A Picture and 1000 Words: Traffic to your Website through a Camera Lens

The digital revolution has transformed technology in every sphere and walk of life. Photography is certainly no exception. Gone are the days when we would store expensive high quality photo film from Kodak or Fuji in our refrigerators or even load up on Polaroid cartridges just before embarking on a summer vacation. We have surely come a long way from the days of the Kodak 110 camera. It goes without saying that the digital imaging revolution is here to stay and stay for good. Can we leverage it to accelerate online growth? You bet.

Unlimited Possibilities with Photo File Sharing Websites

Photo file sharing websites such as Flickr from Yahoo, Picasa from Google, PhotoBucket and about three thousand others have sprung up as direct outcomes of high speed broadband connectivity and reduced storage costs to help millions share their dreams and memories with the rest of the world. You can use these file sharing platforms to:

• Create an online photo album instantly such as a travel album to help you share your photos with everyone complete with thumb nails, slide shows, photo collages, scrap book builders and screen saver creations
• Save on printing costs by simply sending your friends and family a link to your personal page on these websites
• Build an online portfolio if you are a commercial photographer, artist or sculptor
• Present to your fellow hobbyists a replica of what you have in your collection such as baseball cards, stamps, coins and Barbie dolls
• Preserve your photos for your grandchildren and at the same time use the online space as a backup in a world in which magnetic storage is ridden with viruses, worms, trojans and malware of every shape, shade and variety

But there is more…

As an online entrepreneur or a service provider who already understands and appreciates the importance of addressing customer needs through live chat, you can promote your online enterprise through photo file sharing websites much in the same way in which millions of Internet-savvy business owners are promoting their businesses through You Tube and a host of other video sharing websites. The mechanics are different but the end results happen to be the same.

The Traffic Blueprint

One of the nice things about intellectual property is that each time you post your creations on the Internet, it is legally protected even when you do not register it with your country’s copyright office. A copyright notice, thanks to international copyright treaties, is all you need to protect your turf. This protection, believe it or not, is extended to your photographs as well. Each time you take a picture and post it on the Internet, it is awarded legal protection without your asking. Simply slap on a copyright notice at the bottom of the page and you are all set. How do you leverage this protection to your benefit? You post a statement on your photo sharing website’s personal page indicating that as long as the visitors to your page are willing to give you a link to your website, one for each picture they use on their websites, they are welcome to reproduce your pictures. It goes without saying that your photographs should not only be of very decent quality, they should reflect popular themes and focus areas of general interest and relevance. Landscape images, images of natural scenery and elegant portraits of smartly dressed people are in high demand. So are pictures of babies, pets, cars and electronic equipment. For optimum results, build an online photo portfolio that showcases your niche or industry vertical so that the website traffic you receive in return is both targeted and qualified. For instance, if your e-commerce website markets vacation rentals in Florida, you could develop and set up an entire Flickr or PhotoBucket profile on Florida vacations complete with pictures of many of the wonderful sightseeing destinations Florida has to offer. Drive traffic to your photo pages by optimizing your photo gallery. Those interested in using your pictures on their websites would mostly be focusing on Florida vacations and a link back to your website is bound to include lots of snowbirds planning to head to Florida for their next winter vacation—your target market.

Photo File Sharing and Social Media

With the exponential growth of social media and blogs, the demand for photo images is huge and many users of your pictures will happily exchange a photograph with a link to add a tinge of sparkle to their web pages. To put it simply, if your photograph is featured on a heavily trafficked web page on Facebook or Twitter along with a link to your website as explained above, the results can be quite impressive.

Preparing your Photographs for Viral Distribution

Each time someone uses your photograph and gives you a back link to your website, it is a legitimate link which the search engines tend to notice. In order to prepare your snapshots for viral distribution and traffic generation, your images should be searchable. Here are three recommendations to achieve this objective:

• Alt tag each image carefully and build an alt tag attribute as well
• Write a photo caption for each photograph
• Conduct keyword research and use qualifying keywords in both of the above so that the search engines can index your pictures in their image databases
• Photo file sharing websites are so advanced today that they even allow users to upload snapshots through e-mail, IM or even a mobile device such as an iPhone or any other cell phone. These websites also provide a wide array of online tools such as tools for collaborative file organizing, captioning, editing, effects generation and many others all of which are free. Most websites allow you to watermark your photographs also for free so that you can easily track unauthorized usage. You can even set privacy levels and track visitor traffic on your photo page. A few photo file sharing websites such as www. tinypic.com doesn’t even ask you to register. You can start uploading instantly.

There are literally thousands of ways in which you can drive traffic to your Internet property. Some of them are free while others are paid. Using your personal online album to drive traffic is not only free, it is results driven and highly creative. As long as you have takers, you will have visitors eager and willing to become buyers.