Hello,
looking around I’ve found two kinds of collages: single image collages (like www.queerclick.com) and multiple images collages (like www.rawtop.com). The difference is really simple: in the first example collages are made using software like Photoshop to put together all images in one big image; the second example shows collages made using html to put together several images.
What’s the best way in your opinion?
Re: Single image collage Vs Multimple Images collage
Just to reply on one blog of mine with decent traffic I’ve tried to use “html collages” thinking to have more chances to get traffic from Google Images. I was wrong. Checking stats I’ve found that I’m not getting traffic at all from G.I. So it’s worhless 
Re: Single image collage Vs Multimple Images collage
The problem with doing single images is that the way they’re place in Wordpress isn’t exactly correct html, that’s what Bjorn said to me anyway. So your page may not validate properly.
The other issue is that if you enter all the images and wrapped each one in a link, you’ll have a lot of outgoing links.
For these reasons, I found the collage easiest and most effective. I’ve also found that my collages are selling better than single images. Plus if you take more time with them, you can make them look quite appealing, you can include come-on text, info about trials, etc. So they become huge banners packed full of info.
The single image like Queer Click uses can also cause problems because surfers don’t seem to like clicking much, so I found when I followed that approach that I wasn’t getting many click throughs to the post with the full image presentation. Queer Click seems to have trained their surfers to do this.
The other problem with collages is that they don’t require clicking to see the full presentation and this results in a very high bounce rate if surfers don’t go any deeper in the site. High bounce rates may be one of the factors Google uses to determine your site’s placement in their SERPS, whether it’s a huge factor, who knows.
Re: Single image collage Vs Multimple Images collage
This is very closely related to something I’ve been wondering - the effect of individual images vs collage on page speed and on Google Images. I’ll share some of my stats…
Looking since roughly the beginning of 2010, rawtop.com has gotten about 13% of it’s traffic from Google Images…
My condom/solo blog (wilywilly.com) has gotten 27% of it’s traffic from Google Images…
BUT, both sites are considered really slow by Google… rawtop.com is at 9.6 second load time and slower than 93% of other sites…
And (oddly) wilywilly.com is also at 9.6 seconds and 93%…
If I switched to collages I don’t know how it would affect Google Images. I’d have fewer images, and hence fewer image search keywords/phrases - so that would lower the amount of traffic. But I’d have bigger images which might be good. But the thumbnails for those images wouldn’t be so great in Google Images, so I think ultimately I’d lose out on Google Images traffic by switching to collages. BUT, since there would be fewer HTTP requests my load times would probably go down, which would be a good thing.
Actually, I just did a test and Google Images is handling the thumbnails for collages better now… Here’s a screenshot of GI with lots of collages…
Looks like I’m at my 5 image limit for this post, so I can’t upload a screenshot of GI with regular thumbnails, but which would you be more likely to click on?
So what do people think of individual vs. collage in respect to 1) getting Google Images traffic and 2) page speed. If you’d share your % of traffic from GI and your page speed numbers that would be really useful.
Re: Single image collage Vs Multimple Images collage
Can you tell me how to check page speed in analytics, I can’t seem to find it.
Using collages does seem to be a loser for Google Images, my Foreskin Fever only got 28 hits in the past month from Google Images.
Perhaps a compromise would be to do some single-image posts with the hopes of getting some more traffic from GI.
Re: Single image collage Vs Multimple Images collage
It’s not in analytics, it’s in Google Webmaster Tools. In the sidebar click on Labs and then Site Performance.
Re: Single image collage Vs Multimple Images collage
Okay, this is for Foreskin Fever. It uses collages and I load 7 posts per page. My collages are big, generally about 4000 pixels high of better. 550-650 k in size.
Performance overview
On average, pages in your site take 3.4 seconds to load (updated on Feb 20, 2011). This is slower than 58% of sites. These estimates are of medium accuracy (between 100 and 1000 data points).
Re: Single image collage Vs Multimple Images collage
[QUOTE=dzinerbear;90196]Okay, this is for Foreskin Fever. It uses collages and I load 7 posts per page. My collages are big, generally about 4000 pixels high of better. 550-650 k in size.
On average, pages in your site take 3.4 seconds to load (updated on Feb 20, 2011). This is slower than 58% of sites. These estimates are of medium accuracy (between 100 and 1000 data points).[/QUOTE]
Those numbers are good. About the same as my forum site…
And I’ve got mainstream blogs (without many images) where the load time is 1.4 seconds. So I think the load time is completely due to the high number of images. Guess I need to start doing collages. I’ll just have my CMS take all the images that I put together and make a collage out of them - so generally two collages per post. Maybe I’ll break it up a little further if a lot of images are involved - so 3 collages per post. But I worry about my Google Images traffic. Don’t really want to give that up.
Re: Single image collage Vs Multimple Images collage
RawTop: couldn’t you do a collage in the blog excerpt which you show on the starting page of the blogs and then use single images on each single blog post?
Re: Single image collage Vs Multimple Images collage
Hmmm… Excerpts… Hadn’t thought of that one… It’s a lot of work to implement that properly.
Re: Single image collage Vs Multimple Images collage
Changing to excerpts can cause other problems, like training surfers to click into the post. This can have an effect on your conversion rate. You may want to talk to pocoloco, he’s tried every method under the sun and has good experience with this kind of thing.
Re: Single image collage Vs Multimple Images collage
If I went that route I’d basically make the post and the excerpt identical except the post would have individual images and the excerpt single image collages that look identical to the individual images - so no need to train surfers to do anything. The problem is I think the workflow is too complicated for my writers. But I think I can handle it myself as I schedule the post. I can put a comment with the collage URL and essentially copy and past the entire post into the excerpt and take out the images and replace with the collage. But it’s a huge hassle.
Re: Single image collage Vs Multimple Images collage
That’s double the work, I wouldn’t bother with collages then. I’d just keep doing it the way you are.
The thing with collages is that they’re time consuming. Not all pictures are wide enough to fit into a collage, so a lot of times I have to crop and squeeze two pics into the width, etc., it’s fiddly work.
Plus I have also found that simply stacking one image on top of another (all pics same size) in a collage don’t really sell as well as making a true collage. I spent a lot of time on my collages, inserting headlines and come-on text and varying the size and placement of pics, and it definitely helps.
The more effort you put into them, the better they seem to sell.
Stacking one image on top of another just encourages rapid scrolling.
Re: Single image collage Vs Multimple Images collage
[QUOTE=dzinerbear;90280]That’s double the work, I wouldn’t bother with collages then. I’d just keep doing it the way you are.
The thing with collages is that they’re time consuming. Not all pictures are wide enough to fit into a collage, so a lot of times I have to crop and squeeze two pics into the width, etc., it’s fiddly work.[/QUOTE]
All I’d do is have my CMS stitch the images I use now together into one image. The two versions will look identical.
I should probably explain my CMS resizes the images now. Stitching the images together into one image isn’t all that much work. What will be a little work is going into the post after my writer has worked on it and changing the HTML, but I can make that relatively streamlined. I need to talk to my bf (who knows more about WP than I do) to see what will happen with all my old posts that don’t have excerpts.