This guest blog is by Ellen Petty, the Head Brandslinger at Identity Kitchen, a marketing and design studio specializing in photographers. She and her business partner Marty Thornley just launched a new line of affordable all-in-one WordPress portfolio sites designed specifically for professional photographers at PhotographyBlogSites.com.
Early in 2009, Marty Thornley and I sat down to discuss a more efficient way for photographers to display their work online. We had both, separately, been working with photographers, and discussed the idea of an all-in-one portfolio blogsite that looks and feels like a flash site, with all the SEO benefits of a WordPress blog. We made our wish list; social media integration, customization, easy-to-use backend, unlimited galleries, and integration of fantastic photography tools. After developing many, many custom blogsites for photographers, we saw our theories in action and set out to develop Photography Blogsites.
WE STARTED THINKING ABOUT WEB PRESENCE
Creating a web presence from scratch is simply too much work. You need a hosting account, a website, a blog, facebook, twitter, etc. etc… That's already 3 or 4 places to login and update. If you have a second or third branch of your business this could be multiplied over and over. Like any software, WordPress needs to be updated from time to time. While WordPress itself has become pretty easy to automatically upgrade, sometimes the theme and/or plugins you have been using are not up to date with the new version. So you go through the automatic upgrade and your site breaks. To do this correctly you would backup your database and all your files in case something goes wrong. The problem is, do you know how to backup a database and restore it when something goes wrong? And if you do, you know this process takes a while. Again multiply this by all of your sites. It's not fun.
We set out to make this faster, easier and less expensive, while still providing all the SEO benefits, the support, the security and backups, and the upgrades. All the difficult stuff becomes much easier because we are offering sites on a networked system. We can fix any problems, answer any questions and best of all, release exciting new features to everyone at once. You will always have the latest features immediately.
THEN WE PERFECTED THE FEATURES
a) EASE OF USE
Our system is a networked installation, called WordPress Multisite. We backup everything twice daily and upgrade all of our plugins and themes, as well as the core WordPress files ourselves to make sure they are up to date and will continue working without a hitch. The process is totally seamless to site owners, who will never see the upgrade messages or worry about backups or upgrades or broken sites.
There is no need for hosting. No need for installation of anything. Ever. You don't even need to check your email for a confirmation link. The signup process takes about thirty seconds and your site is ready to start using. From there, our free trial period lasts 7 days. You won't even be asked for any payment information from us unless you decide to activate a subscription plan.
b) ALL IN ONE SITE
One login gives you access to the portfolio site, the galleries, and the blog. Everything is all one. We offer unlimited galleries, unlimited informational pages, your blog, plus a hub for your social media marketing efforts. One address, one place to maintain so you can get back to taking photos, your passion, and the reason you got into this in the first place.
c) SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a huge, often misunderstood, topic. What it comes down to is making sure that your site is as visible and findable as possible. While search engines like Google are a big part of this, you also need to be found on Twitter and/or Facebook. You need to be visible to iPhones and mobile devices. This means that your site should built 100% using HTML, and not Flash. There are varying arguments in the whole Flash vs. HTML debate. The only way for Flash sites to compete in the SEO world is to have secondary version called mirror sites for search engines, and a third site for mobile devices. Not only do visitors potentially see three different sites but these are three different pieces of code to maintain and worry about upgrading. Add to that a separate blog, sometimes on a different domain that opens in a different window.
One more argument for a Flash-free portfolio site, just last week Google announced a new feature called Instant Preview, which adds a snapshot of your site to the right of your search results. Unless, your site is Flash, which previews as a grey box. This will revolutionize how potential clients will do their searching. You can find out more information on our blog.
WordPress takes care of 90% of the on page SEO. We have put in some extra features to help take care of the rest. All of the standard SEO plugins are installed automatically: All in One SEO PAck, SEO Friendly Images, XML sitemaps are automatically generated and sent to Google, Yahoo and Bing. We have also developed a plugin in house specifically for photographers called SEO Image Galleries. The only WordPress gallery that uses 100% HTML (no Flash) and automatically adds valuable ALT attributes to every images.
d) EASY TO CUSTOMIZE
Out of the box, WordPress is not an automatic website/blog. You need to hire an outside programmer/designer to work a theme to your liking. That is where we come in. We created themes where just about every aspect can be easily customized by uploading patterns, logos, favicons, social media icons, blog post separators, your photos, or choosing from the options we have included in each theme. You can change the color or fonts on your menu, change the color the menu rollover the background. The possibilities are virtually endless.
e) COST
These sites replace a portfolio site, a blog and any hosting you might need for both. Our lifetime plans are a one-time payment, nothing else to buy ever, no monthly fees ever. Our monthly or yearly plans include everything – your full site, built in blog and hosting. For anyone totally happy with their current website, we also have a blog only versions of all of our themes.
f) SUPPORT
We have put together a support site focused on our sites, but is also a great resource for anyone using WordPress. We have detailed documentation, tutorial videos and a forum. If you have a question or concern, we have a built in ticket system that can be accessed directly from your site.
g) SECURITY & BACKUPS
To help prevent problems, we have enlisted a number of plugins and settings to make sure spam is kept to a minimum and the security of the site is as solid as possible. In the worst-case scenario that something does happen, the best way to protect a site is to have a good backup plan. We backup our database twice a day and all of our content once a day. The backups are stored both locally on our server and remotely.
h) AND FINALLY WE LAUNCHED
We are proud to announce our first three themes in both blogsite and blog-only forms: Latte, Espresso and Cuppa Joe. Because we believe in our product so much, we offer a 7-day free trial. Take our sites for a spin. You can upload your work, writes some posts, link your Twitter and Facebook, and even seamlessly switch between all our themes.
We are offering an introductory lifetime membership for $499. That includes all our themes (now and forever), 4 GB of hosting on our screaming fast servers, our support, maintenance and much, much more. For a full list of features visit our features section. This offer will end on November 30, 2010.
We’d love to hear your thoughts as we will keep developing our sites to be the best they can be. As always, thank you so much for your support!
Win on BLACK FRIDAY 11/26/2010! Photography Blogsites is generously offering ONE LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP (Worth $499) to a Tiffinbox subscriber. Here is how you may be able to win:
1) Follow @photoblogsites on Twitter
2) Tweet the following:
“I just read about Affordable WordPress Portfolio Websites @Photoblogsites on @PicSeshu’s Tiffinbox. #photoblogsites Please RT!”
3) Comment below and tell me WHY you deserve to win. Don’t forget to mention your Twitter handle so that I can make sure you have done both. We need to see a minimum of 50 real, honest, entries before I can give this away on Black Friday 11/26/2010. So whatchawaitinfor?
Latest posts by Ellen Petty (see all)
- 9 Steps To Building A Better Photography Brand & Boosting Your Business - January 25, 2012
- Easy-To-Use WordPress Portfolio Websites - November 18, 2010
Following you guys on Twitter and spread the word, my Twitter handle is @raychela
Why do I deserve to win?
Well right now I feel totally overwhelmed by the social media aspect of my photography and can’t tell you how many times I have wished for the ability to have everything all in one place. It would be a dream come true to actually have that happen. Right now my photography/portfolio site is hosted at a place that I have to pay yearly for, and even have to pay more if I want certain features. It is has been a complete pain to even get the site to my liking, since “tricks” have to be employed to make things look a certain way, and if you want to do it yourself, not only do you need to be a photographer but often times also a programmer of sorts, entering your own code, etc. I’m a photographer, I want to be able to share what I do easily, not fuss over code and the design of my site constantly.
Of course the site where I have my portfolio doesn’t have the ability to also have a blog all in one place. So I have to host my blog elsewhere. Along with integrating Twitter, Facebook, etc. It is a constant back and forth and I often feel like I spend more time updating and tweaking social media than photography.
My dream would definitely be to have a situation where I had everything in one place, cutting down on the time I have to spend behind my computer instead of behind my camera. I don’t want to feel like my online presence is stunted due to the fact that nobody else seems to understand why photographers need all their web presence as much as possible in one space.
I’d love to win because I’m always looking for wonderful photographer specific WordPress themes and these look pretty sweet!
Twitter @scottwyden
Great stuff, I think this is definitely where websites are headed. Great overall design and ease of use. All wrapped in a very pretty package :)
Keep it up!
Dustin Meyer
@ValerramaPhoto is following you now!
Why do we deserve to win? Because we’ve been looking for each other and this post is the eHarmony of our connection. I think we match on 8, no, 9 points of compatibility in terms of our common goal. Seriously, though, I’ve thrown good money after bad trying to find the right solution for our web/blogsite. I’ve gone for the popular and the trendy. Now that I’ve found it and matured enough in the industry and know what I’m doing and what I want, I’m out of money!
Also, I have a ton of photofriends in the same boat as far as looking for a website/blog solution and once I tell them how awesome your product is working and how much more streamlined my business is, I’m sure to bring you more smiling customers!
Wendy
Even though I’m not affraid to get my hands dirty and code my own WordPress site (I used to wear the hat of Webmaster), I think #photoblogsites has created a beautiful smart option that saves time and money even for us DIY photogs. This is so much nicer than the bludomain type site because it works on mobile and ipad–which is where everyone is moving AND gives you the incentive to create content that brings new clients to your site. I most like the option of being able to switch themes. Beautifly done. Wish I’d thought of it myself ;-)
Why do I deserve a free blog site? Well, I’m sure this will be a very hard decision for you to pick just one winner. I mean, aren’t we all deserving in some way? For me, I’ve had multiple incarnations of my website. The first was an ugly html site made for me by a friend who was a massage therapist (it’s still painful, don’t ask). Next, was an “upgrade” which included an even uglier html site that I couldn’t update because I was totally computer illiterate (i.e. film shooter). Next, add in charges for every time I needed a change (which according to my bank statements, was pretty often). Third incarnation, enter the sexy flash template. Sigh. Where do i even begin? Well, it isn’t very sexy anymore (in fact I’m embarrassed to even let clients see it), and it’s completely hindering my search engine rankings. I’m not able to update it much by myself, so I get dinged every time I need a change (cha ching!). This probably explains why I haven’t updated it in 2 years (did I really just admit that publicly, oh gawd.) Oh, and did I mention that the customer service is well, less than stellar? So, now I find myself yet again looking for an answer. I was just about to go with a new flash template (with html mirror site and mobile site…..geez, that’s a LOT of sites). But, then I got to thinking…..and I got to talking with some SEO people….and I got turned on to the idea of blog sites. Really, it kind of seems like the best of all worlds. SEO friendly, looks good, user friendly, customizable. What’s not to like? So, Marty and Ellen, please save me from myself (and from a possibly disastrous 4th website), and choose me to be the deserving photographer for one of your blog sites. Your blog site will actually make my life easier and give me back some freedom and time to put towards the things we all want as photographers…to actually shoot more AND grow/promote our business. We are photographers after all, not SEO experts or web designers/masters or IT people (thank god, right?) Being able to do more of what you love and less of what you don’t….wow, what a concept! I think you two are on to something good here….real good. It’s just a matter of time before the word gets out. And I would *love* to be your ambassador.
@SLRbabe
This must be the chance encounter my horoscope was telling me about. I can now delete my craigslist post. I believe that I deserve to win because my time is valuable. As of right now my content and time management skills have been all over the place as I work full time, attend school part-time AND attempt to start up my very own photography business. This would take a bit-o-stress off my plate and I would greatly appreciate it.
Besides, after I win I owe my LIFE to you for a lifetime membership… meaning free advertising and telling grand tales about your great service =)
Thanks for the consideration!
@clarkmc07
I deserve to win because I have been looking for a great place to show case my photography for more than a year. Your service appears to offer everything I have been looking for.
@Ladyexpat
@paulglavin Why should I be the lucky soul? Being a web developer and a wordpress blokey you would have thought my site would be fantastic, I’ve had my logos done by identity kitchen, new shiny business cards and other bits but still my old website. Every spare moment I get is normally filled by other clients asking for changes, tweaks and design changes to their sites. As much as I’d like to do my own I never seem to have the time and with a new mouth to feed in the family I could use all of the help I can get!
Please rescue me.
@paigeandblake
We have been updating our website and blog as long as we have been in business (about 3 years)
Every year we do the same song and dance with our website company and I don’t feel like I have the energy for them this year.
I see the value and need for a website and I know we need one, but my heart is in our blog, not our site.
Our website is like our business card. Its what Mothers of the Bride need to see, but our blog is like a conversation with us and what brides get addicted to.
A blogsite would the answer to our prayers!
We would certainly sing its praises throughout the photography community, and we would be so very grateful.
LOVIN the blogsites! I have a blog and a website, but I keep dreaming about combining the two. I have a great photography business in NY, but I just moved to Arizona 2 weeks ago and I NEED a new IDENTITY – nobody knows me here! I am starting my business, along with everything else in my life, from scratch out here, so I have the chance to give my web presence a fresh new facelift as I paint walls, install floors, and make new friends. Oh and never shovel snow again….Your blogsites are beautiful, thoughtful, and perfectly timed as far as I’m concerned. Please please pick me for your lifetime membership. I’ve had a website for forever, now I want a web presence!