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Hey folks, it’s been probably a year and a half since I’ve been able to put any work into my vector illustrations symbio site (clipartmascots.com), and from the little bits of info I’ve been getting, it seems like I’ve been missing out on a lot of new Symbiostock developments! Can anyone take a quick glance at my site and tell me if I’m using a dated template, suffer from design or usability issues, or am not taking advantage of the latest no-brainer features?
I evidently get between 50-100 visitors a day but only a new actual registrant every couple of days – and only about 20% of those actually make a purchase – what am I doing wrong, and are there any obvious omissions from my site that you guys are aware of to explain why I’m getting so few signups and sales? I get decent sales for these same images on the microstocks, it’s not a quality issue. I’ve always assumed that people find my images in google search but when they see it’s a paid site, they get turned off – does anyone else experience this selling vector illustration clipart? Or is there any other explanation you can see that I’m missing?
I want to start actively marketing my site by collecting an email list and offering email discounts, but I’m not sure the Symbio theme even supports discounts and codes that a new registrants can use just once; can anyone clue me in on this? Also, what other marketing tactics are at our disposal with Symbio, and which are currently proving to be successful for Symbio artists?
Thanks very much for your help! – KennyK
Kenny Kiernan
https://www.clipartman.comHey Kenny,
Good questions.
Firstly, site looks good – but as you’ve alluded to, all that matters is sales, and we need to analyze how to optimize what visitors you are already getting.
1) Symbiostock now runs on top of WooCommerce so that the ecommerce portion is simplified. This provides for a lot of customization, personalization, and marketing potential that is not available in legacy.
2) This includes coupons, one off coupons, permanent coupons, different payment methods, and a plethora of other extensions that you probably haven’t even thought of.
3) As it runs on WP through WooCommerce, you can also use any theme and plugin that works with WooCommerce. This means your design can be modernized pretty dramatically, and you can add SEO plugins as well as usability plugins that make the experience better.
4) One caveat that I think will turn people away from legacy is the registration prompt when you select a size on your product page. With the new Symbiostock and its simplified checkout, you can allow users to purchase stuff from you with just an email address and a name.
5) You can also add multiple payment methods, such as Stripe, and accept credit cards right on your site with the new Symbiostock.
As previously mentioned, there are probably a lot of unspoken benefits, but I would say modernizing your design is one large one.
All that being said, there is no magic formula for independents. Even with a new, modernized and efficient site, you’re going to have difficulty getting sales… not because of anything except that it is hard to get traffic to each individual site.
Whether you may or may not be aware, we are working hard to release a beta version of Symzio, which will operate as a one-stop contributor run agency that will aggregate all the images across the Symbiostock sites and permit customers to purchase right on Symzio. This will allow contributors like you to promote one central site which will inevitably also increase your exposure and sales. This will be exclusive to Symbiostock users, and will not be compatible with legacy.
I am encouraging everyone to get their new Symbiostock sites up so when Symzio is released, we can market it aggressively as a group. We’re going to be really pushy about it; contributors have been trying to pull themselves out of the yoke of the agencies for god knows how long, and this is the time and place and opportunity to finally put some elbow grease in for a real, permanent change. Any contributor that is serious about the industry, greedy about making money on their sales, and wants to be able to do this for the rest of their lives should naturally feel excited and push as hard as we are for Symzio to be successful.
All that being said, your site looks good and you don’t ‘need’ to upgrade to Symbiostock, but I think it would benefit your site in a variety of manners. Once Symzio is ready, it will be a huge upgrade to be included.
One other benefit of Symbiostock, since you are a vector artist, is that you don’t need to upload JPEGs; it converts EPS files for you and your customers, so all you do is upload an RGB EPS, and Symbiostock does the rest.
Hey Robin, thanks so much for the reply and for having at look at my site – incidentally, I checked the box to be notified of replies via email but I did not get an email, nor is one sitting in my spam folder; any ideas about this? I just checked back in now anyway, and saw that you had replied the same day.
Wow, a lot going on! Absolutely I want to upgrade and take advantage of these new features and the new design flexibility as well as Symzio. How do I do this?
On the tech side, I’ve designed my own websites before and never had a problem with it although I had lots of problems with this one, as it’s a WordPress theme and I’m still unfamiliar with WP and had lots of trouble getting it together. Eventually I had Leo put it together for me and I made some edits but I’m still uncomfortable with a lot of the functionality. So the new iteration can be a WooCommerce theme for the entire shop, which is hopefully a bit more intuitive to use?
Please send me all the appropriate links and dumbed-down info as though I were a newbie; I’d love to be able to re-work this whole thing so things work like they’re supposed to and I can have more control over SEO, the look and user experience. Thanks very much for your help! – KK
Kenny Kiernan
https://www.clipartman.comNo clue why you didn’t receive the e-mail – I will look into it.
To migrate from Legacy to Symbiostock you need to use our free importer:
http://www.symbiostock.org/shop/
It is seamless and automates the process. However, you also need to ensure that your server can run Imagick. If it doesn’t and you really want to use Symbiostock, you may have to move hosts or request that your host install it.
Here is documentation on using the migration tool:
http://www.symbiostock.org/docs/migrating-from-legacy-symbiostock/
You can install Symbiostock directly through your control panel.
Finally, you also have a few other options:
1) You can submit a paid support request and we can do the migration for you once you have Symbiostock installed. If you want us to do all of it, it may cost slightly more.
2) You can switch to our PLUS service in which case we would do the migration for you for free. This is a hosted Symbiostock WordPress solution where you just log in and use it.
You can also check out Steve’s blog where he has written about upgrading to Symbiostock from Legacy:
http://www.backyardsilver.com/2015/07/learning-points-from-creating-a-new-symbiostock-website/
Hey Robin – sorry, my bad on the email. I had an old one in my profile, I just changed it.
I use BlueHost, so Imagick shouldn’t be an issue, correct? I will check out those links and try to do it myself – I’ll get back to you after I make my attempt, thanks!
Kenny Kiernan
https://www.clipartman.comHey Robin – still haven’t had any time to update the site but I have a question for the legacy Symbio theme I’m still using in the meantime. Is there any way to set up a discount code to offer customers?? This is such a basic feature that it must be available, but I don’t see where I would do this – please clue me in.
Thank You! Looking forward to my complete shop overhaul in the coming months!
Kenny Kiernan
https://www.clipartman.comHey Kenny,
Unfortunately, I’m not too sure about coupons on legacy. It’s built into the new system, however. Perhaps another legacy user can pipe in and advise you.
Thanks for the quick reply, Robin! OK I’ll post this question on another thread –
Kenny Kiernan
https://www.clipartman.com
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