Web Marketing

[Yaakov Asher Sinclair]

I have my own website now:
www.seasonsofthemoon.com
and I wanted to know how best to convert visits into sales. I tried googlewords and had a respectable number of visits but no conversions into sales.
All help is much appreciated
Yaakov Asher Sinclair

[neil poulsen]

Really nice images. They give me a different insight into large format photography.

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

First look on your website without studying it is that there is absolutely no way to buy your photographs. I spent about 10 seconds on there and didn't find anything that told me I can buy your photography. I didn't see a link that said "Purchase Photographs" or "Purchase Information" or anything like that. Your photographs are really nice and I like that you have a display of them flashing throughout, however; the menu system is a bit antiquated and simple looking. I recommend you change that and put a link that says "purchase information" that outlines how much your photographs are and what they sell for, how much shipping is, etc.

Btw -- you're in Jerusalem, have you visited Vision Gallery? Neil Folberg is a very well respected curator and gallery owner.

[Witold Grabiec]

There is actually purchase info, but as stated there is no clues about it on your home page. I like the simplicity of the pages and the images should speak for themselves.

[darr]

Your work is beautiful. I could find purchase info, but I had to scroll my screen horizontally to do it. Try setting your web page design code to view 100% so viewers will not have to do the scroll thingy.

Best Wishes,
Darr

[Ben Chase]

First off, let me complement you on how great your work looks. As another person said, it's something that I haven't seen all that much of in the past and I am immediately drawn to it.

With regard to your question:

The first thing that you need to do is find out what market you are looking at catering to. Who is your target customer? As many will no doubt tell you here, your approach to selling work will be quite different depending on the target customer. If you are going after gallery representation, you typically take a different approach than you would if you're going after stock/print sales.

After you've answered that question for yourself, you may find that you need to re-evaluate how your site is laid out and its overall appearance. People browsing for prints to purchase will expect to see a pretty clear indicator about how to purchase the work. I don't see that on your site right now, so if your target customer is the general public, you may want to look at making that more clear. With the proper amount of market research, you may find that your target customer is more specific than the "general" public.

Those who have had gallery representation are much more qualified to speak on how to accomplish that goal than I am, but if you're interested in selling direct over the web, perhaps QT can give you some pointers, as he depends on this method (as I understand it). If I'm wrong, please let me know. :)

Again - You have some great work, but the time spent doing the homework on your target customer will be worth the effort.

Ben C

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

The less work somebody has to do to buy something from your website, the greater the chance you'll turn visitors into customers. If they have to search for purchase information, you'll find a lot of visitors, but not a lot of customers.

[QT Luong]

In my experience, it simply takes more than what most would consider a "respectable" number of visits to sell a single print on the web. On average, I sell one print per 50,000 visits. It may help if it's more obvious than prints are for sale, but as it is, I think people who want to buy can figure it out.

[Doug Dolde]

I don't see the problem, every image has a "Purchase" link next to it. You might want to use the Paypal "Buy Now" buttons for greater visibility but I doubt that is the problem.

Great images by the way.

[Ed Richards]

First, your images are wonderful. I am impressed anew each time I view them.

I have no experience in selling prints, but a little in increasing google hits. How many visits do you get a month? Have you used Google Analytics to look at your visitors and how they use the site? Are they coming in from a search engine and leaving again without viewing other pages?

While your flash presentation is elegant, the interior image pages do not seem to generate google entries. For a site like yours, where each image has an evocative name with a rich history, you want search engines to see each page. You should also add more narrative to image description to catch hits from folks searching about the holy land and Jewish history and religion. Your moon cycle pictures are a good example - if each was on a different page, with a paragraph describing the site, each would get indexed and people could also link to them, all of which improves google visibility.

[Frank Petronio]

You need to find a way to target the right audience. Many, if not most, of your hits are probably coming from other photographers (weren't you in Lenswork last year?) who appreciate your work but rarely buy prints. I know, I get 2000 hits a day from you guys and that and $1.83 will buy me a cup of coffee.

Frankly, your ideal audience is wealthy Jews in NYC and LA who would buy these like crazy. You can target NYC and LA in Google AdWords, but you probably want to look into advertising in Jewish-American media outlets. Sorry, I don't know exactly where to start but I would try asking around... you need some contacts here in the USA.

Also devout Christians would gobble this up. They have hundreds of their own magazines and websites to advertise in. Sometimes a small one-inch ad in upper-middle class secular magazines like Harpers or the Atlantic can really be successful. I know my wife would love one of your prints and I am actually going back to your site to consider which one....

Give me $10,000 and I'd put a small fractional ad in Reader's Digest and I bet you couldn't keep up with the demand... but that is just my hunch.

But... selling $180 prints online seems ridiculous for your level of work. I think you should research and find a good commercial photo gallery in NY and LA, where you can sell for thousands. And before I did anything else I would send these images to Time, the Economist, Fortune, travel, news, and business magazines.... They are extremely marketable images.

[Brian Ellis]

When I clicked on "Seasons of the Moon" I easily saw the word "purchase" on the right hand side of each page. Didn't seem difficult to find though it wouldn't hurt to have it other places as well I suppose.

[Martin D.]

I do not see a problem with your web site. It offers enough information and functionality. What exactly is your business plan? Many people run websites only to get some commercial work for magazines etc. Including those that got all possible prizes and awards. I would concentrate on your Top 3 photos (by sales) and try to sell them through established on-line galleries (for a higher price). I just tried a few Google searches, most web sites that I found have either Jerusalem or Holy land in the URL. Both of these names are as frequent as you can possibly think of, i.e. I am not sure whether self marketing is feasible. You can also try a gallery somewhere in the US or Europe. They will probably want to see the actual prints and you might need to visit the gallery (this all costs money).

[studmuffin]

Yes, very nice images.

I too have no experience selling images on the web but I am a self proclaimed guru of web site marketing. As a matter of fact, I'm somewhat of a legend in my own mind... :+) I've written an article (quite a while ago) about SEO for photographers. You might want to check it out.

http://www.professionalphotography101.com/photography/yourwebsite.html

But at first glance, I can tell you that your biggest problem is that you do not come out and clearly say that you sell prints. MOST photographers are showing their images to attract assignment work and most of your people are probably assuming that is what you're showing your work for. (to get assignment work) You need to yell " prints for sale" in some way.

And then you need good SEO.

Good luck

MR

[uniB]

I must say, your photography is stunning.
As a web designer I'd agree with others here who have mentioned your need to understand and target your audience. The main thing is to get your target market to your site I'd suggest looking at keywords that they are likely to search for and then use them in your titles, have print information with those words etc.
I always find it's better if there's some information that goes along with a photo, although they may be art, I always find it nice if there's some info on when the photo was taken, what it is, what it means to you etc. And that also give you a chance to gert some more keywords in there!
Also as others have mentioned, I'd make it more obvious that you can buy the prints online and it's not just a portfolio as it may first appear, I'd also make it known that shipping to other countries isn't a problem.

Good luck with it.
Dav

[Ben R]

Rebbi, I have had my website up for a while trying to move the sales of fine art work. It's not moved anything despite links and pushing towards it via my (B"H) very successful wedding photography business.

Having a great website is one thing but you need to get it out there. My father (Rabbi YY, who you know well) actually sent me the link to it a month or so ago but otherwise I doubt I would have come across it.

Your target audience is precisely that which I hope to reach once my projects in Jerusalem start to bear fruit albeit only in a couple of years time. I think Frank is spot on with what that audience is.

Luckily you already have a insight into that audience. If like my father you regularly do lecture tours in the states (he is doing one now with Gateways) then that is a perfect opening into getting people to look at your work and hence to sales. I know from my father that his books and audio CD's sell incredibly well on these tours, he never brings any back, and that bigger names than himself, yours included, do even better.

Selling books or prints alongside your other religeous writing would be sure to get your work out there. The only thing to think about would be whether people might spend the money in their pocket on a nice print or photographic book rather than spending it on your books though in the case of Seasons of the Moon you accomplish both in one go. That question is the reason why you're a Rabbi and I'm not! :-)

Good Luck and hope you get somewhere with it, I've come to the realisation that it's very very hard to get work out there into the marketplace, it needs a lot of effort, I'd kill to have the contacts and inroads you already have, it's time to make all that hard work over the years give you some side benefits!

p.s. Is there any way to revive some of the Hollywood contacts from years past, see if there is anything to tap into with that world? Pardon me if it was inappropriate to mention.

[srbphoto]

Nice work!!

I agree that you probably are not going to sell a lot through your site. Use it as a marketing tool. I'll bet there are a lot of galleries that would love your work. That is usually the best place to be for consistent sales. Expect them to want you to mark up your prices! Remember they take half, but their customers are coming in to buy.
The book "Photographer's Market" has a lot of contact info on galleries.

Good Luck

Scott
P.S. The problem with having a lot of photographers hitting your site is we never buy and we all think we can do it better :)

[Ted Harris]

Mazel Tov Rabbi. Very very nicely one.

[Kuzano]

Mr. Asher,

Let me say a couple of things about me, before I make some hopefully objective but perhaps critical comments. I have a 25 year background in Marketing, mostly in financial services (but marketing is marketing for the most part). When I view a lot of the web sites on the internet, my first perspective is generally from a marketing view, rather than content or subject matter. Secondly, I have spent the last 15 years working with computers and the internet. I am not a web designer, however, so let me make that clear.

Now, looking at your website, based on the question you asked, my first impression is that it is very somber (dark) and is clearly not designed by someone who knows much about marketing. Your photography is very interesting and well done and from the comments of other posters, would have a strong market to the right people.

However, it does not set a mood for buying/selling. Since the photography is so dark, why did the designer use an almost equivalent dark background. I'd love to see the site with a white background, crisp black text and your art. Secondly, and it's been pointed out that the contact information is not easily accessible, and it's disturbing that the site has to be scrolled horizontally, even on a 20 inch screen. Some pages actually cut off the image.

Regarding the gallery information, It might appear better if it were in a side bar on the left side of the page, AND along with that in the sidebar, all the contact information and a link to pricing and selling information. Frankly there should not be a page on the site that does not have a way to get to contact and pricing information. A side-bar would accomplish this and give some great continuity to the site.

It would be easy at least to make a change to white on the background, black on the text and sample the web site on your own computer, or your web designers computer and see if the "Gloominess (yes, there, I said it)" of your site can become a bit more positive. People buy when positive, not otherwise. Play with the sidebar idea.

This is not intended as a critique of your style of photography, but my own personal opinion from my background in marketing.

Web sites, also need to be found to be effective. Others have mentioned target markets, and key words, etc. This is a very elusive area of the internet to get a handle on. There are people making big money specializing ONLY in registering sites with search engines and detecting proper target markets. Most website designers really are not proficient in this area and I don't have any faith in any web site hosting service who purports to get results on finding your market. You can sign up with these services based on these promise and it will take months before you find out if they are truly effective at this.

As a consequence of that, I tend to think of a web site as a way for people to preview your work, but a rather poor way to find these people. Do you think that people who are have the disposable income for art, and who have artistic interests, will take the time to sit down at a computer and "hunt" for art?

I agree with the people who responded and mentioned marketing your art in obvious places, publications, and target areas, and direct them to your web site.

I am going to put a link here to a friends web site. He is a landscape photographer, and his site portrays a couple of the features I mentioned. I did not have any part of his site design. I will also say that he tells me that the site provides an avenue to show people his work, but he does not get a lot of activity that generates new sales to new people. (MY PUTTING THIS SITE HERE IS NOT INTENDED TO GENERATE CONTACTS WITH THE ARTIST, unless you have questions about his photography rather than his site).

www.brucejacksonphotography.com

And again, I hope you are not offended by my comments. They are simply personal observations of mine... And who am I?

[Yaakov Asher Sinclair]

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their time and input in answering my question here. Thank you all so much! It's made for some very interesting reading and has given me much to think over. Please forgive me for not replying individually to each of you,
With best wishes
Yaakov Asher Sinclair

[Zach In Israel]

Rabbi Sinclair:
You need to do a few things (which have already been noted)
1) Make buying easy, for each extra click the user has to make to buy a print you will loose some people. A big easy to see "BUY" button would be helpful , or at least make the link in a high contrast color so people will see it.
2) Get your word out to Jewish and Christian groups in the USA. Find Christian Zionist magazines.

Once Bush goes back to the USA we should have a Jerusalem LF get together. There are at least 3-4 people here in Israel and I know a few more (Neil Foldberg, Max Richardson )