How to drive traffic with Flickr Photos
May 18th, 2006 by Michael Gray in Advertising, Ideas, Social Networks, ToolsIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Read my top posts or learn more about Michael Gray. Want more frequent updates follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
While Flickr is really a photo sharing, community building tool, as long as you don’t go completely overboard you probably aren’t going have angry mobs flagging you as spam. Now you could always go the with the babe in a t-shirt approach, but we’re looking for something more sophisticated.
To get started you’ll need a flickr account which you can set up at Flickr.com. Now you can use it for free but it limits your traffic, your photos sets, and few other things. If you plan on using flickr as a tool spring for the $25 dollars. Next you should probably use the flickr uploader tool. It lets you upload in batch, drop and drag from folders or picasa, and in general just makes things go a little bit quicker.
Now let’s get started with this photo:
We could add some bars for our info but in additio to looking tacky it’s easily removeable (see below)
If we take the image put our message in an unremovable spot but downplay it so it doesn’t overpower the image it looks much better.
The key here is to use a light sprinkling of images with your info, not a big pile of overly obvious spam. Try to find some more popular tags that are relevant for your photos. Are you a DJ, then how about pictures of some parties you’ve done? Are you a travel agent, then how about pictures from places you’ve stayed. Run and auto detailing and customization shop, then how about pictures of the cars you’ve done some overhaulin’ and ride pimping on. Run a pet store, how about some pictures of some animals you sell. Link to your flickr photoset from your website, link from the informational pages, NOT FORM THE PURCHASE PAGES (add value don’t push paying customers out the door). Look for ways to make your photos interesting and attractive so that people who come across them have a reason to visit your website. Next up, Using Web Videos to Build Traffic.
Sphere It
May 18th, 2006 at 8:12 am
So far Google images is the one that has driven the traffic my way.
1-800-SEO-BUZZ
May 18th, 2006 at 9:17 am
I get a lot of traffic from google images too, but most of it is people looking to hotlink or swipe my images, so it’s not traffic that converts. However if you were selling artwork, posters, flowers, or even fish for that matter it might be worth optimizing for.
http://www.wolf-howl.com/?p=111
May 18th, 2006 at 10:33 am
great topic - i spoke about this at pubcon boston.
flickr is a great way to drive traffic. within your pictures, they allow for the insertion of notes. so, as the owner of the pic, you could highlight an area of the photo, and provide a note, with a link, directly on the pic. you can also add html directly into the descriptions of the photos, for additional linking.
joining some groups within flickr, you can find people who share similar interests, and are more likely to visit the links you provide. additionally, keeping an eye on the “tags” page will let you know which types of pictures people are looking for. http://flickr.com/photos/tags/
looking forward to tomorrow’s post.
May 18th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
not sure which session I went to instead of yours but looks like “choose poorly”
May 18th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
Any suggestions on software to add watermarks in batch?
May 18th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
hmm, thats a good question I don’t have an answer for. I’ve only been working in batches of less than 50 so I open them all and then paste the same “watermark” in all of them and then close/save the files. Crude and caveman like but gets the job done.
May 19th, 2006 at 5:34 am
This is great! I have hundreds of pictures of Hawaii that I should start uploading.
Aloha,
Dave.
May 19th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
BlitzTools WaterMarker - I have it for Mac OS, don’t know if it is avail for Windows.
I have heard some good things about http://www.watermarker.com/
December 29th, 2006 at 11:35 am
To “2.” - I agree, I have the same problem - people are looking for pictures and go to websites from Google. And it has a bad influence to statistics…
June 19th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
You can run a simple photoshop batch to add a watermark to images, or if you want to get more sophisticated, you can script photoshop using JavaScript. There’s other software out there to add watermarks, but if you’ve already got photoshop, might as well just use it.