Website advice

[GeoffWessex]

I've been quite impressed by Zenfoliio but if/when I get to a point where I want to make sales they only have 'print partners' in the USA and UK. In Canada, even though the site handles Canadian currency (and most others) that would mean having prints shipped across about 3000 miles and, while I'm not exactly a totally 'Green' person, that makes no sense at all to me. So I need to organise it 'manually' via a local printer. Should be fine for UK users, though, where the distances involved are relatively very short. No idea what the UK price is but it's only US$25 a year in USA/Canada.

[ABERS]

Originally Posted by Matthew Forrest

hmm so much to choose from!!

To anyone who has a website has it been an advantage having one e.g exposure,work,sales ect or much the same??

It's what you want from it I suppose. Just having a web site won't work miracles. The first hurdle to having one is to get people to look at it and that is not as simple as it sounds.

I've had a Clikpic one for about 2 1/2 years now and at the latest call had some14,000 + visits and 54,000 + page views. I have no idea how that stacks up with any other non-commercial photographic web site, but I'm reasonably pleased with the results. I'm a bit lazy and don't always update it as regularly as I should, by doing that it apparently moves it up the search engines list. It's another source of satisfaction to google your name along with photography and see it come out high on the list. That doesn't mean that your photography is any good but it means that people don't mind having a look!. I find it more satifying to have one visit with 25 page views rather than 25 visits with one page view each.

As someone pointed out Clikpic has the facility for sales but I'm not interested in that side of things but on a few occasions it has raised interest from prospective purchasers asking the question if they can buy a copy of such and such an image.

My greatest pleasure is that my pictures are seen globally and the site is visited from places that I've never heard of and it also allows contact with other photographers that otherwise you would never have.

[GeoffWessex]

If you're making your own site, you could also check out Jalbum - a completely free (though you can make donations) web gallery/slideshow.... you can have any number of 'albums' integrated on your website (and don't forget most ISPs give you free webspace). Can be a little tricky to work out the various options in the downloadable control program but once you get the hang of it it's very good. Lots of different themes available and you can change the styles without rebuilding from scratch. There is a shopping cart facility which can be configured how you want.

They even do a book/printed album but it's a lot more expensive than Blurb - though it's a hardback book. For the book-album you just hit a button on your control program and follow the very simple instructions.... but I have many albums on my photo club website and I wanted to check the price to put one of them into book form..... 80 images = $70 (I think it's 20 images for a reasonable price, then 75c for each extra image) .

I mentioned Zenfolio above.... for selling prints, Smugmug is a good choice too, but you need to watch where your prints are going to be made. They both take commission on each print. Both Zenfolio and Smugmug are set up with California and UK printers, or you work out your own. Obviously simpler to go with their own but, again, I just don't want to have prints travelling huge distances. Carbon footprints etc.

[AndyStevens]

Has my website been an advantage? Yes!! I've made sales from people viewing it - both prints and publications (see 'Inspirations' in last months (issue 39) PhotoPlus), gained a commission to shoot a particular scene and had loads of feedback from other photographers - which is nice to know other people like what I'm doing even if they dont buy anything.

It's also good to have a few business cards on you too - several times I've been speaking to people and hobbies come up. I mention photography, they ask if I have a website, I give them a card and some even buy something...

I use Google Analytics (which is free) so I can see how many people hit which page and where they come from - I can tell you that 16 people have clicked through from PhotoRadar in the last month! I don't use the paid version so I don't see exactly who has been on when, I just get an overview of how many people from which city/country.

I would say it's well worth the effort - but you need to keep updating the site. And I mean not just adding new images, change the home page, add a news column etc so each time someone looks, it's different and they're encouraged to stay a bit longer.

Cheers
Andy

[jon2kay]

Hi, Ive just set up one via moonfruit. very impressed so far. Its still in progress but as its flash based I can build it and add to it from anywhere I can get online.
Only thing im struggling with is getting the site to appear on google searches.
Plus im new to this forum thing so apologies for crashing your post!

www.jdkphotography.co.uk

[MattUK]

Don't the Click pic sites splash a "Image hosted by ClickPic" watermark across all of your images? Looks pretty ugly to me... (oxymoron)

[ABERS]

Originally Posted by MattUK

Don't the Click pic sites splash a "Image hosted by ClickPic" watermark across all of your images? Looks pretty ugly to me... (oxymoron)

It may be an option if you want it. You can have your own watermark if you think it necessary, but I agree it detracts from the image.

[Cutter]

Originally Posted by jon2kay

Hi, Ive just set up one via moonfruit. very impressed so far. Its still in progress but as its flash based I can build it and add to it from anywhere I can get online.
Only thing im struggling with is getting the site to appear on google searches.
Plus im new to this forum thing so apologies for crashing your post!

www.jdkphotography.co.uk

Google doesn't like flash that's why they don't put you up the list