PhotoShelter for Website?

[Mike Guilbault]

Anyone here using PhotoShelter for their website?  I used it just for e-commerce many years ago but moved on to something else.  I'm not considering a new website and looking back at PhotoShelter/Beam as an option.  I'd appreciate any feedback.

[Theodoros Papageorgiou]

A problem with hosting your images on a service like PhotoShelter is with backlinks.
As you may know, backlinks are important for SEO and the more you have the more traffic you get from Google.
By placing your images on PhotoShelter you are removing the images from your domain.

[Ellis Vener]

Without commenting on Mr. Papageorgiou's comments (i don't know enough about backlinks) here is what Photoshelter has to say about Beam and SEO:
"Are these sites optimized for search engines (SEO)?
Yes. The sites have been carefully designed to adhere to emerging best practices for search engines -- without compromising on visuals. Furthermore, the Beam sites are linked directly to your Archive site, where the most indexable content -- IPTC metadata, gallery descriptions, dynamic page titles, custom text, etc. -- is visible to search engine crawlers. We have a team of experts closely monitoring the ever-changing SEO standards, and we'll continue to do our best to make sure Beam sites remain technologically forward yet optimized for search traffic.
 
Always remember that the most important SEO influencer tends to be “off-page factors,” such as backlinks to your site from other sources. Put simply: The more that people feel it’s worth linking to your site, the more a search engine trusts that there’s good content there. More on this topic can be found in PhotoShelter’s free guide, SEO for Photographers.
 
How will switching my site to Beam affect my search engine optimization (SEO)?
Switching your existing PhotoShelter site to the Beam platform should not materially affect your SEO. All links to your Classic site will still work, and any image- or gallery-level information that you've made public (e.g. IPTC metadata, gallery descriptions, etc.) will remain unchanged. Essentially, search engines will simply have new content to discover on your portfolio site.

One note on switching: Any custom page titles and meta descriptions that you've set on your Classic site (e.g. your About, Contact, and custom pages) will not automatically transfer to those pages on your Beam portfolio. Beam sites are built on an entirely new platform, which means that your (non-image) content pages will need to be re-made within the new environment. This in mind, we suggest that before you switch, you copy the custom SEO data you've set (along with any page content), paste that into a separate document, and then re-paste it into your new Beam pages after switching.

Again, it's important to remember that while a search engine-friendly site design is hugely important, the single most important SEO factor comes from backlinks -- other sites linking to you, effectively “voting” for the quality of your content.   "

from https://support.photoshelter.com/entries/21985975-Beam-Portfolio-Websites-FAQ#are-these-sites-optimized-for-search-engines

[stevebri]

I found photo shelter to expensive and never felt they had my interests at heart, just their own.

Etsy will get you more hits than Photoshelters SEO (if you are selling arty stuff).

Or try many of the site templates at themeforest, woocommerce is a great, stable commerce plugin for Wordpress sites.

S

[Theodoros Papageorgiou]

Hi again,

All I know about Beam is a close inspection on the featured sites on Photoshelter.
http://www.photoshelter.com/tour/photographer-profile

For example let's look at the first site (domain):
http://www.jennifersquires.ca/
A click on the link 'Photographs' takes you to http://jennifersquires.photoshelter.com/ (a subdomain of photoshelter.com)
I can also see the source for each image is on the photoshelter.com domain.
Same thing for the next site.

If the source of your images is not on your own domain then I don't understand why this should be considered a good SEO practice.

Best,

Theo

[benchdog]

I have been with Photoshelter for a short time like 2 months. I choose them for a few reasons: well documented, good support, features, flexibility and yes they are a bit pricey but it comes in a percent of sales. I am using their beam Elements the set up was simple and straight forward, my questions were answered promptly, they allow 2 one on one training sessions the first is 1 hr the second is 1/2 an hour plenty of free webinars. I am a firm believe you get what you pay for. If you like you can take a look at my site which I mostly did on my own www.ewvisualarts.com

My only dislike at this time is the way they handle self fulfillment orders. Its a lot of work to set up and their freight option is poorly designed.

[Mike Guilbault]

Thanks Ed... beautiful work - refreshing!

[benchdog]

Thanks Mike I appreciate it.

Are you looking to replace your current website or separate your work onto different platforms?

[jennifersquires]

Theodoros - Thanks for the mention!

Mike - Yes I use PhotoShelter because it's easy to make my site look beautiful and I don't have to worry about the technical side of things, for that I highly recommend them. And yes I'm losing out on SEO juice for not having all those images on my own domain but either way you still need to market your own photographs, it's never a case of "if you build it they will come".

And if you have any specific questions, just ask!

[douglevy]

Use it, love it. I was a client years ago, then left for a custom wedding site, and just returned for my non wedding work. Their customer service and repsonsiveness is top notch, ESPECIALLY for the price.

http://www.douglaslevy.com

-D

[Mike Guilbault]

Sorry Ed.. been busy.  I'm looking at splitting my commercial work off of my portrait site. I get great results from my site on the portrait side of things, but wanted a site dedicated to the commercial/corporate work I do.  

Jennifer and Doug...  beautiful work! I like the clean simple look of your sites. I'm trying to keep a little of the same theme going as my other site, but a little simpler. It's still in the building stages, and I'm not sure I'm going to stick with the theme/style, but you can find it at http://www.MikeGuilbault.com. I have a few years of images to go through to update the portfolio but these images are from my existing site and were ready to go.

cheers,

[TacticalKarma]

Hey guys, thanks for this topic, but one more thing, how about SEO of the site? Since there are many ways to increase popularity, I believe that the most profitable and high-quality method is using a high-quality list of backlinks. Since I work with such a system, this allows me to give a lot of options for promoting my clients and getting more income than loss. However, what do you think about it? Are there other services that you use?

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Here is a link if someone is interested https://asiavirtualsolutions.com

[douglevy]

It's fantastic, plus they offer tons of support - https://blog.photoshelter.com/category/photography-website-seo/