Sell Your Photos Online Like A Pro

Another home business idea that will make you good money in the long run is photography. People are on the lookout for lots of photos a lot of times. They need it for their reports, presentations, blog articles, websites, etc. I, myself, bought photos that I used as the backdrop of a blog that became very popular. Having the needed photos at the appropriate time therefore translates into a sale.  

Nowadays, we all have camera phones and the quality of photos that it produces can be very good. In fact, a lot of camera phone photos have actually won big photo competitions. My advice for everyone is to: 

1. Master the settings of their cameras, practice, take lots of photos and keep on improving this particular skill. Of course, googling how to take good photos and studying simple and short instructions is highly recommended. Another tip is to join photography forums and interact with the members by asking and answering queries and you’ll be good in photography faster than if you don’t interact with anybody in the industry.
2. Take photos of your food while it’s being prepared, after it’s served, after the first scoop or slice was lifted and when it’s half done. Take photos of your home office, stuffed toys, garden, garden set, garden tools, sunrise, sunset, moon, and sun, whatever. This is the selfie age anyway and I swear that you wouldn’t look awkward doing that. Just be aware of privacy laws in your place and follow it to avoid getting into trouble. At this stage, you are now ready to have photography as a home business.


3. To avoid people using your photos for free, download watermark software and add it to copies of your photos.
4. Create a website or blog.
5. Upload your watermarked photos in your own website or blog and make sure that you maximize the use of tags. I mean, as many related tags as you can so that your photos will appear in many searches.
6. Upload/Sell your photos through your website and websites that allow you to do it. Please scroll down to the bottom of this article to see the more popular photo selling websites. Again, use as many related tags as possible. Most of those sites would ask for a revenue share and that’s fine. Those websites are very popular anyway and there’s a higher chance of selling photos though them than on your own. However, read the terms and conditions of those websites and make sure that you abide by it. Some sites will not want you to sell the same photos through multiple sites, some would be fine with it, some would pay low and some pays high. Choose carefully. If you have questions, please post it in the comments section.
7. Quietly promote your photos through your blog and forum posts and through offline means like your calling card.
8. Repeat the process over and over and focus on improving your craft.

Before you know it, you’ll have photo sales, you would have created and started selling your own photography e-book, have been invited to speak about your photography skills, etc. And if you are as equally good in using full sized cameras, you can also advertise and get paid to shoot events like weddings and parties. There are those who get lucky enough to be given professional photography equipment for free (and money) for as long as they will use and write about it. Oh, I have forgotten that among other things, you can also submit your photos for sale to online and offline newspapers and magazines. Of course, you may also opt to give it for free in exchange for a mention and a link to your website. That is a matter of home business strategy and the decision is entirely up to you.

Here are the popular sites where you can sell your photos:

1. Smugsmug
2. istock
3. Getty Images
4. Alamy
5. Dreamstime
6. 123RF