Websites

Mel1960

Mel1960

Suspended / Banned
Messages
105
Name
Mel
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi,
not sure this is the right place but I would like some advice about a new website! I would like one I can add and remove photos from and which has a private area for clients to view wedding photos!
I havent got a huge amount of money, but I need to get something going asap!
Thanks
MEL ;)
 
I've just started a zenfolio website and it seems almost too good to be true.
It's all essentially there already apart from your pictures and words.
Passworded galleries, direct ordering and printing, right click protection etc.

I'm very impressed. My trial term runs out shortly and I'm definitely going to pay for the service. Well worth it imho
 
Danny_Two said:
You can have a basic Zenfolio account for around £20 a year, you'll be able to have password protected galleries with that.
Have a look here http://www.zenfolio.com/
Click to expand...

JKP photographic said:
I've just started a zenfolio website and it seems almost too good to be true.
It's all essentially there already apart from your pictures and words.
Passworded galleries, direct ordering and printing, right click protection etc.

I'm very impressed. My trial term runs out shortly and I'm definitely going to pay for the service. Well worth it imho
Click to expand...

I just clicked both of your links from work and our security filter blocked them.

How is Zenfolio for SEO? It doesn't matter how easy to use a website is if your potential customers can't find you!

If they allow such a great startup package what happens when you expand? What are the limitations for your £20 a year?

To the OP, is this just a gallery site, or is it intended to attract business?

What should be obvious - though often isn't, is that SEO is about the most important aspect of a website if it's your shopfront.

When I search my locality for a wedding photographer, the top ranking sites are either Wordpress based or custom built. This tells me that if I can't afford an expert to custom build me a site, Wordpress is cheap easy to maintain and effective.
 
Guys I have recently created my website through Zenfolio. I am having an unlimited account. It will work as a great showcase as well as storage of your photos, really safe option. Please have a look at my website.- www.sanclicks.com

Aso if you want to sign up use my code..You will get £5 off in any plan.
My code is - SH8-YPE-SUX

thanks.
 
JKP photographic said:
I've just started a zenfolio website and it seems almost too good to be true.
It's all essentially there already apart from your pictures and words.
Passworded galleries, direct ordering and printing, right click protection etc.

I'm very impressed. My trial term runs out shortly and I'm definitely going to pay for the service. Well worth it imho
Click to expand...

Hey use my code. it will save £5 on any plan.
My code is -SH8-YPE-SUX

thanks.
 
Phil V said:
I just clicked both of your links from work and our security filter blocked them.
Click to expand...

Strange, can't think why your IT would block that.

Phil V said:
is Zenfolio for SEO? It doesn't matter how easy to use a website is if your potential customers can't find you!
Click to expand...

You can use your own URL and even remove all zenfolio branding.

Phil V said:
they allow such a great startup package what happens when you expand? What are the limitations for your £20 a year?
Click to expand...

The higher packages are more geared for pro's, lots of e-commerce options and bigger storage, watermarks etc. Limitations for basic package is 2Gb of storage, but you get an extra Gb a year as a loyalty bonus for free.
 
Phil V said:
How is Zenfolio for SEO? It doesn't matter how easy to use a website is if your potential customers can't find you!
Click to expand...

Danny_Two said:
You can use your own URL and even remove all zenfolio branding.
Click to expand...

That isn't an answer to that very important question. To a pro or an aspiring pro, website rankings are the most important function of a website, so a site which helps create good Search Engine friendly content is more important than cheap hosting or scalability.

If your site isn't a shop front it doesn't matter.

That's why I asked the OP if the site was needed as a shop front, and why I asked zenfolio users, how good is zenfolio for SEO.

If the only way to find my website is by typing Phil Vaughan Photography into Google I'm stuffed:gag: because only people who already know about me will be using that search.

I need to be found by people searching for various important keywords around my location:) - by people looking for a wedding photographer;) If the OP needs the same functions they need to fully understand their options.
 
Phil V said:
I just clicked both of your links from work and our security filter blocked them.
Click to expand...

Danny_Two said:
Strange, can't think why your IT would block that.
Click to expand...

Our overly cautious IT security bods have classified zenfolio as 'downloads' so all zenfolio hosted sites are blocked.

I also clicked Santanu's site and it looked very strange in IE6 (it's amazing how many corporations still use it;))

When I say strange - I mean unusable.
 
Phil V said:
Our overly cautious IT security bods have classified zenfolio as 'downloads' so all zenfolio hosted sites are blocked.

I also clicked Santanu's site and it looked very strange in IE6 (it's amazing how many corporations still use it;))

When I say strange - I mean unusable.
Click to expand...

Have a word with your it dept, chances are they use a filter that has a database of sites/classifications and if zenfolio doesn't appear it makes a best guess based on content. A quick email might get it reclassified for out of hours purposes.

No need for ie6 what with compatibility mode, that's just lazy of your it dept. More and more sites are dropping support for ie6, hsbc for example.
 
neil_g said:
Have a word with your it dept, chances are they use a filter that has a database of sites/classifications and if zenfolio doesn't appear it makes a best guess based on content. A quick email might get it reclassified for out of hours purposes.

No need for ie6 what with compatibility mode, that's just lazy of your it dept. More and more sites are dropping support for ie6, hsbc for example.
Click to expand...

Not to put too fine a point on this - I work in IT support for my employer, they have well over 100,000 desktops deployed - they have a number of business critical apps which depend on IE6, work has been ongoing for a fair while to have these upgraded for a later version of IE - current estimates are on a rollout of IE8 sometime in 2014. :(

Do you really think a quick email from their front line support staff is going to utch them along a bit?:wave:

But, yes I probably could get zenfolio reclassified. However I know exactly how to do that - but I'm not a potential portrait or wedding customer - all of who'm (remember the 100,000+ desktops) haven't yet done this:thinking:

Now zenfolio and their customers can be as frustrated as they like about this (I would bet my corporate environment is quite typical of large govt depts) - but as a website owner and a small business, it's MY job to get my site in front of as many people as possible. Which is why I've just dumped my old flash site in favour of wordpress;)

And we do get an install of Firefox for when it's really necessary - but it's set to not use cookies, favourites, etc.
 
neil_g said:
so do we. doesnt stop you getting newer versions of IE out and using compatibility mode via group policy.. :)
Click to expand...
I hate to be blunt...:baby:
But, we can argue all night about how well or badly a major govt IT contract is managed (which is badly btw).

However the point of my post is that a business looking for customers needs to make it's products accessible.

There are some very nice portfolio websites linked in this thread - but none by Professional Photographers successfully using them to Find Work!!:bang: They are often used by event type photographers for after sales - but that's a different kettle of fish.

Zenfolio sites might be inexpensive and easy to maintain, but they don't appear to be very good at doing what most pro photographers need - :thinking:

I visited their site and looked for what they had to say about how great their sites worked across a multitude of browsers, and how they automatically led you into producing great SEO content - didn't find anything - just found lots of shots of nice looking portfolio sites (ie. not pro photographers sites) and lots of blurb about how easy they are to run.

So, if the OP just needs a site that's easy to set up and maintain - then Zenfolio might be worth a look - however if he needs a practical value for money web presence to advertise his business, my opinion is that Zenfolio isn't the best choice.:D

He should look at Wordpress, with a decent quality template (not a free one - unless he wants to learn all about how to optimise it).

However - if we have any Zenfolio users who are pro photographers ranking on the first page in Google for their chosen search terms - show us your site, I'm happy to be proven wrong.:)

Just as an aside - it was the lack of Flash which made the one site I could access at work look awful - tried it on my iphone - even worse:(
Sites that use flash should at least be programmed to show an alternative in the absence of a flash player :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top