No. Symbiostock is coded to have a good SEO footprint. Other WP sites might not have a good SEO and then images wont be found. Thats where Symbiostock is strong, the SEO is good. Your new WP plugin might have buried your images because of poor SEO. Not saying it is, it might. The fact that people find his site through google says it all.

I am using Yoast SEO plugin, just like on SY. My images are already being indexed by google, just like on SY. My images aren't buried, they are getting found. I do check searches all the time from other computers besides my own. So far, I don't see that as an issue. My issue is I don't have more hours in the day to get new images up and the rest of the images I already have shot up!

Quote from: Ron on February 11, 2014, 18:06

No. Symbiostock is coded to have a good SEO footprint. Other WP sites might not have a good SEO and then images wont be found. Thats where Symbiostock is strong, the SEO is good. Your new WP plugin might have buried your images because of poor SEO. Not saying it is, it might. The fact that people find his site through google says it all.

I am using Yoast SEO plugin, just like on SY. My images are already being indexed by google, just like on SY. My images aren't buried, they are getting found. I do check searches all the time from other computers besides my own. So far, I don't see that as an issue. My issue is I don't have more hours in the day to get new images up and the rest of the images I already have shot up!

Ugh.  Yoast plugin has nothing to do with the coding of the theme. The symbiostock site is strong in SEO on its own. It seems no one can explain the benefits to you, so I call it quits too.

Quote from: Ron on February 11, 2014, 18:06

No. Symbiostock is coded to have a good SEO footprint. Other WP sites might not have a good SEO and then images wont be found. Thats where Symbiostock is strong, the SEO is good. Your new WP plugin might have buried your images because of poor SEO. Not saying it is, it might. The fact that people find his site through google says it all.

I am using Yoast SEO plugin, just like on SY. My images are already being indexed by google, just like on SY. My images aren't buried, they are getting found. I do check searches all the time from other computers besides my own. So far, I don't see that as an issue. My issue is I don't have more hours in the day to get new images up and the rest of the images I already have shot up!

Cathy, I just want to point out an example of something that could use some tweaking. Hopefully this helps.

On your animals collection your page title is "cathyslifestockphotos.comAnimals Archives - cathyslifestockphotos.com". Search engines use this to index your pages. It may be better to have something like "Stock Photos of Animals and Pictures of Horses | Cathy's Photography"

The title on your Horse with Halter page is exactly that. Horse with Halter. You could probably add another nine words to that or use a auto-suffix like "Stock Photos and Animal Pictures" so the title becomes "Horse with Halter | Stock Photos and Animal Pictures".

More relevant content = more traffic.

Just trying to help.

Quote from: cathyslife stockphotos.com on February 11, 2014, 18:31

Quote from: Ron on February 11, 2014, 18:06

No. Symbiostock is coded to have a good SEO footprint. Other WP sites might not have a good SEO and then images wont be found. Thats where Symbiostock is strong, the SEO is good. Your new WP plugin might have buried your images because of poor SEO. Not saying it is, it might. The fact that people find his site through google says it all.

I am using Yoast SEO plugin, just like on SY. My images are already being indexed by google, just like on SY. My images aren't buried, they are getting found. I do check searches all the time from other computers besides my own. So far, I don't see that as an issue. My issue is I don't have more hours in the day to get new images up and the rest of the images I already have shot up!

Cathy, I just want to point out an example of something that could use some tweaking. Hopefully this helps.

On your animals collection your page title is "cathyslifestockphotos.comAnimals Archives - cathyslifestockphotos.com". Search engines use this to index your pages. It may be better to have something like "Stock Photos of Animals and Pictures of Horses | Cathy's Photography"

The title on your Horse with Halter page is exactly that. Horse with Halter. You could probably add another nine words to that or use a auto-suffix like "Stock Photos and Animal Pictures" so the title becomes "Horse with Halter | Stock Photos and Animal Pictures".

More relevant content = more traffic.

Just trying to help.

 Thanks for the tip Paulie. I will check those out.


Edit: great tip. Just changed a couple. Thanks again!

Look at it like this: If the Symbiostock Network is not an organisation then what is it ?

Join the network and find the answer, Bunhill

IMO there are aspects of Symbiostock which make it potentially an entity in itself. Or else what is the Symbiostock Network ? If it is an entity then it has potential legal responsibilities. And it is being advertised as that. Symbiostock is an organisation without an organisation.

An organisation does not have to "ponder legal implications'. You pay a legal team to do that for you. They draw up the contracts and check the wording you use. Your accountants look at the financial side - both from your perspective and from the customers'. That's what you have to do in business.

My point still stands: You can't do any new business at all if you want to be legally absolutely safe. There's a thing called "good faith", however. Acting in "good faith", of course, is no bullet-proof legal protection and won't convince paranoids.

Were the sales direct results of the networking in SY or did the buyers come from a google search? If they cant be directly attributed to the networking of SY, then you may have gotten them using any software.

Hi Cathy

Hard to say. I did some research from the last set of sales (1 person bought 3 images of Washington DC). I can see incoming visitors from both Google and Symbiostock.info, I can see a search from the home page for Washington DC, but I can't piece the flow together. I am sure it is probably possible to do that, but it would take some time. I don't see any incoming search terms from Google that have anything to do with Washington.

At the end of the day, I take the incoming links from wherever they come. I try to boost my web presence via my own blog, via Fine Art America, via this site, via Symbiostock, and people find me in one way or another. A couple of my purchases have been from people seeing an image on another site somewhere and emailing me. I see all that as positive and if this buyer happened to find Symbiostock.info and came that way, it is fine, if they came in another way, that is fine. I'm happy to have as broad a reach as I can.

Steve

I understand Steve. Congrats on the sales!


From an analytical standpoint, it is always good to know what works and what doesnt, For instance, if i place $100 worth of adwords and cannot directly attribute sales to that money, its pointless to keep investing in it. I would be better off trying something else. Just my personal opinion, tho.

Quote

From an analytical standpoint, it is always good to know what works and what doesnt, For instance, if i place $100 worth of adwords and cannot directly attribute sales to that money, its pointless to keep investing in it. I would be better off trying something else. Just my personal opinion, tho.

I agree - I did some paid adwords when I first started my stock blog. Not sure it ever did much good! I've concluded that the chance of someone who wants to buy an image seeing the right words in an adword is almost negligible - hence my focus now on getting my name, websites and images around.

Steve

Yeah, i suppose adwords does well for some businesses and not much for others.

Quote from: cathyslife stockphotos.com on February 11, 2014, 13:39

Too bad when an anonymous poll was put up on the SY forum (its probably gone by now because anything negative gets deleted) only 42 people responded and the majority of the respondents of that poll only had one or two sales so far.

FYI, the poll is still available @ http://www.symbiostock.org/community/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=973

yep - unfortunately she doesn't bother to factcheck before posting;  the poll is not unlike the polls here where only  a few report their sales, compared to the total number of members. 

If you stop answering her she will go away!

perhaps, but unless someone refutes the imaginary statistics and outright lies and distortions, many other readers will think those problems are real.   eg, there are over 170 sym sites now -- how many of these people are posting negative messages here or in the sym forums?

There are also many people who don't post their reservations for fear of getting the same treatment you are giving me.  It's ok, I don't care, I'll take the hit. I think people should hear all sides of a story, not just the rosy, whitewashed side.

Go check the SY forum. Other people have posted their own doubts about the effectiveness of SY, even you Ron. From this thread:
http://www.symbiostock.org/community/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=973&start=15

I have 8 sales, I had between 1-3 sales per month but the last sale was Wed 18/12/2013 so  I feel a little discouraged. Anyhoo, nothing I can do about it.

You are using the words pyramid scheme, not me. There are most definitely a few people in the SY network that are benefitting much more than the majority. Those who have multiple sites with forums, and contact sheet pages and all the other SEO tricks up their sleeve are going to do WAY better than the average person signing up for a site to sell their photos. That's just an SEO fact. Links in, links out = good. That's not a pyramid scheme.

Even when the conversation starts to shift back towards friendly, intelligent, reasonable talk in this thread, some of you are just going to continue on with the garbage. And you are calling me a troll. 

If you stop answering her she will go away!

perhaps, but unless someone refutes the imaginary statistics and outright lies and distortions, many other readers will think those problems are real.   eg, there are over 170 sym sites now -- how many of these people are posting negative messages here or in the sym forums?

No one has to believe me. I don't want anyone to. They can read for themselves the problems, lack of sales, and Leo's constant declaration of quitting the project...they can read here, they can read on the SY forum. I havent posted there in ages, so you can't blame me for what's going on there. In fact, one of Leos latest threats had nothing to do with me, but with some of you. I suggest that any lack of confidence in this project has more to do with that than it does with anything I say. You guys said it, I am just one out of 170. But even though I supported the project for almost 10 months, you are discounting my opinion now just because it doesnt agree with yours.

Maybe people think the problems are real because they really are. Not just because this liar and distorter and ignorant person is saying so.  People are actually smart enough to read and research for themselves and come to their own conclusions.