Category: Business Stuff

Posted on

Photography & Business Goals for the New Year

Foreseeable, attainable and lofty goals to move my business forward.

A wise man, Benjamin Franklin, once said, “If you fail to plan you are planning to fail.” With that in mind, I’ve been looking at a few marketing goals for my Bill Swartwout Photography business for the coming year.

Attainable goal: A couple weeks ago I started back at my earliest upload folder and began making black and white versions of images where B&W actually “works” well. In doing that, I am updating (cleaning, culling, rearranging) keywords and adjusting descriptions as needed. I have been selling a few black and white images and, with a greatly increased inventory, hope to sell even more in 2021. That project will likely add 500 +/- images to my current gallery total at USPictures.com.

Attainable goal #2: Increase my web presence of individual sites (blog and image style) that support my better-selling themes/collections.
Examples: https://www.FortMcHenry.net – https://www.IndianRiverBridge.com – https://www.MyPhoneography.com.

Attainable goal #3: Redefine my personal website to better focus on photography. I’m trying to be/act (more) retired – so I want to eliminate all old affiliate marketing “stuff” and clean out extraneous and obviously dated posts/articles.

Lofty goal: Double my current inventory by the end of 2021.

But – first and foremost – my photography must remain fun.

YOUR THOUGHTS? Please leave a comment…

Posted on

Time for a Workstation Upgrade

One can never have too many screens

‘Nuff said…

Workstation Snapshot

Try on a 24″ HP all-in-one coupled with an external 24″ HP Monitor. On the left is an old HP 19″ monitor that is connected to (out of the picture on the left) an old 15″ HP laptop. Nice upgrade and fully functional at a budget price. Happy camper here.

Posted on

To Watermark or Not to Watermark Images For Sale

Some say watermarks deter buyers from purchasing Art, others say it doesn’t.

It’s true that there are many comments on line leaning one way or the other. What I tend to do is listen to those with the most experience. Should I listen to folks who sell a couple dozen works a year or the folks who sell thousands of pieces a year. Amazon, eBay, Fine Art America and ImageKind, who sell thousands of units have run A/B tests and have determined that watermarking degrades sales. They are not artists with egos – they are Internet marketers looking to improve the bottom line.

Indian River Inlet Bridge
Charles W. Cullen Bridge at Indian River Inlet – with an example of my usual watermark.

In my case, I choose to NOT watermark the images I upload for sale at Imagekind or Fine Art America and other POD (Print On Demand) art companies. If the unscrupulous want to steal an image – they will – and there is nothing you or I can do to stop them. Anyone with rudimentary image editing skills can remove your watermark in a matter of minutes.

On the other hand I DO watermark images that I post to social media and on other websites. Why, you ask? Well, there I want people to see where the image can be found. My watermarks include a URL – in most cases my USPictures.com domain. I can have that domain point to whichever POD I choose (and I can change that at any time).

CLICK: Bill Swartwout Photography