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Author Topic: Websites  (Read 42888 times)

Mike Sellers

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Websites
« on: February 02, 2015, 12:38:05 pm »

What website companies would be a good choice and be less expensive than Photoshelter?
Mike
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JoeKitchen

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Re: Websites
« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2015, 12:39:51 pm »

I use Square Space.  No complaints so far and I have a lot of freedom with how I can alter the design. 
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David Anderson

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Re: Websites
« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2015, 05:40:44 pm »

I'm with Portfoliobox and pretty happy - their follow-up is very good.
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Iluvmycam

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Re: Websites
« Reply #3 on: February 02, 2015, 05:56:01 pm »

I use Tumblr...have 30 something of them.
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PeterAit

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Re: Websites
« Reply #4 on: February 03, 2015, 07:55:02 am »

I have used WebHostingHub for years - very inexpensive and great tech support. I have always used Lightroom and then JuiceBox Builder to create galleries for upload, but WHH does offer a number of photo gallery apps as well as online sales and other apps, but I have not tried them.
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Justan

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Re: Websites
« Reply #5 on: February 03, 2015, 11:06:46 am »

Fwiw, beware of using cost as the sole or primary criteria. Many web sites have considerably less than 100% uptime, and/or little to no support and horrid response times. Plus if you need any server side services make sure those are included with the package and that they provide some assistance with them, if needed.

MarkM

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Re: Websites
« Reply #6 on: February 03, 2015, 04:06:03 pm »

I just did a self-coded update of my website and I can tell you first hand that competing with services like photoshelter, squarespace, and aPhotoFolio is at the point where it isn't worth the effort, even if you enjoy the process.

When you look closely at these services, $30/month is a bargain for this:
  • Images served on a CDN, which means fast, caching edge servers around the world.
  • Seamless mobile support — this is no longer a nice option; it's a requirement.
  • Professional user interface for both you, when managing images, and your viewers.
  • Designers who are on top of trends in the photo industry
  • Good support

If you are serious about being in business, this is too important. You can find plenty of $5/month hosts, but it's very unlikely that you will be able to design a site, or even reasonably hire a designer, that will compete well with these services. They are setting the bar really high right now and frankly, it's hard to understand how they are doing it so cheaply. Viewers make a decision about you in less than a second based almost entirely on the design of the site and you often don't get a second chance.

If this isn't business-critical and is more of a personal site, maybe something like 500px would work? I think $6/month will get you an account with which you can use your own domain.
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HSakols

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Re: Websites
« Reply #7 on: February 03, 2015, 06:23:26 pm »

If you find your own host and build your own site you can pay more like 30-40 a year not a month.  My host is My Small Orange and I found my domain name through Go Daddy.  I think that a personalized site stands out more. Unless you are selling a lot of photos $30 a month is too much. 
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MarkM

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Re: Websites
« Reply #8 on: February 03, 2015, 06:40:39 pm »

If you find your own host and build your own site you can pay more like 30-40 a year not a month.  My host is My Small Orange and I found my domain name through Go Daddy.  I think that a personalized site stands out more. Unless you are selling a lot of photos $30 a month is too much. 

Is this the site you're talking about, or a different one?
http://www.yosemitecollection.com
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HSakols

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Re: Websites
« Reply #9 on: February 03, 2015, 06:47:11 pm »

That's mine and it needs to be updated.  I am re editing  a number of portfolios that I will make into Juicebox Web Galleries.  Keep in mind this is my hobby and I've pretty much given up on trying to make money with photography. 
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MarkM

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Re: Websites
« Reply #10 on: February 03, 2015, 06:57:33 pm »

That's mine and it needs to be updated.  I am re editing  a number of portfolios that I will make into Juicebox Web Galleries.  Keep in mind this is my hobby and I've pretty much given up on trying to make money with photography. 

Okay, but then you are dealing with an entirely different, and much looser, set of requirements than someone who is counting on a website to be their first introduction to potential clients and customers. You are in the nice position of being able to do whatever makes you happy regardless of how well it performs. In this case, sure, $30/month is a lot to justify. But considering this is the Pro Business discussion board, I'm working on the assumption that people will depend the site to perform at a certain level.
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Roscolo

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Re: Websites
« Reply #11 on: February 03, 2015, 07:54:41 pm »

Have a few websites for my photography business, printing business, and for my gallery, as well as one for my wife's business. Use Wordpress for all of them, using 2 paid templates @ $40 each. Pay about $35 / month for my own VPS (virtual private server) so my sites don't get bogged down like they do on shared accounts (i.e. all the cheap hosting out there). Worth every penny. Wordpress is extremely intuitive and easy to use.

And if you use Wordpress, look into DesktopServer ServerPress. Makes it easy to build Wordpress sites locally, then upload to server. Major time and hassle saver.
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jferrari

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Re: Websites
« Reply #12 on: February 03, 2015, 09:10:35 pm »

Have a few websites for my photography business, printing business, and for my gallery, as well as one for my wife's business. Use Wordpress for all of them, using 2 paid templates @ $40 each.

What plugin and theme did you use for your printing business? Thanks.   - Jim
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Martin Ranger

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Re: Websites
« Reply #13 on: February 03, 2015, 11:49:49 pm »

I don't know if they are cheaper than Photoshelter but I highly recommend Aphotofolio:  http://aphotofolio.com/

+1
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Martin Ranger
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Mike Sellers

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Re: Websites
« Reply #14 on: February 05, 2015, 12:15:09 pm »

has anyone signed up with www.artstorefronts.com ?
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JeanMichel

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Re: Websites
« Reply #15 on: February 05, 2015, 03:48:50 pm »

I am happy with Zenfolio
Jean-Michel
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MarkM

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Re: Websites
« Reply #16 on: February 05, 2015, 06:28:07 pm »

I am happy with Zenfolio
Jean-Michel

Jean-Michel, are you happy with Zenfolio for personal reasons, i.e. easy-to-use, affordable, etc., or because it's actually performing by bring customers and sales to you. I ask because I've never seen a Zenfolio site that doesn't look Zenfolio-ish. By that I mean a site with a bunch of information your average user doesn't care about such as: random image metadata like capture time, the number of visitors, comments on individual images, or password protected and empty galleries exposed to the public interface. All of these things, at least to me, seem to interfere with any attempt to create a strongly branded presence.

Having said that, if it's working, it's working, which is why I'm asking.
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pixjohn

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Re: Websites
« Reply #17 on: February 05, 2015, 07:05:20 pm »

Just a few personal thoughts after reading this thread,  since I am in the process of changing my web site www.Johngibbel.com  from Flash to HTML5. I did most of the work on my previous website with a little coding help from a freelancer, but now want to move to a simpler way to update to html5.  The notes below are my own personal thoughts.  I would rather have my web site on my own server, since I already have 2 other sites running on it.

www.aPhotoFolio.com  $17.00 per month + $1000 setup fee or $34.00 per month no set up fee’s. I like the look and feel, setup fee is way to high and monthly is a little high.

www.SquareSpace.com - $16.00 per month, sample site does not resize to screen, cutting off part of window.      Template Site html5

www.Photoshelter.com -   $29.99 per month. Each page you have to click to go to gallery, then click again on a image to view gallery instead of going directly to the gallery image. Template Site html5


www.livebooks.com - $19.00 per month or $199 year. Sample on site is different then the real photographers website?  I don’t like the sample page- powered by live books on the website. The photographer's real site does not have that link. I am also not sure if you can rename portfolio 1,  portfolio 2, portfolio 3 to custom names.  Livebooks use to have a  good name but since the ownership change they have lots of negative reviews.

http://www.zenfolio.com $140.00 per year, Template site HTML5 & Flash
Similar look  to other sites.
Dislike most of the templates, you have to click through to gallery then click again to see gallery of images then click image to view full size images.

http://www.artstorefronts.com
Looks more like photography retail then portfolio site

http://format.com $20.75 per month. I did not like having a link for the host on the page.  Sample was very slow to load images. I also viewed a few sites using format and did not like having to look around on how to scroll images. I then noticed you have to use the scroll bar on the bottom to slide images.  
« Last Edit: February 05, 2015, 07:11:20 pm by pixjohn »
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MarkM

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Re: Websites
« Reply #18 on: February 05, 2015, 07:22:49 pm »


www.SquareSpace.com - $16.00 per month, sample site does not resize to screen, cutting off part of window.      Template Site html5


Almost all the photographer's sites I've seen on Squarespace are responsive and resize quite well. For example: http://sbelangerphotography.com/ Maybe the sample you saw wasn't a responsive template.
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pixjohn

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Re: Websites
« Reply #19 on: February 05, 2015, 09:53:12 pm »

another site I viewed

www.Dripbook.com $350 for the year. I like that I can run the site on my own server. I also like the look of the sites. I dislike having the powered by Dripbook ad on my site. The drip book site also has its own website to search for photographers. (I am not sure if that is useful?
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