http://ookaboo.com/
which has accumulated about a million images and gets several thousand visitors a day who are looking for pictures.
I've recently added features to let users add images and I've quite literally recorded a 0.01% conversion rate. I think part of the problem could be the U.I. but I think another part is that I've attracted the wrong audience.
Any ideas how I can get better use engagement.
Look at one of your similar competitors: http://www.flickr.com/ They have a calls to action as you scroll down with a final "Still not convinced? Take the Flickr Tour!".
If I refer a friend to your website, what are they going to do? They'll act confused as there's no steps or where to start. In fact, they see all these categories and get overwhelmed. I then noticed there's step-by-step instructions but it's surrounded by all those hyperlinks. You need to emphasise it more. Take a note of Flickr.
So you're appealing to designers or people with creativity? Your website doesn't look creative. Look up website inspirations. Copy a few websites that you like, then try creating your own.
SEO issue, why are you redirecting to /o/pictures as main directory? It should always be http://ookaboo.com/ in URL if I go to it. You will encounter issues as well future linking issues if people bookmark it and you didn't sufficiently re-direct it due to a backend or some kind of change.
Here are a few things I would suggest:
1. Search box at the top to search images. 2. slide show of random images front and center. 3. A call to action button to upload images. 4. scrollable or scrolling categories.
You pretty much have everything I said, but nothing stands out.
I'm not so sure what you mean by 4.
A scrollable categories list would show different categories in a nicer way with 4 at a time and a more button to view the complete list if someone is interested.
You might have better metadata than anyone else but I didn't get it from looking at the page.
Flickr does a pretty good job of displaying other information on the side of a photo. You can do the same with your metadata http://www.flickr.com/photos/gcattiaux/2349773004/