Lord Ganesha And The Long Tail

Having extensive captioning and text along with my Ganesha imagery allows for greater web traffic via long-tailed key words (yeah, I know, I've used this picture on my blog before).

Ganesha’s Birthday

By 9:00 this evening over 2,000 Internet searches had ended at my site.  The top searched for word was “Ganesha” with 63 searches, followed by “Ganesh symbol” with 17, “wrecking ball” with 14 and “ganesha symbolism” with 10.  Ganesha is often the key word that brings most people to my site, but to have 63 was unusual, and to have the second and fourth most searched for terms to be also “Ganesha” related was quite unusual. I did a quick search on Google for “Ganesha” and quickly learned that today was considered Ganesha’s birthday!

Long Tailed Key Words

I then went back and started checking to see what other Ganesh-related key words were bringing in traffic. Below is the list of Ganesha related key words that I found in the first 500 search terms.   I didn’t bother going through all 2,000+ key words, but it appears that about ten percent of my day’s traffic was due to the key word Ganesha and it’s long-tailed variations (long tail key words being key word phrases containing two or more words)!

Long Tailed Key Words And Web Site Traffic

What we see from this list is a classic example of long-tailed key words and how they can build traffic. If I had a photo of Ganesha on my site with the minimal caption typical of what most photographers have I would only have had a fraction of today’s “Ganesha” traffic.  If you want more traffic to your site, include more caption material that the search engines can use to guide those looking for such images in your direction.

The Difficulty of Long Tailed Key Words

Another interesting aspect for long tailed key words is how hard it is, at least for me, to figure out what those key words will be. I find it a lot simpler to just try and write something interesting about the image. That isn’t all that easy either. To write coherent, interesting and relevant text takes time and effort…and a lot of it!

Long Tail Key Words, Targeted Traffic And The Long Term

Long tail keywords not only help bring in more traffic, but more targeted traffic as well, and if your selling something, whether it is prints, stock photo licenses, or imprinted coffee cups, targeted traffic can mean increased revenue. The conundrum, at least for me, is that the time and effort required to bring in that traffic, to write the captions, upload the images, work for the links is time that I can’t put into making images.  I am sacrificing making images in the belief that the long-term reward will make it all worthwhile. I’ll probably know in about five years…geez, I sure hope I’ll know!

Ganesha symbols and meanings

Ganesh symbolism

Ganesh symbols

Ganesh story

Ganesha images

Weapons of lord ganesha

Sri Ganesha Symbol

Ganesh axe

Image of ganesha

Ganesha pictures

Symbols of ganesha

Ganesha pictures

Baby ganesh

Funny Ganesh

Ganesha weapons

What is ganesh holding in his hands

Ganesha story

Ganpati image symbol

Hindu symbols and their meaning

God ganesha images

Hindu god ganesh

Funny ganesha

Image of ganesh god

Funny ganapathi pic

I worship a god with an elephant head

Ganesha arms

Ganesh meaning of symbol

How to draw ganesha

Ganesh hindu god

Interesting ganesh pics

Lord ganesha animated wallpapers

Ganesha god

Hinduism pictures and symbols

Story of ganesh hindu god

Goad ganesh

Symbolic pic of god

Simple ganesh

Ganesh photo need

The lord ganesh photo

Software ganesh symbol

God ganesh photos

Ganesh god symbols

Ganesh meaning

Ganesh funny pictures

Lord ganesha drawing

Pictures of ganesha

Pic of hindu god ganesh

Hindu symbols and meanings

Ganapati in t shirt

Ganesh forehead symbol

Symbolism + ganesh

Symbols Ganesha Photos

Most Searched For Images And A Favorite Sale

This image of Ganesha, the Hindu God who removes all obstacles, his risen to the top of my search engine results.

My most searched-for images:

Over the past several months one of my images has risen above my others in terms of popularity with the search engines. Approximately twenty people a day are searching for “Ganesha” and ending up on my image of the “Remover of all obstacles”, the Hindu God Ganesh. Second place currently goes to “dominatrix”, my image of a dominatrix with a computer for her head. I think the surprise is that “dominatrix” isn’t first!

After a painfully slow start this "Escher" businessman concept stock image has finally garnered a decent sale!

My favorite sale of the month:

I made this “Escher” business image a couple of years ago and it sold once for about $12.00, a big disappointment. So when I noticed this morning that the image made a second sale bringing me just under $500.00 (through Blend Images) it became my favorite sale of the month (though nowhere near the biggest sale). I am feeling confident that over the next five years the image will have proven well worth doing.

Observation:

Images in The Agency Collection (mine are submitted through Blend Images and are on both the Getty site and iStockphoto.com) are continuing to sell VERY well. Of course it is still too early to draw any real firm conclusions…but early results indicate to me that there is enormous potential for these higher-than micro priced images offered on micro sites.

That’s it for this time!