U.S. Pictures – Fine Art Imagery & More…
Created with Photographs by Bill Swartwout Photography
November and December are the months when most people order calendars for the new year. Plan for 2023. #ShopEarly
Assateague Ponies, Ocean City, Indian River Bridge and Fire Control Towers are what I have created from my photographs and offer for sale at the amazing “Zazzle.” Click the image or the link below the image to browse of shop…
Link to browse or shop: https://www.zazzle.com/mbr/238675969062853179?rf=238675969062853179
Let’s begin with a caveat: One must keep in mind that I am comparing January numbers, one of the slowest sales months, to December and the holiday shopping season. Therefore, I believe any growth AT ALL is a significant increase.
One is tempted, possibly because of innate vanity to describe success based on feelings or “what I think” is happening. That is all a feel good, pat yourself on the back, reaction and may be OK in general conversation. However, what follows is my sharing of actual data, the metrics of which are derived from the Analytics service from Google and from AWStats, an internal statistics package on my leased server space.
Remember the rationale for this is a rebranding of my USPictures domain and to create more SEO “juice” (search engine results) for my own sites – rather than for the stockholders of FB, Twitter or any POD with a forum.
While I have several blog/websites related to (supporting) several of my art photography collections, I have chosen to focus the first part of the year on my personal blog at BillSwartwout.com and my “rebranded” site targeting United States landscape/seascape images at USPictures.com.
USPictures.com was “moved” from being pointed to my premium site at Fine Art America to its own server space in mid-December so I could offer more choices for my customers, including the Free Shipping at Pictorem, another quality POD (Print on Demand) company. See “Rebranding and an Art Challenge.”
Therefore the numbers for USPictures.com and BillSwartwout are based on a comparison of daily averages, not one month vs another month. This is to keep things on an even keel, so to speak.
I am not sharing actual numbers, just percentages. The following percentages increases are for BillSwartwout.com & USPictures.com, respectively
Number of Visits: 124% and 189%
Page Views per Visit: 187% and 174%
SEO/Organic Search Results: 175% and 325%
Averaging all of those results yield an average growth in one month of “Daily Posting” of nearly 200% (195.6% to be exact).
But Wow, those Organic Search Results, a 250% increase, are far better that what I was hoping to see at the one-month mark. That means the longer I can keep growing the sites’ SEO the less dependent I am on Social Media.
Hey, these increases are after only one month of Daily Article Posting, or Blogging, if you like. Imagine what may/will happen after another couple of months. Or the whole year. Not too crabby, eh? – Er, I mean, not too shabby.
Right?
Geno Prussakov, a long-time affiliate marketing colleague, about a dozen years ago, decided to try posting one new article every day for a solid year in order to help his business grow. He did and it did. AM Navigator at https://www.amnavigator.com is one of the best Outsourced Program Management Agencies in the world today. I am proud to call Geno a friend.
I would certainly appreciate any observations or comments you care to make (below). Your critique or insights may help me improve my outlook and or marketing strategy.
Yes, people still buy and use calendars and the first day of a new year is an appropriate time to bring this up. Just this morning, New Years Day, I received an email inquiry from a fellow artist at Fine Art America (FAA) inquiring about where I have my calendars produced. There have been quite a few discussions on the FAA Forum about the possibility of offering calendars there. For a number of reasons I doubt that will happen. Below is the gist of my answer…
I am certainly willing to share information with fellow artists about calendars. I use Zazzle, another quality POD (Print On Demand company) that make about a gazillion products. I sell calendars, ornaments, jigsaw puzzles, calendars and (yes) even some prints there. I no longer promote the puzzles at Zazzle because I prefer the ones offered at FAA. However, I had started offering puzzles and calendars with Zazzle six years ago and they still sell – a lot. I suppose that is because they have been in their internal search for so long and, because of that, Zazzle actually promotes them with Google ads. The same with the calendars they offer – calendars with my photographs, that is.
Zazzle provides the template but the whole system is not very intuitive – It takes a good while to get used to it. But they also have a very active forum – for info, advice, help, etc. There are a few FAA members also active at Zazzle.
Here is a link to my Assateague Pony Calendar: https://www.zazzle.com/z/301dowpa
Here is a link to the much of what I currently have at Zazzle: https://www.zazzle.com/mbr/238675969062853179/stores
Try a search for – Assateague Pony Calendar – on google and see if you can understand why I sell a lot at Zazzle. The wild horses of Assateague Island are quite popular.
Regards,
Bill
BTW – here is the text of the original email inquiry. I actually receive frequent questions similar to this…
Hi Bill,
I read your response to the discussion thread on calendars. Wondering if you would please share the company you used to do this with? And if they supplied a template or if you had to create with a particular software or app, which one?
Thanks & Happy New Year!