A Thousand Visitors a Day: Taking Stock

Keeping up with SEO, social media, and creating images can be overwhelming, but in the long run will, I believe, be worth it!

A Thousand Unique Visitors a Day

I reached a sort of milestone last week. For the first time I had over 1000 unique visitors to my site in one day. My site had 1,041 unique visitors to be exact (though it seems that you have to take any of these figures with a grain of salt.).  It took me 26 months from the time I started my web efforts until I reached that thousand mark. But a thousand unique visitors a day is only a small stepping-stone, only a tenth of the traffic I am aiming for.

The Monetization of Web Traffic

What kind of monetization am I getting from this traffic? Two of those visitors yesterday e-mailed me with requests for licensing information on my images. Twenty-seven people reached my site and then went to the agencies carrying the stock photos they had searched for…though what happened then I don’t know.  I sold one coffee mug on cafepress.com. That was good for $1.50 profit. I also sold a meditating-dog T-shirt and made about $2.00. My advertising revenue came in at $7.56  for that day. That was about it.

Long Term Relationships

The “daily” benefits of increased traffic, however, are not as great as those occasional larger connections. I have secured three important long-term relationships by being found easily on the web…and each of those relationships represents a potentially quite significant amount of money. I have also had a smattering of print sales the occasional direct licensing of a stock image and so forth.

Encouragement and Disappointment

Overall, I am both encouraged and disappointed by my progress. Encouraged, tantalized even, by the results of my increased traffic, but disappointed by how much work it has taken, and by the fact that after all this time I have only just reached the thousand mark.

The Social Media Quandary

Then there is what I call the social media quandary. As facebook grows ever more pervasive I feel compelled to explore that avenue of connecting with prospects as well. But is the time well spent? My tactic at this point is to spend a bit of time each day, or nearly each day, and slowly understand how to utilize the medium. For me facebook is more of a way to create a fan base around my animal images than as a way to promote my traditional stock photos.

Creating New Stock Images and Staying Successful

As I have said before, if I had put all the work that I have put into my site into creating new stock images, I would definitely be earning more money at this point. But I still believe that in the long term the rewards for my web efforts will be much greater. An increased web is the best way I can think of to prepare for the changes that are happening, and that will continue to happen in ways we cannot know at this time. Finally, increasing my web traffic at helps gives me a sense of control over my own destiny…something very important in helping me keep a positive attitude that is vital for continuing to take the steps necessary to stay successful.