Web site value

Mike McCarty · 02-28-2004, 10:52 AM

There has been some talk recently regarding the value of a web site. Here's a recent good news story.

About two weeks ago I got an e-mail from a man (stranger) in another city. This man got the idea to give a portrait of his wife and granddaughter to his wife on her birthday. He searched the web and came upon my site.

He detailed that he had compared my paintings to others he had seen, checked out my prices (according to him they were all pretty close), and decided to present his wife with the idea on her birthday, which was in a few days. In a subsequent phone conversation I assured him that we could work through the distance barrier and make this happen.

In a few days I got a call from his wife, we arranged that I would travel to their home and take photographs of herself and their granddaugher.

I have since accepted the commission, made the trip, took the photographs, and collected the check. All this from a stranger in another city who found my website. I have yet to meet this tasteful, enlightened man.

Valerie Gudorf · 03-03-2004, 01:32 AM

Mike, what wonderful news! I am so happy for you. May many more commissions come from this job!

Kimberly Dow · 03-03-2004, 01:50 AM

Mike, that's great news. I had wondered if anyone actually contracted off only a web site and not in person at all - guess this answers that!

Cynthia Daniel · 03-03-2004, 01:54 AM

They absolutely do, Kim. Though I wouldn't expect your phone to ring off the hook. But, the cost of a web site in relation to one commission is usually quite small. And, Stroke of Genius aritsts have even been contacted by the White House, the US Supreme Court and the US Senate. There have been CEO's, university presidents and all kinds of portraits from web sites.

Kimberly Dow · 03-03-2004, 02:21 AM

Cynthia,

Just out of curiosity, what are the average visits to the SOG websites? Do you know say - how many Mike had last month or do you just know how many the whole site had? I had over 14,000 hits last month on mine and 1600 visits. I'm linked from lots of places, I spent some time doing this and am always looking for new ways to promote it, but in the 9 months I have had it I have not had one serious inquiry from it. Do you suppose my mother could be visiting that often?

It's been beneficial in other ways like galleries looking at my work, but no commissions.

I had an awful unprofessional site about 7 years ago and that landed me work back then - I killed it after a year though, it was just awful.

Cynthia Daniel · 03-03-2004, 01:03 PM

Kim,

The whole site gets 100,000 - 130,000 unique visitors a month. I look more at visitors rather than hits. Hits for my site is about 2 1/2 million, but I don't think that tells me as much.

As far as individual artist statistics, I don't have access to all of those. There is a panel that shows "most accessed" and for the month of February those go from 53,453 hits / 2,934 visitors down to 19,32 hits / 1,326 visitors.

Doing the things you're doing are definitely worthwhile.

Cynthia