Collections: What are they and why should I care?

It took a little while before I fully understood the concept and value of collections as a buyer and as an author. They’re there to help buyers more easily find what they’re looking for and couldn’t find using the search bar. They can also be used to drive traffic to your files.

Private collections

Private collections probably make more sense if you just think of them as bookmarks. Once you create one, you’re the only one who can see it. To find it, just click the bookmarks link at the top of the page and scroll down to private collections. A private collection is a group of files you want to remember, but it’s really only valuable to you. For example, let’s says you’ve got a freelance project coming up for ABC Cleaners and you’re going to need the dancing rat, EKG line, and a map of Alaska. Let’s be honest, as great as those files are, there’s no one else on this planet who’s going to benefit from having them grouped together. In this case, it’s definitely better to leave this as a private collection. As the name would imply, private is just for you.

Public collections

Public collections work just like the private ones except they can be viewed by anyone. Public collections have become an integral part of the way buyers find files. They show up on your profile page, the public collections page, and most importantly on every single file page.

Public collections do what a computer could never do. The search function works well, but can’t think creatively. Let’s say you’re building a website for a Halloween haunted house. When you type in the keyword “Halloween,” you’ll only receive the results with the word “Halloween” in the tags or title. That may leave out half the spiders, skeletons, ghosts, or ghouls you were actually looking for. Best case scenario, you use several different search terms to find what you were looking for. Worst case scenario, you never find the file you were actually looking for. That’s where user-created public collections come in. Someone’s already created a Halloween collection with everything you could possibly want all in one place.

What makes a good public collection?

Collections are great for grouping  concepts. Let’s say you haven’t settled on a perfect design, but the theme is heat. Rather than searching every single word that could possibly be related to high temperatures,  you find a collection called hot. In there you find jalapenos, fire, lava, and steaming coffee. These are files that are related, but would never show up all together in a single search or category.

Another thing the search is unable to give you is a “best of” list. Search results can tell you how many times a file’s been downloaded, who created it, and when it was uploaded, but it will give you little indication of the file’s quality. That’s when something like top ten clocks or best photo galleries on FlashDen comes in handy. Best of collections are most useful when they’re the best files within a specific category.

Public collections can also be useful for grouping together cross-marketplace items. If a buyer is looking on GraphicRiver for a real estate business card, it’s highly likely that he’ll also be needing a real estate website, and maybe even video clips for a commercial. In this case public collections are being used to show the buyer things they weren’t specifically looking for, but might still need.

Less valuable collections

There are a multitude of public collections filled with unrelated items strung together because they’re files the collection creator liked. That makes for a great private collection, but doesn’t really help the buyer. For example, the buyer needs a photo gallery, goes to the first one in the search, doesn’t quite like it, clicks the “files I like” collection, and is taken to an eclectic list of animations, utilities, and  Wordpress templates. That doesn’t help help the buyer and most likely won’t result in a sale. All that does is create a dead end, forcing the buyer to go two clicks back to the search where he started. Buyers leave sites when they hit dead ends. When buyers leave, no one makes money.

How collection benefit authors

Being a successful author is all about creating great and useful files. That being said, if people can’t find your files, it doesn’t matter how good they are. Having your file in a public collection is just another way to give it that necessary exposure. Let’s say your file is in the programmer’s dream collection. That’s great news for you because now there are 29 other files in the marketplace that can now lead directly to you.

So, how can you create create collections that’ll bring people to your file? First, look in your portfolio, find a file, and think of a way that it could be grouped with other files that would be valuable to a buyer. Then just create the collection, put in at least one of your files, and start adding other related items.

You can also create a collection with just your own files. Buyers can’t see how items are built before they buy them so when they find an author they trust, they’re likely to buy from them again. If they’re looking for a gallery, know they like your files, and see a collection called “fakeuser1’s galleries,” they’ll probably click. If they do, all of a sudden, rather than searching through the normal search, they’re only looking at files you’ve built. When every file they’re looking at is yours, the probability of you making a sale drastically increases.

Just remember, make sure the collections are valuable to the buyer. Having your file in a useless collection won’t help you or them.

Collection titles, descriptions, and images

Just like your file preview, the presentation of your collection is everything. Buyers will click what looks nice and what seems relevant. That’s why using good titles, descriptions, and images is so important. I’m a visual person. If there are 3 collections to choose from and one has an image that implies it has what I need, I’ll click it without even glancing at the other two. The titles are equally important. A title should be as descriptive as possible. Buyers don’t want to guess whether or not your collection has what they need. Eco-Friendly Collection – web & print is a perfect example. It explains exactly what it is and even tells you the file types you will find.

Here are some examples of great collections:

COOL CRITTERS

All the most realistic birds, insects, fish, and other creatures to inhabit your natural Flash world.

Top 10 Photo Galleries

Here are my picks for the best photo galleries on all of FlashDen.

Halloween

I know it’s scary, but please refrain from screaming. It’s just a Halloween collection.

The Eco-Friendly Collection – Web and Print

The Eco-Friendly Collection (Web and Print) is a compilation of items across the Envato Marketplaces that relate to going green and being environmentally friendly. Templates can be used as a base for websites and printed material that promote recycling, preserving nature, and anything that has to do with being eco-friendly. Sounds and flash animations can be used to accompany work created on the web.

Let the games begin…!

From the youngest kid to the oldest man, games are always welcome. In this collection, you’ll find games which can be used for killing your time, beating high-scores or even adding them to your website to give visitors a good time. Go play and have fun!

On Fire!

A collection of images relating to the element of fire and images with a warm feel or color scheme.

DS Galleries

XML driven Galleries for use in your Flash Projects. Various galleries available for displaying all types of media such as Image, Video, Audio and SWF files. All content is easily up-datable via XML.

Under Construction

So your site isn’t finished yet, but you don’t want to show off godaddy’s default landing page? Check out these great files that make a site that’s under construction look pretty nice.