getting traffic to my blog

[debaser]

I would like to get a lot more honest critique on my blog. My style is changing and I'm sort of lost...some good critiques (art-school style, brutal ass critiques) would be helpful.

But it's weird. I asked a friend who's a great artist and is someone I've known since before college to stop by and select five images from my site for an honest critique. This guy -- one of my best friends in the world -- did stop by but only looked and commented on the first two images he saw, which weren't particularly good ones. Nobody has any time.

I'd like to have more comments of all kinds and more traffic in general, but the fact is if you want to achieve that, you have to put in a lot of work. I have a job already. In fact I used to shoot professionally and quit because art shouldn't feel like work. Photoblogging should be about the enjoyment of it.

I guess there are just too many photoblogs out there, and to stand out you have to put in some ground work. I barely have time for photographing at all the last few months, and even less to do that kind of networking that would probably only result in MM comments anyway. I don't even have enough time to check out the photographers that I like and comment on their work.

That said, if you join that photoblogs.org and get on that hotlist for a while, you will get some traffic and maybe some of that will be meaningful traffic. That's what happened after I launched my blog. Then it dropped off the hotlist and once you're buried on that site, you're buried.

I used to use photo.net for photo critique, but that crowd seems a lot more interested in the sharpness of the lenses than anything else. There's no real appreciation for the direction I'm taking my work in.

So I'm not sure, but thanks for providing a thread to vent in.

[CyberGus]

Originally Posted by kriepl

Hey everyone,
I have a quick and hopefully simple question.
I have had a photoblog now for about 7 months, and I was curious what are some ways to get people to my site? I don't want traffic for traffic's sake. I am just looking for visitors (other photographers) to possibly leave comments and critique my existing work, whether the comments be good or constructive. I love learning from other poeples ideas of how they would have done something different or possibly applying a technique another way, etc etc.

Here is what I have done so far:
Listed my site on photoblogs.org
listed on coolphotoblogs.com and photos.vfxy.com

I also have been visiting many other photo blogs and leaving comments as to my appreciation of others' work. Not only to give credit to those who do quallity work but also in hopes to become part of the photoblog community and get those same people back to my site.

Visiting all these other blogs...some that have not been out much longer than mine, have dozens of comments per image. So I am just basically wondering if there are there avenues for me to visit in order to increase the visitors.

Thanks
kevinR.

I just notice your images take ages to load, maybe is a good idea to optimize your files for the web... that is a great tip to encourage users. Broadband internet access means people downloading more stuff, not only our websites.