Some Tips on Selling Photos Online in Apr 2024

In life, the first thing that attracts us to anything like clothes, food, or gadgets would be their physical appearance. How these things look would normally dictate our buying pattern. But of course, it is then influenced by other factors such as actual experience, word of mouth, prices, and many others. Since visual or graphics is the primary element that stimulates our interest and desire to try or buy something, marketing uses really good photos in selling their products.

Because of the fact that photos are widely used in Marketing, you may not know it, but your talent in photography can be a good business and can give you extra income. These photos can be used online or in websites as advertising materials.

When a person visits a site to buy an item, he or she looks for a photo to find out if the item is what he or she needs based on color, design, style, and other attributes that are visible. These make photos, especially the good ones, in demand. And this gives anyone who is into photography the chance to earn from it.

Freelance photographers now have an option to sell their photos online and turn it into a passive source of income for them and their families. There are a number of tips on how to sell your photos online. But before we go there, it is important to understand the 2 basic options of selling your photos.

Sell your photos directly from your site – This option is great for photographers, both professional and amateur, to create their own name and photography trademark. In this option, you get to keep the sales to yourself 100%. To get started, you need to have a nice and user-friendly website and a good number of followers. It may be tough at first, but with proper marketing and as long as you post interesting photos, having a good number of followers is not going to be impossible.

Sell your photos through a 3^rd party site – If building your own site and network to advertise your photos is too much for you, then you can work with another person or some Microstock sites to sell your photos on your behalf. To sell via the Microstock sites, you need to submit an application and if gets approved, you can start uploading and selling your photos. This, however, is not as profitable as the first option provided above. Unlike the first option, your profit will be cut as a big portion will go to the website where your photos are posted. Normally, photographers who sell their photos through Microstock sites get only 30% of the total photo value.

If you decide to sell your photos online, one important item you need to understand is what people are interested to see and buy. Yes, your subject of photography should be what you are interested in. But it is also equally important to consider the interests of the people who will see and potentially buy your photos. To get you going, below are some of the most in demand photo categories online.

Photos of ordinary persons or people

Photos of situations at work such as a photo in the office, a photo of a carpenter, a bank teller, and the likes.

Photos of adventure activities and travel

Photos of places or cities

Close-up photography of any subject

Photos of anything around us such as books, dining table, cars, buildings, and the likes

Photos of the environment or nature

Animal photos

To start selling your photos, make sure to begin with the understanding of the following:

Define your market or brand of photography – Each successful photographer has its own style that will mark in the minds of his or her followers. Your subject in your photos must be consistent as it will help you build your niche in the market.

Build your audience – Regardless of how great your photo is, if you do not have followers, then it is useless. Make sure to build a network by collaborating with other photographers.

Manage your account/site well – In this day and age of social media, promoting something is very easy. Connect all your social media sites to give your followers in each app or site access to all your photos.

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