5 Designs that Have Been Optimized for Conversions

Published May 7th, 2012 in Design, Make Money - 4 Comments

When you’re building a website it’s all well and good embracing a fancy design and making plans for strategic SEO, however what’s also vital is that you ensure your site is built to convert.

Below we take a look at five high-converting sites and investigate what it is that makes them so successful.

Schwan’s

18 Options to Sell Photos Online

Published May 19th, 2011 in Make Money - 40 Comments

Photographers have a growing number of options when it comes to selling photos. Stock photography sites aren’t the only option. Many different companies have developed ways to help photographers sell their work online through their own website, and many of these options allow for the sale of both digital (downloadable) files as well as prints. Some of them even handle the printing and fulfillment for you, if that is what you’re looking for.

In this post we’ll take a look at 18 companies that exist to help photographers with selling their work. Some of these options will provide the photographer with a website to display and sell the products, others can integrate with existing portfolio sites, and a few are marketplaces where photographers can upload their work to be sold.

If you’re a photographer you have probably thought about how you can make more sales online, so maybe one of these options would be a good fit for you. If you’re a designer you may have clients who are photographers. Some of these options allow designers to create customized sites for their clients, so if you work with a lot of photographers it can be worth exploring.

SmugMug

SmugMug gives you a customizable website to host your photos. You can choose from their selection of templates, customize it without any coding, or make changes to the CSS to fully customize the look of your site.  SmugMug includes a wide variety of features for displaying and promoting your photos, including the ability to publish photos to Facebook and Twitter or embed in blogs. You can sell your photos as prints or as digital downloads. The prints can be fulfilled and shipped directly to your customers. Prices range from $5 per month to $20 per month (or $40 per year to $150 per year).

33 Marketplaces to Buy and Sell Stock Photos and Graphics

Published March 8th, 2011 in Business, Make Money - 17 Comments

Stock photo and graphic marketplaces are useful for designers to both buy and sell stock resources. Designers frequently need stock photos, especially when clients don’t have high-quality photos of their own. And other types of stock design resources (like vectors, icons, PSD files, textures) can save a great deal of time for designers. But selling stock graphics and photos can also be an excellent source of supplementary income, and in some cases it can even turn into a full-time income.

In this post we’ll showcase 33 marketplaces where you can buy and sell photos and illustrations.

iStockphoto

7 Ad Networks for Design Bloggers

Published January 21st, 2011 in Make Money, Marketing - 30 Comments

In recent years as the number of blogs and websites in the design/development industry have drastically increased, several ad networks have been established specifically with the purpose of serving this industry. Just like the number of blogs and websites in the industry have increased, new products and services are constantly coming out to target this audience, and the networks showcased in this post exist to bring advertisers and publishers together.

If you’re a blogger or a website owner in this niche you may be looking a way to sell ads on your site. Here you’ll find 7 networks to consider. Many are invitation-only networks, but generally the do accept suggestions for new sites to be included in their network.

BuySellAds

BuySellAds is currently the most popular option for design blogs and other sites in the design/development niche. According to their website, over 2,900 sites are using BuySellAds. In order to place BSA ads on your site you will need to be approved for the program, but it is not invitation only. BSA provides publishers with a lot of flexibility in terms of ad sizes and even how the prices are determined (flat monthly rate vs. CPM).

BSA is unlike the other options on this list in that you are not limited to the number of ads that can be shown on your website. Of course, the number of ads will have an influence on how much you are able to charge advertisers, but you’ll be able to decide how many ads you want to use, what sizes, and where you want to place them. BSA’s commission is 25% of the ad revenue, so you will get 75% of whatever the advertisers are charged. BSA is also unlike other ad networks listed here in that advertisers will be buying and ad specifically for your site, rather than buying an ad that will be shown across the entire network.

The Vandelay Design Blog has been using BSA for over two years now and we have had nothing but positive experiences.

11 Places to Sell Your Graphic Art

Published June 15th, 2008 in Make Money - 69 Comments

For graphic designers who are interested in selling some of their work in other ways than just client work, stock photography sites can provide that opportunity. In this post we’ll take a look at some of the leading stock photo sites that also sell illustrations from graphic artists. There are even a few sites on the list that specializes in graphic art rather than stock photography.

iStockphoto

iStockphoto is probably the largest and most popular place to buy images and photos online. As a seller you can create an account and apply to be a contributor. Once you’re approved you’ll be able to upload your work and earn a base commission of 20% on anything sold, and exclusive providers earn up to 40%. iStockphoto offers buyers the option to pay for files individually or to become a subscriber, so there is a little bit more to the commission structure of the sellers than just a simple percentage. For more details, see their page with details on the program.

Potential Add-Ons for Web Designers

Published March 16th, 2008 in Make Money - 14 Comments

Most web designers and web design firms have an interest in finding alternate sources of revenue in addition to providing design and development services for clients. While these other sources of income are unlikely to completely support the designer or the firm, they can be excellent complementary add-ons that are also a help to clients in addition to producing revenue. These are my suggestions for potential add-ons, feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments.

Building Your Website On A Solid Foundation

Published February 22nd, 2008 in Make Money - 12 Comments

This is a guest post by Alan Johnson, find out how to build a
profitable website in 10 days over at TheRatingBlog.com

Are you excited about a certain idea of yours and think that there’s absolutely no time to waste? Are you eager to get started and see results? Well guess what, most webmasters out there choose the same approach and let’s just say that their results are nothing worth bragging about.

Creating Multiple Streams of Income Online

Published January 21st, 2008 in Make Money - 26 Comments

You started a website or blog and you want to make some money (that is the goal of a business, so that’s not a bad thing). Maybe you created a product to sell, or maybe you’re using AdSense, direct ads, affiliate ads, promotion of services, or some other method to monetize your site. In order to maximize the income potential of your website you’ll almost certainly have to take advantage of multiple income sources.

Maximizing Your Website’s Income by Monetizing RSS Feeds

Published January 7th, 2008 in Make Money - 28 Comments

For blog owners, monetization options are not limited to just the on-screen real estate of the blog itself. In fact, with the growing popularity of RSS, many of your blog readers won’t even visit your blog. If they’re only reading in a feed reader, your monetization efforts on the blog may not be benefiting. However, RSS feeds present some unique monetization opportunities of their own.

When Should You Monetize Your Website?

Published January 6th, 2008 in Make Money - 44 Comments

All business websites intend to create some type of value for the owner. Maybe the goal is to sell products. Or maybe it is to promote services. A common approach right now is to make money with advertisements. There are primarily two different approaches to monetizing a website or blog with ads. Some website owners choose to build traffic first and monetize later, while others choose to include monetization attempts from the start. There are pros and cons for each approach, and we’ll take a look at some of the factors that should be considered when making a decision.