One account / Two accounts?

M38A1M38A1 Registered Users Posts: 1,317 Major grins
edited April 4, 2015 in Mind Your Own Business
I've finally decided I'm going to put significant effort into trying to sell myself and work. I know - go find a different profession....., right?

Background: I have two Smuggie sites to include the beginnings of my portfolio/nice work and a second site/account that has been my 'shoebox' forever. The 'shoebox' holds 99.9% of the images I shoot for fun, clients and charity. Over the years, I have TONS of linking URL's to the 'shoebox' account in hundreds of galleries. I really don't want it to go away for all those links. It has a standard Smuggie URL. My new portfolio site is tied to my domain name and VERY limited in what I have there. Call it my best stuff to date I've moved there or recently shot.

So my questions are:

1) Is it better to keep them separate or merge them at this point and if so, why?

2) IF I wanted to kill the portfolio account tied directly to my domain name,
a) Can I redirect the domain name to point to the 'shoebox' account and revamp that?
b) Will all my links to external forums and the like remain intact if I do that?
c) Are there disadvantages or advantages to such an approach?
d) And if I do this and revamp the site, will the gallery links remain the same?

I'm wanting to move towards sports shooting in a few fields and continue my charity shooting. I want to increase my exposure in adventure/athletic type portraits as well as showcase some personal projects I'm working on. Just trying to figure out what the best approach is. One account or two accounts.

Thoughts?


Thanks.


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Comments

  • denisegoldbergdenisegoldberg Administrators Posts: 14,383 moderator
    edited April 4, 2015
    M38A1 wrote: »
    I've finally decided I'm going to put significant effort into trying to sell myself and work. I know - go find a different profession....., right?

    Background: I have two Smuggie sites to include the beginnings of my portfolio/nice work and a second site/account that has been my 'shoebox' forever. The 'shoebox' holds 99.9% of the images I shoot for fun, clients and charity. Over the years, I have TONS of linking URL's to the 'shoebox' account in hundreds of galleries. I really don't want it to go away for all those links. It has a standard Smuggie URL. My new portfolio site is tied to my domain name and VERY limited in what I have there. Call it my best stuff to date I've moved there or recently shot.

    So my questions are:

    1) Is it better to keep them separate or merge them at this point and if so, why?

    2) IF I wanted to kill the portfolio account tied directly to my domain name,
    a) Can I redirect the domain name to point to the 'shoebox' account and revamp that?
    b) Will all my links to external forums and the like remain intact if I do that?
    c) Are there disadvantages or advantages to such an approach?
    d) And if I do this and revamp the site, will the gallery links remain the same?

    I'm wanting to move towards sports shooting in a few fields and continue my charity shooting. I want to increase my exposure in adventure/athletic type portraits as well as showcase some personal projects I'm working on. Just trying to figure out what the best approach is. One account or two accounts.

    Thoughts?
    Your sites are very different currently. You could start by migrating your 'shoebox' account to new smug so the difference isn't quite as jarring.

    If you want the links you have given out to your shoebox account to continue to work and you decide to collapse the two smug sites into one then you need to keep the smug URL for your shoebox account the same as it is currently and you need to specify a custom domain for that smug URL. I believe that if you don't change the folder structure the links will continue to work - but if you change the internal structure I'm not sure what will happen. Perhaps someone from SmugMug can answer that question.

    If you are looking to move more into the business side of photography then I believe you will be better served by two sites. Do you really want prospective clients to be looking through your personal photos? Some of the photos on your shoebox site are good examples of your work; others are not.

    --- Denise
    https://www.denisegoldberg.com ... https://denise.smugmug.com

    Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
  • M38A1M38A1 Registered Users Posts: 1,317 Major grins
    edited April 4, 2015
    Thank you, Denise...

    I totally understand what you are saying about the two accounts remaining, well.... two for business reasons. You only want your best work in the port site, so why clutter/confuse prospective clients with other material.

    And if I did decide to merge them, it would be a reformat of the shoebox site and REALLY pare it down to a TON of hidden galleries so I could keep the existing links. That does introduce the technical question of just how to do that.....

    If I went that route, I'd envision my domain name I have pointing to the shoebox account and properly display if the URL for every page, not the shoebox account name. THAT's the big question at the moment.

    Again, thanks for the reply.


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