123RF – Don’t forget to “Fave” your own images

One of the topics I cover in my Stock Photography eBook is how to get the best placement of your images in the search engines of the stock agencies – with a chapter on advanced keywording and various tips that I picked up about specific sites. One that seemed to make a big difference to my sales was the ability to “Fave” your own images on 123RF. I covered this about 6 months ago, but I suddenly realized that is it some time since I checked on available fave slots on 123RF – when I looked today I had 37 unused opportunities to increase the visibility of my images on their site. Faving an image increases its position in the returned images against a keyword search and hence the likelihood of sales.

How did I choose images this time? In the past, I sorted the images by downloads and faved the ones that had a fair number of downloads. This time, I opened my portfolio on Shutterstock, sorted by popularity, and then did simple searches on 123RF to find the images that were popular on SS and faved those. In a matter of 5 or 10 minutes, I had used up my faves and hope to see the results in increased sales from that site.

The moral of the story – don’t forget to go to 123RF every month or so and use up any new Fave opportunities, and, while you are at it, review the Photo+ images on iStock to remove those that have had no sales and add new images that you have uploaded to the site so you maximize the benefits of that program.