Smugmug venting

[TXLEBER]

I posted this on dgrin's forum a little while ago. Just thought I'd post it here and get some other opinions/thoughts.

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Ok...just doing a litle venting/whining. http://www.dgrin.com/images/smilies/ne_nau.gif I've been trying to get my website customized so that it looks/works the way I want it. The more I work on it, the more frustrated I get. I've had some triumphs on figuring some stuff out, but at this point it seems as if I'm working more on customizing my website than on getting my business rolling.

My pro account is up for renewal soon. That'll be $149. Once I pay that, I'm still without a fully funtional website. I've been toying with the idea of having someone design/develop a website for me. I haven't gotten very far on my research for that idea. But from what I gather, if I use someone off shore, it won't be much more than the $149.

On the other hand, If I go out on my own, I won't have the features that smugmug offers like integrated ordering, printing, billing, shipping. I'd have to do all of that myself. At this point in my business I could handle that.

I don't want to disrespect anyone here at dgrin/smugmug...the support has been GREAT here. But I'm really thinking of what would work best for my and my business.

Ed

[Mary G Photo]

I use 1and1.com. Its only $10.00 per month and they gave my everything to set up my website for FREE. I have been with them for 8 months and have never had a problem with them. Plus there tech support is super quick with no waiting.

[Natural Imagez]

YOU may want to contact Jerry at this website and look at his. probably not the cheapest route to go, but look like pretty good quality. he can do about anything with a smugmug site.
http://www.jrphotosandwebdesign.com/gallery/1448761

[MJPhotos24]

...thats why I use Exposure Manager - cheaper and costomization is easy with a little html knowledge...
http://mikejanesphotography.exposuremanager.com/g/attica_vs_pembroke_vb_92007

[Road2Show]

...thats why I use Exposure Manager - cheaper and costomization is easy with a little html knowledge...
http://mikejanesphotography.exposuremanager.com/g/attica_vs_pembroke_vb_92007


Mike...do you host the images, or is it all EM based and you just integrate into your galleries into the web pages? Are they doing fullfillment or do you do it yourself?

[TXLEBER]

YOU may want to contact Jerry at this website and look at his. probably not the cheapest route to go, but look like pretty good quality. he can do about anything with a smugmug site.
http://www.jrphotosandwebdesign.com/gallery/1448761

Just sent him an email. Thanks for the tip!!

[Gary_Evans]

I can never understand why everyone seems to rave about Smugmug and all the other template sites. As the OP has found you can be, in his case, $149 down and still not have anything you can use.

Surely it makes sense to have your own site on one of the myriad of hosting companies available at a fraction of the cost, plus you can have a neat and tidy web address - no dot smugmug or whatever and a bespoke site as opposed to a template which although it may be customised to some degree its still just a template.

Just my thoughts ............

[tofuboy]

I agree that customizing smugmug can be a bit confusing. It took me a few days to get mine customized how I wanted, and I'm barely scratching the surface of how much customizing you can do with smugmug. I like that smugmug is very customizable, but that comes with a cost of it being a bit complicated.


plus you can have a neat and tidy web address - no dot smugmug or whatever

You can have the same thing with smugmug (or the other similar sites), all you need is a domain name and the ability to configure that domain name.

[TXLEBER]

Well I went with bludomain.com. I've seen some GREAT looking websites from their templates...yes...I said templates. I paid $100. I won't have to do much customization as it's pretty snazzy just the way it looks. The only thing I think I'll have to deal with is their customer service which I hear isn't quite up to par.

On a side note, I paid someone $40 to fix my problems on my smugmug site. I'll keep that up while my bludomain site is being built.

[MJPhotos24]

Mike...do you host the images, or is it all EM based and you just integrate into your galleries into the web pages? Are they doing fullfillment or do you do it yourself?

EM has unlimited storage, all the photos are hosted with them. The costomization is using there pricesheets and costom headers/footers along with some of the other stuff they offer. I have yet to find a printer better than Exposure Manager so I have them fulfill everything, never one complaint and when I order pics myself when I get them back am usually amazed at the quality and packaging (best in both fields). Great compay, cheaper than smuggie and costomization is unlimited really - I found a ton of cool stuff in there while doing that site that I didn't take advantage of yet.

[figmented]

hmm i think of smugmug as my ordering site, and my website as something different all together.. just my thoughts.. do both? wordpress and smugmug work wonders.

[tfitz]

hmm i think of smugmug as my ordering site, and my website as something different all together.. just my thoughts.. do both? wordpress and smugmug work wonders.

I do as well. I use smugmug for the proofing and ordering of prints because a site like that for $149 a year is pretty cheap if you can earn a profit on print sales not to mention the work it would take to do it on your own is much more expensive if approached from a "man hour" perspective. Also, it is a small addition to overall cost on top of keeping up a "front end" website for information, eye candy and overall display of your services. I too am using bludomain for the front-end website where the user first goes. There I "plan" on having portfolio galleries and services information. On the page there is a link to the smugmug site which is merely a subdomain name I use "galleries.thefitzgeraldphotography.com" that then forwards to the smugmug site which uses "frame forward" which allows the domain name to remain in the browser window, so it has a seamless feel. Seems to work great and like I said, if I can make $10,000 (secondary job) a year in photography work, with all the added expenses of lenses, equipment rentals, travel costs, blah blah blah, is $149 really that much?

[Blue S2]

I use smugmug as well for proofing. I do not have any ordering through the site for my clients. If they need physical prints, I will order them myself or get them done locally. I do find their site veyr efficient for proofing though. The speed and ease of loading and password protecting client sections is just great. I have the Smugmug page match an inverted version of my website. Clients can pull up their work at any time from the side of my website.