Name of your website?A Flower Gallery
Your name?
Patrick Heathcock
Your Location (city, etc)
Cape Town
Please give us a short summary of your website?
A Flower Gallery is an online gallery of top quality flower pictures. You can view images and purchase your favourites for royalty free use on your own website or to print.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
I'm a photographer as well as a web developer. this site combines my areas of expertise and it gives me an outlet for my creativity.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
Three years ago. It was this one - A Flower Gallery.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
I just chose a descriptive title that tells you what the site is about.
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
The quality of the images. There is a fine range of beautiful colour images, artistic as well as botanical flower pictures. We also have a gallery of chakra flower images.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
To build up the stock photography section until it provides a useful income.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
We're still working on it, but the income is steadily increasing. It has been a useful learning experience.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
Pay for more sophisticated programming systems to automate the processes of putting new photographs on the site.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Yes. It would process orders automatically and new submissions would be uploaded automatically once approved.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Is this interview long anough?!
What has been your biggest challenge?
Dealing with spammers who infiltrated the site once and nearly got us blacklisted.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Writing articles, submitting to directories, keyword research.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
We started out aiming to sell physical art prints, but have found that the instant download and stock photography side has more possibilities.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
Three years. I will keep it going even is it stays at the same level, as a showcase for my photography and for the current level of income.
What does the world need?
More Flower energy!
What is your website address?
A Flower Gallery
