Websites

[betterman]

August 14, 2011 at 8:32 pm

Hi there,

Looking for the advice of photographers with experience of running a website.

I’m helping a friend with his marketing (he’s the photographer (talent!), not me) and the very first thing that needs addressing is his website.

Now, I’m full of ideas for marketing/promotion for him, but I’m not great on web development – to put it mildly. I run my own blog and I’m grand with analytics, SEO etc But for the actual development of a website, I’m not the man.

I’ve been researching various templates/services etc (e.g. Photocratic, Photoshelter etc) and checking out the options. Here’s what I need really:

Something that:

– Looks good and works.
– Is powered by an easy-to-use CMS (like WordPress), so my friend can easily use it for his business without having to get too technical about it, coding in particular is a no-no.
– Is ecommerce enabled so he can easily sell his work.
– Has the capacity for a huge amount of images. He is mainly a press photographer and would be adding up to 200 (or more) photos to this site every week. It will have to have a massive archive then.
– Doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

I’m sure plenty of you have been down this road.

What are people’s opinions, experience and advice?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[bigalguitarpicker]

August 14, 2011 at 10:05 pm

Have a look at Clikpic, their SuperPro website might suit.

[JonathanCurran]

August 16, 2011 at 7:38 pm

Hi,
I used Clikpic’s superpro package for a few years and changed over to Photoshelter.
I would definitely recommend Photoshelter, you don’t need to be a web developer to get a professional looking site up and going but if you are it’s fully customizable as well.
You can upload full res files for distribution etc where Clikpic limit you to 200 or 300Kb.
Photoshelter have everything that you’ll ever need and they are constantly updating and improving.
They regularly have special offers so you can save money on storage, fees etc.

Just on your requirements.
Its very easy to used and they have any amount of tutorials.
It can be integrated with world press.
It has a very good e-commerce section for on-line selling, instant sales for prints, electronic downloads etc.
The main package has 35GB storage and the top one has 100GB but you can add on as much as you need.
The basic package is €230 per year.

Jonathan.