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Hi Andy, im going to go along similar lines as the youtube-video thread, flickr is a giant database, your images filenames are not going to help you at all because they will be turned into gf22546999900908fdaczl0909.jpg as soon as you click upload.

Make sure you have your website  address clearly printed (not enough to take away from it but visible) on the photo, so if someone is interested they can go there, i have found many cool sites this way. Flickr, like youtube, does give you the option to add tags and descriptions to each photo you upload, uses that as its the only way flickr will know what the photo is about. Having the pic on your site wont help, its falls into the category of hoping your spacer.gif image will outrank your competitions spacer.gif... aint gonna happen, and if they have different names they will be considered different images

So dont worry about such things, just make a decent profile and start uploading pics with the relevant tags and descriptions...

Well, i am only talking from theory and what i have seen happening on flickr and youtube etc, but chances are that the community wont care much for your profile until you start regular contributions, if they see your pics a few times they will probably get into the "who is this guy" frame of mind... thats good.  The more people who view and vote and comment and link etc the better. Only way to get that is by using relevant descriptions and tags.... basically you have to become a real life member, a part of the sight and not just a fly by guy.  Easy enough if you give it an hour or two every second day, if you want to really get in there, find the regular members and comment on their work (good or bad... be yourself... dont suck up)

(not relevent to pics or vids but take SR as a case study, how many of the "wow great site" people last?) 

Generally speaking the only clickable url you can add will be under "your website" when you set up your profile, so if you want to get that url out there and associated to your pics, why not add a black strip to the bottom of each of your images. Have your website url in white over it. Keep it that way for all your pics.... it wont cover any of your image, it wont take away from the image and it it will essentially maintain a professional appearance, like an artist would sign a painting. If it stays the same, you will end up embedding it in peoples heads (consistency is key).

Take those funny pics for example, they have the black border with white writing at the bottom (often a funny splurg)... people click on a thumbnail just because they recognise the border... thats the kind of thing you should be going for

Hope that helps mate

One more thing, no matter what filenames or 'alt' tags I've used, the images on my regular website very rarely come up in searches...the ones on the photoblog do.

I like the white text on black background idea.

I can also appreciate the "getting really involved in
Flickr" idea. It's interesting for me also as a "serious" photo
hobbyist so it is certainly not a waste of time.

One thing is that Í can think of no way of evaluating the ROI of a
Flickr / YouTube strategy. No way of separating that direct traffic
from any other direct traffic, right?

I'll certainly give it a good shot and see what happens.

As always, thanks to you guys.

Andy, that i honestly have no answer to the only thing i can think of that may give you some indication of the effect is by seeing how many people are viewing your photos. Have a look at your normal stats for any spikes after you add photos etc.

Roger, you can not have any click through links except in the screen where your profile is viewed, therefor no link love will come your way. The bonus is that your images will appear in google (depending on how well they do) and there should be an increase in organic/direct traffic to your website as opposed to referred traffic. At first if you do get a boost in visitors, it wil be from flickr. Eventually though, it will become people searching in general that find the images.

Thanks for that Ryan, appreciated.

Roger

Very nice pics Andy,

I couldn't see what camera you're using - would love to know - and did you use black/white film or did you convert the files?

I noticed that you have an 'all rights reserved' notice on your photos too. I deliberately use the 'some rights reserved' creative commons licence, and permit people to actually republish my photos, as long as they name me as the photographer and provide a link back to my website...an interesting and useful way to get links.

I just had an email yesterday from someone who speaks at international conferences (education and technology). She asked to use some of my local photographs in her powerpoint presentations...don't know if I'll get a link, but a free plug is always useful.

Elizabeth

Great photos Andy, looks like flickr doesnt have the voting function like youtube, none the less... the amount of views you get should push your images through the ranks, well done