getting traffic to my blog

[austriaka+]

Originally Posted by mgd711

...now I comment on a few friends sites and photoblog for my own pleasure.

Mike, I am glad to see your comments from time to time, they are well appreciated :-)

[mgd711]

Originally Posted by austriaka

A place for getting real honest comments is http://onexposure.net
It is almost impossible to get photos published there but if you succeed, you know that your photo is really worth it.
The best thing is that you can submit rejected photos for critique, and this critique is very honest, often more than you like it.
Try it out, the basic membership is free, and it is a real great place to learn, at least to see what kind of photos people like ;-)

This was the place I was thinking about.

But be careful with what you ask for, as Karin said at time's it can be brutally honest.


Mike

[nox]

An other way of making your blog more popular and receiving more comments is to write a few lines for every image you post. This gives your visitors some information about you and your work and you might receive more interesting comments.

Writing 50 comments a day on other blogs will probably increase the number of comments on your own website. However I think it is hard to write so many quality posts. People who comment a lot tend to write in a rather standardized way: "Good colours and texture" or "Nice framing, I like the colours". Of course I am alway glad when someone takes the time to comment, still I prefer to receive less but better quality comments.

[dhdesign]

Nox makes a good point. There are plenty of photoblogs where an image is posted, but there is no text to tell where it was taken, what the story behind the image is, special circumstances, post-processing techniques, etc. There are others who write a short paragraph about the image, or tell the story behind it, and that always seems to get people to comment with more than just "nice shot", etc.

Not all comments will be constructive criticism - some will tell you that they like it and why they like it, and/or what emotion (if any) it evokes in them. That is still a critique, just not a technical one.

I have to "3rd" Karin's and Mike's comments with regard to onexposure.net. Out of the 6 images I've submitted there, only 2 got published - they only publish the very best images submitted, and it is getting even harder to get published there now. You will get very honest opinions, both positive and negative, about your work - most all with the intention of helping you to improve your skills.

[nox]

Answering questions asked in the comments by writing a reply or an email is also useful to get better feedback from visitors. And it is polite too. But I believe most people do this anyway...

Critique can be useful, however one has to know where it comes from. Even the - apparently - much appreciated feedback from onexposure is not more than a personal opinion of someone. It is helpful to be criticised by a photographer whose work one admires but it is also important to know what one wants in photography and then develop a self-critical attitude.

[Paul Wood]

When I first started photoblogging, I spent hours commenting on other photoblogs, and got quite a few comments in return. Before long, though, it became a chore. I began to lose the initiative to post another image, just because I'd feel obligated to comment on many other sites.

That's wasn't why I started photoblogging. So I cut my list of sites down to a dozen or so favorites, and these people became my friends. I still post regularly, and many people still visit my sites, but I'm not as concerned about tons of comments anymore.

Of course, I still enjoy the comments I get. Everybody does. I still like seeing visits to my site increase in my stats, too.

But I've found that constructive criticism from random people isn't as helpful as you'd think. Everybody learns a different way to do things, everybody has their own style, and everybody has things they like more than others.

If you really want to learn and improve, join a photo club. Take some classes. Read some books. Shoot images that make YOU happy.

Isn't that why you starting taking photos?

[marc]

the photoblog world is somewhat like the german foto community: every image is superb and the more you comment the better your pictures get... mutual masturbation describes it very well. And look at the top and best known photoblogs: from time to time they have high quality work but most part of the pictures is - in my opinion - not better than the work of unknown photographers.

Is maybe a jealous and frustrated photoblogger speaking? Well, I wouldn't say that. I tried hard to get more traffic to my blog but resignated a while ago just because I don't see the point of it. When I look at comments of popular blogs I ask myself "whats the point of all that?". Most of the comments are just rubbish and pictures won't improve by that type of "feedback". In the end I'm happy for every constructive and honest comment, even if there is only one per picture. Sure, I'm participating at the photoblogs award and even managed to get to the final round last year with one of my pictures... but in the end I did not benefit that much from it.

The photoblog - at least for me - is a way to show what I'm currently working on. And people who are interested in my life and my photographic work visit the blog and are - hopefully - happy about the pictures on it. I don't need people commenting my blog just because the try to get as much back links to their blogs as possible... whats the point of all that??? Why do I need visitors that just visit my blog because they smell an opportunity of pushing their own popularity? I know, that is the reason why my blog will remain fameless... but in the end: who cares.

/edit: to sum it up: I don't like the lack of quality on 95% of photoblog comments... I mean how can you post 50 (!!!) constructive and good comments A DAY? I'm impressed if you can and IF you can go on... but I can't. So i minimize my comments on pictures I really want to comment. And thats the sort of comment I'd like to have on my blog: honest and "real" comments and not that sort of random-comments-generator stuff. so before commenting like a machine on others photoblogs ask yourself what sort of comments you want to receive and try to figure out how you can get them.

[Ishmael]

I started off uploading to the gallery on Ephotozine (http://www.ephotozine.com), before moving to my own photoblog. I got several constructive comments on photos uploaded to the former, but receive very little interest in the latter. I recently went back to Ephotozine and uploaded some more recent work that I had put on the photoblog, and hey presto, more comments.

I guess it's all about exposure, which dedicated forums and galleries do very well - so perhaps it's worth putting each post in different places (e.g. Flickr, Ephotozine). This may reciprocally drive traffic back to your own site.

[bardamu]

Actually, I do not want to be a slave of other's people who have already commented my work. I try to be gentle, but sometimes, I just can not fin a decent image which would justify a positive comment.

So far, what I have seen is that the trend in a lot of photoblogs is to "love" HDR pictures displaying such dramatic colors contrasts...For me, this is no longer photography, this is more related to paintings. I can not comment on that.

When I leave a comment, it's really because I love the image I've been looking at, not because I do expect a return comment to get me traffic increased.

As a result, even if I ranked amongst top 10 finalists in 2007 best new photoblog awards, my traffic is today very low. But I do not matter that much. When I have one pure emotional comment, it's worth 100 "nice job" or "good site"...

[luan]

Quite an interesting thread, and some very valid points. Another site that you can post your photo on for constructive criticism is http://vazaar.com

L

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http://luan.com