly. Activate 2013. Delete symbio. Upload new symbio. Activate new symbio. Activate dragonfly.
I am trying to upgrade and for the life of me I can’t figure this out. Please help.
I just bought the premium upgrade but it wont install – is this a plug-in or a theme?
(when I get the download it opens in a folder not a .zip format)
Do I need to download the latest version of symbiostock or will the premium upgrade work instead? If so where can I find the download for the most recent version?Finally – is the Dragonfly child theme used in addition to the premium upgrade or instead of it?
Thank you for any help
DennisNope, that got turned off when I upgraded. Thank you. I knew it would be easy.
I really appreciated it.Be careful. I’ve been getting e-mails all morning saying that my customers can’t get their files. I did a test and the downloader wasn’t working. You should test your purchase all of the way through to make sure this isn’t happening to you.
Hi Thomas, just added your site to my network.
Great stuff,
DennisI have a couple of spots left. Adding you now.
DennisYou don’t need to compete on price. Just don’t be crazy expensive. If your pricing is in line with On Demand Sales at the micros you will be fine. Customers are not nearly as price sensitive as people seem to think. Offer quality images at a fair price with exceptional customer service and you will be fine
Shelma1, You’re doing great! This is exactly what we need. Someone to help smooth out the bumps. I really appreciate your efforts. Thank you!
I think Shelma1 might be more typical of the types of artists who are holding off from symbiostock. I had a couple of different but similar frustrations. The guides are good but because almost everyone here had some experience with word press they are not elementary enough. My frustrations came from items that I think are almost obvious if you have done this before. Unfortunately for a complete newbie they are not obvious at all. I had to call tech support at blue host and paypal to resolve what turned out to be very simple problems. But because I didn’t know what I didn’t know to me they werent simple at all. If we want artist to join in mass we might to make this even clearer from a start up standpoint. Shelma1 hang in there you are in the hard part right now. Keep trying and learning, it will be worth it.
Ok I’ll try to take this one- I may miss something so if I do someone help me out.
FWIW I had zero experience with word press or coding prior to doing this.Step 1 – buy a domain- I used godaddy- about 10 minutes
Step 2 Set up Hosting – I used Bluehost- about 10 minutes
Step 3- Go to symbioguides.com and follow the instructions- http://www.symbioguides.com/ – about 30 minutes
This shows you how to download wordpress, download symbiostock themes, use your Bluehost account, set up paypal and other basic info.Note: I called Bluehost tech support for help and called paypal support for help – Both made it very easy and basically did it for me.
All in all about 1 hour of time spent before I could start modifying my site.
Step 4- Modify the site to look the way you want- I spent about 10 hours learning how to navigate wordpress and how to install widgets and get the site to work.
Step 5 – Upload images
Step 6 – Wait for Google to find your images and make some sales.
I know I am forgetting some things but this is really pretty simple.
If you are asking how well it works – I think that varies by file type, Illustrators seem to be having better luck than photographers. When I get completely uploaded I expect my symbio site to outperform DT.
As far as light boxes – that seems to be a “in the box” type of question for an “out of the box” sort of solution. Symbio sites are much more likely to sell to customers who have absolutely no need for lightboxes. The small operations who are looking online for an image some of whom have never heard of microstock agencies. Honestly, the agencies are not very friendly to these types of customers. If you want just one image you are going to pay quite a bit of money, or buy a sub plan you don’t need, and then have to read a complicated EULA. The big guys are scaring away a lot of smaller customers. This is the market for symbio sites and I think it is huge. I’m not saying lightboxes wouldn’t be nice to have but as far as I’m concerned I don’t see any of my customers using them.
I would say $5-15 per month in hosting, $30-$100 in optional add ons and about 10-15 hours of upfront work. After that expenses and upload time should be equivalent to uploading to the micros. In my case the site has paid for itself in about 1 month.
Welcome, I think there is a market for your concept but you need to be smart with your keywording. Your symbio site is going to get found via google so make sure you keyword and title with your possible customer search probabilities in mind. Good luck
Jo Ann, I haven’t done it quite so much on my symbio site but on my other site I have it in every image and hidden or small somewhere on almost every page. In the footer or in text somewhere unobtrusive. This works! I made a sale yesterday from a soccer mom who just didn’t understand the jargon on the micros. She found my website and called me direct. She was thrilled to talk to me and very happy to buy from my site just so she could support the artist. I’m $15.00 richer just because she believed in good karma. She also gave me a lead on a site that was giving away the same image for free. How about that! She bought the image from me even though she originally found it on a free site. Cool huh!
I agree about the customer service. I am constantly getting requests for images that I haven’t made or posted yet. With my own site I can make the image and post it for sale within hours. The customers love that. I am also getting a number of calls and e-mails from people who don’t understand the licensing. A lot of these customers find me after seeing my images on the larger sites and track me down because they can’t get their question answered by the agencies. They almost alway wind up buying from me instead.
Some of the time this also leads to well paying custom requests.
A bit off topic but important. If you have a symbio site make sure that your micro user name is well keyworded and extremely present in your symbio site. Customers will be looking for you because they liked what they saw on the micros but couldn’t find exactly what they need.
