gloria_hopkins Posted January 15, 2003 Share Posted January 15, 2003 Hi everyone: I just read the question about websites and reading some of the wonderful answers prompted me to ask a question that I've been wondering about. <P> I'm a wildlife photographer *and* painter and my website is set up as an exhibit of both, with the intent of selling prints, original art, workshops and generally sharing my work. <P> Do you think it is harmful to sales to incorporate both paintings and photos into one site? And, more importantly to me, does combining the two make me appear less strong in either medium? I've always heard that it's better if you specialize in one thing but I'm not sure how seriously I take that line of thinking. I hope you know what I mean! <P> Thanks for all honest thoughts. Gloria <P> If you would like to have a look: <A HREF="http://www.naturesglory.net">www.naturesglory.net</A> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gloria_hopkins Posted January 15, 2003 Author Share Posted January 15, 2003 I just realized that this isn't *specifically* about nature photography and I apologize for that. If the moderators feel it should be moved or removed, please do so! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
todd_caudle Posted January 15, 2003 Share Posted January 15, 2003 It's better to do one thing well than several things mediocre, but only if you're only good at one thing. If you're an accomplished photographer AND painter, I see no reason not to showcase both talents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
p._neil_ralley Posted January 15, 2003 Share Posted January 15, 2003 Gloria, Nice website. Not clickable from the page I got to by clicking on your name but I got there eventually. Firstly I do not think it 'harmful' to either set of works or to have a detrimental effect on the way the art is perceived to have one website but I would still advise that you consider running two sites. My reasoning is that you are aiming at two different markets and whereas someone who is looking to buy a drawing or a watercolour may consider a photo (and visa versa) usually they are different people. You are much more likely to be able to get high search-engine rankings for one or the other if the site is solely focused (scuse pun) on one or the other and this is going to be vital in terms of driving traffic to the site, which should be your #1 goal. Having two distinct urls is not a major expense these days and there is really not much extra work involved whether the pages are on one site or two. I would also recommend strongly linking the two so that anyone who comes to the photography site can see that you have a "sister" site featuring different kinds of art, and visa versa. What you then need to concentrate on is the profiles of these two sites in terms of where they figure on the keyword searches that your potential customers are going to use. This is a whole science of its own but it will be easier to write source-code which specifically addresses each of these two distinct markets if the sites are kept separate. I hope that this helps. Neil http://www.stainedglassphotography.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShunCheung Posted January 15, 2003 Share Posted January 15, 2003 Gloria, this is more like a web site design and perhaps business/sales question; IMO, it relevance to nature photography is somewhat remote. As a compromise, I'll assign a one-week expiration, which can be adjusted (lengthen or shorten) depending on the direction of the discussion. In other words, if there turns out to be interesting dicussions that you would like to keep, please save that yourself on your own hard drive (or other memory device). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gloria_hopkins Posted January 15, 2003 Author Share Posted January 15, 2003 OK thanks! Sorry I will pay attention in the future :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
art_haykin Posted January 15, 2003 Share Posted January 15, 2003 I have several friends who are gifted musicians, and each 'doubles' on instruments with equal ease. One plays almost all reeds, while another plays many brass. My daughter plays flute, guitar, and piano. I like to think that I am not a one trick pony, but others may disagree. I think painting and photo compliment each other, and see no necessary conflict here. If you got it, baby, FLAUNT it!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike f Posted January 15, 2003 Share Posted January 15, 2003 Gloria, good to hear from you again. I would suggest that if you are getting sales for both mediums it is working. If your photo sales start to lag you might consider dropping the painting marketing. Since you ARE a multi-talented artist why should you try to hide it? Incidentaly I know of a young man named Mark who would love to meet you if you are free at some point in you life. But that is another story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildpicture Posted January 15, 2003 Share Posted January 15, 2003 "Incidentaly I know of a young man named Mark who would love to meet you if you are free at some point in you life. But that is another story." Is photo.net turning into a dating agency? :-) I have to admit that Gloria is indeed very cute. Seriously, nice to hear from you again Gloria. You do have some wonderfull images on your website. The website looks very nice. Very nice, clean and well designed. The way you have set it up now with both paintings and photos should work well. You show that you can do both, but without mixing them up. Anybody interested in only one of them, can easily find that. But you show that you have the other too. I would keep it this way. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike sisk Posted January 15, 2003 Share Posted January 15, 2003 <blockquote><em>Is photo.net turning into a dating agency?</em></blockquote> Hey, now there's a revenue model for photo.net I've not thought of....might be something to this.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gloria_hopkins Posted January 15, 2003 Author Share Posted January 15, 2003 Well, I've often wondered if there is a dating agency for photographers - it's a grand idea indeed if you ask me. Seriously folks, help me keep this thread on track or Shun will delete it! And, thank you Hans ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matt_otoole Posted January 15, 2003 Share Posted January 15, 2003 As one who designs websites, that's a nice website. I think your overall theme of "Nature's Glory" is strong enough for your work to transcend the context of medium. The site does a good job of communicating that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keith_laban Posted January 15, 2003 Share Posted January 15, 2003 Gloria<p>I am in a similar position to you. I am an artist and photographer and include some examples of paintings on my site. My work in both fields is very much intertwined and therefore I include both on my website.<p>Have not had a chance to look at your site yet but am looking forward to doing so.<p><a href="http://www.keithlaban.co.uk">www.keithlaban.co.uk</a><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gloria_hopkins Posted January 15, 2003 Author Share Posted January 15, 2003 Keith you do wonderful work! I went to your website and really love both the paintings and photos. Fantastic! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ethanmeleg Posted January 15, 2003 Share Posted January 15, 2003 Ha ha ha, stumbling across you in this spot, Gloria!! Here's my two cents worth: I don't think there is any harm in having both on your website. Your photos and art are both of high calibre, so I suspect they compliment each other moreso than do any harm. The two togther demonstrate your diverse talents, which makes you look stronger from a marketing perspective. Personal image and marketing are very important in this business, sometimes as much as the quality of work. Furthermore, your site is well designed to make navigation easy and intuitive depending on whether your potential clients are looking for art or photos. As a side note, that you have a photo linked from each of your species names in the photo list is an excellent business idea. That's a very big plus for photo buyers (and damn, I'm going to steal the idea for myself when I can get around to scanning that many shots!). One thing I do notice is that your site is not well key-worded. You need to work on that if you want to be found, and thereby increase your business. Go to a search engine, type in the phrases that you think your potential clients would use to find you (ie. stock florida bird photos) and see how the rankings come up. Steal the best ideas and keywords from the top ranked sites. Keyword several high level pages on your website according to their subject. For example, you could keyword your entry page into wildlife photography specifically for that subject - and do the same for your art work - same for your workshops, etc. This way potential clients could enter your site via many different pages depending on their particular interest.Good keywording and all the other tricks that help your website get found by clients will put money in your pocket. I guarantee this! Hope this helps! Cheers, Ethan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markci Posted January 15, 2003 Share Posted January 15, 2003 <i> "Incidentaly I know of a young man named Mark who would love to meet you if you are free at some point in you life. But that is another story." </i> <p> So do I. <p> I'd think having both photos and art on your site could only help you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lyndon Posted January 15, 2003 Share Posted January 15, 2003 This is going a bit off-topic but having taken a look at your website, I was wondering what you used to scan your photographs. The closer of the two red fox shots is, for example, a phenomenally sharp scan (the type I dream of with my Nikon LS 4000. Were they drum-scanned? To contribute to the original thread, I can't see any harm in having both on your site because you could get a lot of cross-polination of potential buyers. If you're really worried about it, you could always split your site in two and separate the two disciplines into their own section. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gloria_hopkins Posted January 15, 2003 Author Share Posted January 15, 2003 Hi Ethan! Fancy meeting you here :) You're the second person today who has told me about the keywords. I will get to work on those tomorrow pronto! Thanks! Lyndon: I use the HP Photosmart S20 USB scanner. It's not a high-end scanner by any means - much cheaper than yours. The quality of my scans relies heavily on the treatment of the photo in Photoshop (unsharp mask, levels, etc.). I've been using it for two years and only now do I feel that I have a handle on how to make a scan look decent. Thank you very much for your thoughts and for looking at the site! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobatkins Posted January 15, 2003 Share Posted January 15, 2003 While I've been looking at various schemes to help support photo.net I must admit I hadn't considered a dating service! However with the current photo.net demographics, we'd have a lot of busy women and a lot of disappointed men, so I don't think we'll be implementing that suggestion anytime soon... Gloria, I like your website. I don't see any problem integrating photography and painting as long as there is no confusion as to which is which! As someone else suggested you could always partition the site into seperate areas if you found the need. Personally I think it adds a unique aspect to your work so I'd keep things as they are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard_tynan2 Posted January 16, 2003 Share Posted January 16, 2003 I agree with others that there is no harm in exhibiting both together. They complement each other very well. It also sets you apart from the rest of the pack. There are lots of very good photographers out there, but you are the only one I can think of who also paints. I'm sure there are others but their sites don't reflect this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markci Posted January 16, 2003 Share Posted January 16, 2003 As far as keywords go, they might be worth doing, but they matter a whole lot less than they used to. Due to abuse, most (if not all) of the search engines disregard the keywords in favor of what's actually in the text. The search engine that matters most these days is Google, which is also the engine behind yahoo's results, and others. Its main criteria is what other sites link to yours, and particularly what actual words they use in the link itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gloria_hopkins Posted January 16, 2003 Author Share Posted January 16, 2003 "As far as keywords go, they might be worth doing, but they matter a whole lot less than they used to." Oh great! Now you tell me this after I spent the whole morning punching in keywords and uploading a 160 page site!!! Lol ... Well, it can't hurt, right? We'll see what happens. Thanks folks! I appreciate everyone's time and willingness to help! Gloria Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keith_laban Posted January 16, 2003 Share Posted January 16, 2003 Gloria<p>Your painting and photography work in perfect harmony and your website title <a href="http://www.naturesglory.net">naturesglory</a> is very apt.<p>Keith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greg s Posted January 16, 2003 Share Posted January 16, 2003 Nice site Gloria... well organized, and the dual nature of photography and watercolors works well (there's a lot of places to roam around on your site which are worth visiting). I like the 'tips' page and your sensitivity to the environment. You're on the right track! Cheers, Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matt_bohan Posted January 18, 2003 Share Posted January 18, 2003 I have a multiple purpose site as well. I am a medical illustrator, wildlife artist and photographer...in that order I guess. <br><br> I have a main page to my website with links to those three choices. Each of these "sub-pages" can act as it's own site for these disciplines. I register each of these pages with the search engines, each with it's own meta-tags. <br><br> <a href="http://members.aol.com/bohanbirds/"> Matt Bohan Illustration and Photography Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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