Following are the generic features of image hosting sites:

1. There is a limit to the size of each image that one can upload.

2. Often there are options of multiple uploads upload at one time when the image hosting site uses a FTP server.

3. Most image hosting websites give options to edit images and view those in slideshows.

4. The user can add descriptions to the images and personalize those. The description may include keywords that can be optimized by search engines.

5. Image hosting websites also provide you with options to link your images to other websites using HTML codes, BBcode etc.

6. There are also options where one can directly upload images from camera and camera phones to the website.

How does image hosting generate revenue?

Since most of the image-hosting websites are for free, one may wonder how does it run? These websites run on advertisements displayed at the top of the page. Showing advertisement to the users help the website owner generate revenue to help buy better and bigger server space to host more images. Many websites offer specialized services like password-protected images, customizable skins and subdomains for which they may charge minimal yearly subscription fees. However mostly the cost of buying and maintaining a web space is generally is generally quite less and can be easily generated through advertisements.

Often image hosting websites also connect the users to stock photography sites where amateur or professional photographers are paid for their images if their photographs get published.

With various online business options being available, image hosting is something that many are opting for – mainly because it is easy to manage and hardly requires any technical expertise or initial investment. The demand for a web space where people can upload and share their images will always be there. So image hosting will probably never go out of business as digital revolution takes over the world. If the host can generate enough users for their image hosting website then relevant advertisements for digital cameras, scanners will also be readily available. Advertisements will ensure a steady source of income.

Know about Web Hosting:

Web hosting functions the same way as image hosting websites. Again revenue is mostly generated through online advertisements. The trick is getting enough users to sign up for your web space. Some web space ideas could be opening some portal like Facebook, news portal or blogs.

It’s already earning money

It’s true. The site has been up for almost 4 days, and yesterday was the first day we broke the 1000 unique visitors mark. That was pretty exciting, but the neatest thing about it is the fact that it’s earning steady revenue through Adbrite already!

Adbrite pays in a few different ways, but the most notable ones in my situation is the cpm and interstitial ads pay. For some reason image host site users don’t like to click anything, but that’s just fine with me, because eventually after surfing through the site, they’ll see an interstitial ad, which is simply one of those ads that shows you another website for a certain amount of time, but you always have the option to “skip this ad” up at the top. With Adbrite, you can create a custom banner up top when an interstitial ad is shown, with your logo, that way the visitor doesn’t fee like they’ve been completely taken away from you site.

Long story short, yesterday, we made a little over $3.00 alone. That may not sound like much to some of you, but hear me out….

One of my goals, (and I learned this a while back from another knowledgable blogger), is to find a system that you can consistently make a dollar or two a day on, and then scale it up – meaning, make more sites that do the same thing. So at this point, if I had an image hosting site that consistently made $5 per day (and it won’t be long before ImgSlot.Com starts doing that), I could create another one, give it the same attention, and then I would be looking at $10 a day with minimal work. Do the same for 5 more sites, and I’m up to $35/day….you’re only limited by your time and imagination. If it takes me 30 sites going at once to make $90/day, I’m cool with that! As long as it doesn’t require 12 hours of work each day, because then it obviously wouldn’t be worth it for most people.

So my plan from this point on, is to grow my current site to a point where it’s making a decent daily income without much work, and then I’ll launch another one, and do the same. I’ll rinse and repeat this process until I have a steady passive income coming in. It’s not rocket science – it just takes a little time and dedication to get the sites to where you want them to be. Luckily, image sites are very, very easy to get tons of traffic to, and I’ve even run a few PPC campaigns using Adwords vouchers that I have stashed away.

I’m actually thinking about writing a good quality, step-by-step ebook on how to start a profitable image host, because it isn’t hard, but it’s always nice to have instructions just in case you get confused. Would any of you be interested in that? I would probably distribute it on here for free, but we’ll see.

The other day, I asked you guys about image hosting sites, and while I didn’t receive a huge response, that was okay, because I was making a deal to get my hands on a somewhat established free image hosting site.

After setting up hosting (which I got a great deal on an unmetered bandwidth hosting package by the way), and doing all the technical stuff, I then proceeded to change the look of my new site to make it more original. You see, a lot of image hosting sites use the Mihalism Multi Host script, and while it’s a great script, unfortunately, about 90% of the sites that use this script never change the template, so they all look the same.

I strongly believe that in order to have a truly successful site, it has to look at least a little different from the rest, especially if there are tons of sites that already look like yours. It reminds me of when I was running proxies…everyone had the same proxy template, and it was hard to tell one from another!

The original owner is a pretty cool guy. I know of him from the DP forums that I frequent on a regular basis.

One of the main draws for me was the fact that it was a PR3. Not the greatest, but better than a 2 or anything less. Plus, the domain is somewhat aged, and has hopefully had its tour through the sandbox already.

The Alexa rating (which I don’t hold a lot of faith in), is pretty high, but half the fun of taking over a site is to try and get the traffic flowing to it again. I suppose it’s like bringing someone back to life.

Shock advised, clear!!

After obtaining the site, and setting everything up on my end, I proceeded to get a custom logo done, and I’m really happy with it. It really sets off the site, and I think a good logo is a very important aspect of quality branding, so I should have to worry about that as more and more people catch on and start using the site to host their pictures. I still have some more tweaking to do here and there, but I should be done with all that within the next few days.

Using some traffic techniques specifically for free image hosting sites that was recommended to me, I’ve already seen almost 2000 pageviews in the last 18 hours. Not bad for just kicking off! I plan on building the levels up enough to the point where it starts to automate itself. That way I just count the revenue from my ad networks I’m running (currently only AdBrite, but I’ll play around with others – although AdBrite is reported to be the best money maker for image hosting sites).

Most importantly, I hope you guys consider using ImgSlot.Com for all of your image hosting needs. The site runs fast, and you can upload multiple files at one time, which gives you a huge advantage when you’re wanting to upload more than one picture. Registration is optional, but registering (it’s free) gives you access to a few additional features – primarily the fact that you’ll be able to upload larger pics.

I’ll occasionally report the progress of this new baby of mine, and if it does well, I expect I’ll open several more. Thanks and stay tuned!