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Explore new skills among those most requested by the job market, delve into existing passions and lose yourself in creativity. What you find on Skillshare will surprise and inspire you.
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Are you a professional or amateur photographer? You can monetize your work by selling photos through numerous image banks
The internet has created new possibilities for those who are passionate about photography. Whether you are full-time professional photographers or amateur photographers looking to monetize their passion, selling photos online can provide a great extra source of income – the infamous passive income.
There are numerous platforms through which you can sell your works for various editorial purposes. The platforms are image banks, i.e. marketplaces in which buyers (from small bloggers to large publishers or international advertising agencies) choose the most suitable photos for their communication.
In addition to these platforms, it is also possible to sell photos directly on your website.
The main platforms for selling photos online
Many of the platforms are in English only.
Once you have created an account, you need to look for the link for selling images (eg Sell your Photos or Become a Contributor).
Some platforms, in addition to photographic images, also allow the sale of videos and other digital art formats. Obviously, on the same platforms, it is also possible to buy photos and some also offer images that can be used for free with a Creative Commons license.
The price varies according to the size and use (web, print) as well as the type of right granted (exclusive or not).
The same photo can therefore have different prices on the same platform. In some cases, it is possible to establish a price directly but generally, it is the image banks that establish it.
Selling photos through your personal website
It is always possible to sell directly through your personal website, by activating an eCommerce. In this regard, there are various platforms and special plugins. In fact, a photographer in addition to having a showcase site can activate a catalogue, presenting his works to agree on the purchase, or e-commerce, allowing the automatic download after payment of the fee. Here are some of the main platforms.
If you need a professional website to sell your photos, you can contact me, I am happy to share my experience in this regard.
The main requirements for selling photos online
Not all photos can be sold, but it is necessary that they meet certain characteristics established by the various platforms. Here are some of the main ones:
It is essential to categorize your works well by inserting appropriate titles and tags that allow easy research. We must not exaggerate because the so-called keyword stuffing (already known to SEO experts), i.e. the addition of irrelevant words, is not allowed and can lead to the ban of the work or the entire account if repeated. It is the most boring part but also the most important: if a photo is not associated with the words that buyers are looking for, it will be difficult or impossible to find (and sell). The platforms provide examples of how to categorize and tag your work.
Photos are almost always evaluated by experts before publication.
Photos should generally be of high quality, large size, and high resolution (thus avoid excessive noise, excessive postproduction, bad cropping, refractions and other optical problems). It is also preferable that the photos contain EXIF data (metadata with details about the shot). It is possible to keep the EXIF data even after post-production but in some cases, they fail, for example when overlapping photos for HDR processing.
Some platforms prefer professional but not very creative or artistic images.
Avoid inserting watermarks (name or website of the author on the photo). Following approval and publication in the marketplace, platforms generally add watermarks directly to previews to prevent images from being saved and misused.
If individuals are present, written authorization is required. Platforms usually provide forms to fill out. In the absence of this authorization, in some cases, it is possible to sell photos with individuals or brands as long as they are taken in public places, but only for editorial use. Attention also to works of art (for example paintings, sculptures, etc.) especially if taken in museums or exhibitions, as they are normally protected by copyright.
Obviously, the photos must be the property of the author.
Some platforms require exclusivity, others do not, so it is possible to insert the same photo on various platforms.
Publish photos for free use under a Creative Commons license to make yourself known
It’s a great strategy for emerging photographers. For this purpose, there are two main platforms:
Sell prints of your photos in various formats and support
Apart from selling the rights to use your picture, you can also sell a high-quality print of your photos, framed or not, on paper, canvas and other material. Here some leading services:
ImageKind – Sale of photographic prints in various formats
Fotomoto – integrate a snipped directly on your website by adding some code
The list is not exhaustive, and the NFT world deserves a separate chapter, which concerns the sale of copyrights on digital works, verified through the blockchain. If you have any other suggestions about platforms for the sale of photographs, feel free to leave them in the comments and good luck for the sales of the works!
https://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/sell-photos-online-vendere-foto.jpg5121024Paolo Margarihttps://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/paolo-margari-1.pngPaolo Margari2021-12-24 14:35:072021-12-26 17:52:21Guide: the best platforms to sell photos online
Accountable can be defined as the freelancers’ best friend – not only digital marketers – in Belgium and Germany.
Never lose a receipt, create invoices in a few swipes and optimize your taxes as you go.
The all-in-one app helps freelancers to save time and money, focusing on what matters.
A freelancer or independent worker can connect the professional bank account and Accountable makes sure that payments count as professional expenses towards taxes.
The App tells what is possible to deduct from taxes, automatically reconcile invoices and payments and get a tax tip for each expense made.
It’s possible to generate invoices and send them to clients anywhere, in less than 30 seconds, including client details.
Accountable automatically generates the VAT return, saving time and money, with or without an accountant.
https://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/accountable-freelance-belgium.png6301200Paolo Margarihttps://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/paolo-margari-1.pngPaolo Margari2021-07-23 03:18:592021-10-13 12:09:36Accountable, the App that any Freelance in Belgium & Germany must have
In the field of search engine optimization (SEO), link building describes actions aimed at increasing the number and quality of inbound links to a webpage with the goal of increasing the search engine rankings of that page or website.
Link building is the process of establishing relevant links to a website from external websites. Therefore, link building can increase the number of high-quality links pointing to a website, in turn increasing the likelihood of the website ranking highly in search engine results. Link building is also a proven marketing tactic for increasing brand awareness.
As a matter of fact, PubliSuites provides quality link-building services starting from a few dollars. It is a safe SEO service that will boost your website ranking in no time.
The expert link builders will look at your individual website, your previous links, and your competitors’ links and devising a strategy to move your rankings forward. Each account strategy is custom-tailored to ensure the maximum ranking potential.
Having perfect content, original, rich, well structured, a fast and secure website and many other elements on your WordPress like Yoast or other tools in place is not enough if your domain has low authority.
Social platforms offer a highly valuable snapshot of your brand and product’s health. From prospects to leads, from customers to employees – including enthusiasts and evangelists as well as haters and trolls – the full range of users that learn and interact with your social channels are continuously shaping your brand equity.
What are you looking at to measure and improve your campaign performance?
Looking at the right KPIs, beyond the usual suspects, and thinking of social channels not just as broadcast, amplifier or communication tools, but also as customer feedback and market research platform gives valuable information to improve communication (content, tone of voice, style) and the product portfolio – or at least its perception.
During the presentation, we’ll look at how to build a social performance dashboard with actionable insights, easy to understand by different stakeholders. With some little hacks to your dataset, it is possible to explore performance under different points of view, going beyond the usual metrics, by creating new ones and adding more meaning and context to your social media analysis.
Learning outcomes
What are the most successful posts on LinkedIn
How to build an advanced social media performance dashboard on Google Data Studio
Verify if a good performance on social networks corresponds to a conversion on your website
Why good engagement KPIs on social media don’t always correspond to successful content
The event is organised by Ditech Media.
Do you want to attend the European Digital Week?
Join the European Digital Week here. If you’re interested to watch all the sessions, covering many topics, contact me to receive a promo code that allows a 40% discount (no affiliation).
Main topics covered during the European Digital Week:
International Cybersecurity & Digital Services Protection Conference
International Conference on Robotics, Automation & Artificial intelligence Systems. Legislation & Intellectual Property
International Conference on Innovation in Agriculture, Food and Biological Systems in the Digital Age
International Conference on Crypto Finance & Blockchain Technologies
International eCommerce & Omnichannel Transformation Conference
International Conference on Smart Cities, Smart Infrastructures and Smart Buildings
International Digital Healthtech, Healthcare & Pharmacy Conference
Fintech & Digital Banking Innovation Conference
Smart Industry & Digital Factory Technology Conference
International Conference on Supply Chain Management & Fulfillment Solutions
European Digital Innovation & Start-Up Summit
Video & Social Media Marketing International Conference
Digital HRM Conference. The Future of HR & Talent Management
https://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/social-media-image-paolo-margari-social-media-marketing-digital-conference-2020-1.jpg6281200Paolo Margarihttps://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/paolo-margari-1.pngPaolo Margari2020-09-15 18:35:102020-09-16 17:49:51Paolo Margari at the European Digital Week 2020: Video & Social Media Marketing International Conference
Decision makers find thought leadership valuable throughout the funnel; however, sellers and producers don’t seem to truly value the impact of quality thought leadership. Read more
https://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/linkedin-thought-leadership-advice-video.png6301200Paolo Margarihttps://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/paolo-margari-1.pngPaolo Margari2020-02-09 12:08:532021-03-09 12:21:00Using Thought Leadership to Drive Results via LinkedIn (Video)
https://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/latest-digital-marketing-trends-video.png5591024Paolo Margarihttps://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/paolo-margari-1.pngPaolo Margari2020-01-02 12:03:252021-03-09 12:21:2610 digital marketing trends to follow in 2020 (Video)
Google Keyword Planner (Score: 0.33) – Available with a Google Ads account
Seed Keywords (Score: 0.24)
Siteliner (Score: 0.09)
Moz (Score: -0.08)
Long Tail Pro (Score: -3.62) – Long-tail keyword suggestion
Majestic SEO (Score: -3.63) – Ranking of many authority factors
WooRank (Score: -4.22)
The above ranking is not based on their market share or usefulness, but it’s rather an indicator of their popularity among users.
Some of them are free (like Google Search Console or UberSuggest integrated in Neil Patel’s website), others are freemium, others are paid.
Among them, few are full platforms with many features including also non-SEO functionalities, others are only providing niche insights or services (like YoastSEO that is a very popular WordPress plug-in), but are still valuable.
Personally, I still believe that it’s better to test and improve search ranking of a website using a range of tools (and anyone has its own recipe or preferences), but still, focus on one that can provide many aspects. The most valuable platform, including everything you need to do SEO, is SEMRush, that has increased its features in recent years.
Get YouTube views
Disclaimer: this post contains some affiliate links
https://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/seo-tools.png18323480Paolo Margarihttps://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/paolo-margari-1.pngPaolo Margari2020-01-01 16:46:462021-01-04 12:43:59Top SEO tools by Google Search Volume Growth: the status in 2020
We have chosen over 4000 excellent grocery products, almost all Made in Italy, with attention to nutritional aspects, as well as a mix of tradition, innovation and taste.
Discover the surprising products of Spaccio Italia and with them the flavours of authentic Italian cuisine.
https://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/italian-food-SPACCIO-ITALIA-2.png410899Paolo Margarihttps://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/paolo-margari-1.pngPaolo Margari2019-12-24 20:44:452020-07-17 02:01:38Discover Spaccio Italia, the e-commerce of Italian gastronomic excellence
The importance of customer service, which is fundamental for a successful company. Something that unfortunately many companies never learn.
Video extracted from an interview with Ferruccio Elio Arturo Lamborghini (1916–1993), the Italian entrepreneur, founder of the Lamborghini car manufacturer.
https://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/ferruccio-lamborghini-marketing.jpg419800Paolo Margarihttps://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/paolo-margari-1.pngPaolo Margari2019-10-31 23:09:522020-06-18 19:07:50Marketing according to Ferruccio Lamborghini. The importance of customer service (video interview)
The paywall is a tool to restrict access to users who have paid to subscribe to a website.
In recent years it has been incresing among some news sources, despite a massive use of advertising and cookies that can already cover costs.
Ok, quality news has a cost, but users can’t pay for them all. Waiting for an overall solution that allows choising single articles rather than subscribe for the entire source – Google is working on that, will editors agree? – let’s see how to remove some annoying paywall news sources from Google News that are just wasting our time.
An annoying paywall
Users are free to pay for good quality information but they should also be able to opt for free information. Free does not always mean bad quality. Not at all.
Besides, many sources with paywall are quite biased, mostly posting political propaganda. Others are just bad quality, nothing original. Others are full of annoying ads and popups. All these can be sufficient reasons why some users want to hide specific sources (it doesn’t matter if free or paid).
You can bypass the problem by deleting cookies but if you’re tired of some specific sources it’s time to hide them forever, on your Google account.
If you want to filter out some sources from your Google News feed, the world’s most popular news aggregator, there’s a simple way, shown below:
Select “Other”
Hide news from that specific source
Hide (nascondi, in the Italian screenshot) the specific source and you won’t see it anymore. You can still see subdomains though (for example blogs associated to it). They have to be hidden separately.
New alternative solution: Chrome Extension to remove Paywall from websites
Thanks to the Google Chrome extension Skip The Paywall you can bypass the limit imposed by some online newspapers and magazines.
https://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Screen-Shot-2018-09-01-at-13.01.29.png505895Paolo Margarihttps://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/paolo-margari-1.pngPaolo Margari2018-08-25 16:54:182021-12-13 17:51:28How to remove paywall sources from Google News
HTTPS is a secure protocol that helps defend your visitors’ info by encrypting knowledge traveling between the internet browser and the server.
Google AdWords already recommends (and in some cases, requires) that every one URLs use the HTTPS protocol rather than HTTP to shield customers’ personal and money info.
As of April 2018, more than 57% of the Internet’s 137,971 most popular websites have a secure implementation of HTTPS (source: Alexa).
Starting from Chrome 68, expected to be released in July 2018, all HTTP pages will be market as “not secure”. This might cause a significant drop in traffic.
In terms of SEO, HTTPS is among the top Search Engine ranking factors.
If your website supports HTTPS and you run AdWords campaigns, make sure that the final URLs and mobile final URLs start with HTTPS – you can bulk edit this step wither on the platform, through Adwords editor or API.
If your website doesn’t support HTTPS speak with your webmaster or the CMS administrator and make sure that HTTPS is enabled on your server (double check with your hosting provider), then make sure that all internal links are HTTPS (on WordPress you can force them with specific plugins).
A free SSL service is LetsEncrypt, trusted and supported by the major hosting providers.
The epic Klout score, acquired by the digital marketing company Lithium for 200 million, has been killed.
What was Klout
“Klout was a website and mobile app, launched in 2008, that used social media analytics to rate all social media users according to online social influence via the “Klout Score”, which is a numerical value between 1 and 100. In determining the user score, Klout measured the size of a user’s social media network and correlated the content created to measure how other users interact with that content.” (Wikipedia, 25-05-2018).
Klout changed from a pure scoring tool to a publishing tool. Not everyone was confident about the reliability of its scores though.
Lithium Technologies, who acquired the site in March 2014, announced in May 2018 that they would end the service on May 25, 2018. The service was shut down on May 25, 2018, the same day GDPR came into force – my latest score was 66/100.
Remembering Klout
On May 25th 2018 the following note has been published on klout.com:
“The Klout acquisition provided Lithium with valuable artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities, but Klout as a standalone service is not aligned with our long-term business strategy. We appreciate the loyal Klouters out there who stuck with us all these years – keep influencing!”
According to the blogger Paul Colmer, Klout could have been shut down also because it wasn’t fully compliant with GDPR, the new EU General Data Protection Regulation that is resulting very painful for many businesses. Lithium, after all, was only interested in its technology and know-how for its business, whilst Klout itself didn’t seem to be profitable.
The alternatives to Klout score
Kred
There are two alternatives. One is Kred, on the market for a few years, that will be relaunched the 11th June.
Skorr
The other, launched very recently and less known, is called Skorr. It doesn’t seem reliable like Klout but it might improve in the future. You can check out my social skorr, download the app and check yours.
https://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/klout-score-kredd-skorr.png6501002Paolo Margarihttps://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/paolo-margari-1.pngPaolo Margari2018-06-04 02:24:312018-06-04 11:44:14Klout is dead. What are the social score alternatives?
Facebook Professional Services is a new feature – still unannounced – that can be the next big thing for local search in 2016.
Update: it’s 2018 and the feature hasn’t been announced or promoted yet, but it’s still there, quite useful.
With this move Facebook is entering as a direct competitor of platforms such as Google Places (recently re-shaped as My Business), Yelp, Foursquare, Tripadvisor and others in the #local search market.
All Facebook Pages with a physical location will be listed in their respective primary business category and cannot avoid users rating/reviews – in fact, to remove the possibility that users leave reviews the page does not have to be associated with any physical location (e.g. brand pages).
All pages can be linked to up to three categories, but only the main one will be relevant for indexation in Professional Services – mind that if you do not see your Page listed yet.
Ranking high and with a good rating is crucial to business success. Many prospective customers look for confirmations about their possible choice right before they are going to buy – what Google calls micro-moments. This fact applies in particular in mobile local search, but at the moment, Facebook Professional Services are only available on the desktop. Maybe a dedicated app will be released at some point?
In Facebook Professional Services, ranking level is determined by a combination that takes into account number of reviews and rating (and possibly other variables such as engagement, page authority, reviewers authority, etc.). Therefore, having many reviews is the first step to being sure that a local service ranks in the top ten – there are ten results per page/category/city. Besides, rating from relevant users is also important: generally a page with 70 reviews and an average rating of 4.4 ranks better than a page with 20 reviews with 4.9 average rating.
Are you looking to improve your local search ranking? Have a look at this Local SEO Guide for Businesses by Brad Richardson (Caseo, Canada).
https://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Screen-Shot-2018-04-14-at-10.26.09.png421937Paolo Margarihttps://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/paolo-margari-1.pngPaolo Margari2018-04-24 15:24:042018-04-26 19:10:27Facebook Professional Services, the next big thing for Local Search? (2018)
I’m a proud user of both Aviate (Android launcher, the most useful amont dozens I tried, IMHO) and Flickr (image hosting, my account dates back to 2005 with over 7 million photo views).
Yahoo!, now owned by Verizon, acquired Flickr in 2005. Now it has sold it to the independent image-hosting company SmugHug for a price not known, probably it’s been a bargain.
Flickr has more than 75 million users and is well-known for being a free-service with unlimited storage. SmugHug instead is a small paid service, quite expensive considering alternatives. For example, you can opt for Google Photos that offer much more than just image-hosting.
Many users are asking if Flickr will remain free after the SmugHug aquisition and the aquiring company, already in charge of Flickr social network channels, is replying that free accounts won’t change “at this time”. At this time?!
Yahoo!, one of the oldes internet companies, launched in January 1994, today has only 2.1% of global search market share (source: statcounter.com) vs Google that reaches more than 91%.
The company has a long list of failures and recently is getting quite slim. Clearly, it’s dying, and the Verizon acquisition is probably speeding up this process.
https://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/yahoo-1996.png548559Paolo Margarihttps://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/paolo-margari-1.pngPaolo Margari2018-04-23 12:24:462020-06-18 19:08:25Yahoo! killed Aviate and sold Flickr
The Google algorithm keeps on changing regularly, making life harder and harder for SEO experts. Some people assume that SEO is dead, but in fact SEO is alive more than ever. Simply, the old way of doing SEO is dead, or at least it’s not bringing the desired results anymore, whilst a new set of SEO strategies and techniques is rising due to search engine algorithms that become intelligent more than ever.
Here is an interesting infographic, created and designed by Harris Myers, that lists the 8 top factors to keep in mind to rank high on Google SERP in 2017.
https://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/seo-search-engine-optimization_0012.jpg6641000Paolo Margarihttps://paolomargari.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/paolo-margari-1.pngPaolo Margari2017-04-12 12:54:332018-04-13 02:58:54SEO: 8 top ranking factors for Google in 2017 [infographic]
