If I stay with SmugMug, what can I do...

ajava · January 4, 2012

...differently? I'm going through a "mid-career crisis". My current site was built with real estate photography in mind. It has evolved into really more of just a general "showcase" for my work, whatever the genre. Now, my photography career has moved more in the direction of wedding/portrait photography...and in order to really do it right, I think I need a site overhaul and a serious rebranding, something dedicated to wedding/portrait photography. But this is sooooo overwhelming, and here's why:

1. I LOVE everything about SmugMug EXCEPT how difficult it is to customize. For literally every customization I've made, I've had to post here and then pretty much rely on JFriend (or any of the other helpful regular responders) to get me my answer before I can proceed. Very frustrating. Then, if I need to go back at a later time, for more customizations, I will likely have forgotten what I learned the last time I worked on it. Bad customer service aside, it's soooo tempting to move over to something simple like BluDomain, BigFolio, etc.

2. SM is good, but isn't nearly as slick (looks-wise) as some of the other hosting sites. I'm not necessarily talking about flash, either. Just....I don't know....other photog sites I visit are so clean and simple. I know I can probably get there with SM, but again, the whole customization thing.

3. I just reserved another domain name. Can my SM Pro account host more than one site? I would have to pay for that, right? Full price?

4. Ugh. I can't remember what I was going to write.

I guess I'm looking for advice, mostly. I want to have a more professional, dedicated site - to show I'm serious. But I want to still have a place for my non-professional pix, as well. But I don't want to spend a ton of cash and make things all confusing, with multiple sites and all that comes with managing that sort of scenario. And the thought of customizing with SM is a downer. Some may love the flexibility, but it seems to me that most of the customizations are aimed at getting SM sites to "act" and "look" more like the the "slick' sites mentioned above.

Again, I'm mostly very pleased with my SM experience thus far and I'd love to continue with them. But I'm conflicted, for the reasons above. Any and all advice is welcomed. Thanks!!

phototristan · January 4, 2012

Hi,

We do understand that customizing your site can be an intimidating task, but don't worry, we've added a great tool called the Easy Customizer, which makes customizing a snap.

Power User: http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93333-customizing-your-site-easy-customizer
Pro Users: http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93338-easy-customizer

You can find it in the Customize tab of your Control Panel. With it you can easily click around and make site-wide changes, save your work for later or dial back changes you've made. You can even add a banner and other navigational elements, edit the footer, and much, much more.

Or, you might be interested in one of our certified customizers here:

http://www.smugmug.com/photos/example-photo-sharing-sites/?utm_campaign=propagesv1&utm_medium=brandingtab&utm_source=marketingpage&utm_content=certifiedcustomizer

We support one domain name however if you redirect the second one to the first one within your domain registrar settings, that should work such that both domains go to the same place.

Best Regards,

ajava · January 4, 2012

Yeah, I know how intimidating it is to customize - and frustrating. Thanks for the link to the Certified Customizers - but I'm not ready to spend that much $$ just yet, especially when I know that I can do it myself (tedious as it may be). Ugh...I don't know what my next move is.

SamirD · January 6, 2012

ajava wrote: »

1. I LOVE everything about SmugMug EXCEPT how difficult it is to customize. For literally every customization I've made, I've had to post here and then pretty much rely on JFriend (or any of the other helpful regular responders) to get me my answer before I can proceed. Very frustrating. Then, if I need to go back at a later time, for more customizations, I will likely have forgotten what I learned the last time I worked on it. Bad customer service aside, it's soooo tempting to move over to something simple like BluDomain, BigFolio, etc.

I know exactly what you mean about the customization pains. I've only changed what I've needed to since 2006. There's so much work that can be involved in getting your site 'right'. The pro to this is that you can do it. The con is that you can do it.

The disadvantage to the other sites is that if you want to do something outside of their boxed options, you're completely out of luck. Also, BluDomain and BigFolio may seem cheaper and easier up front, but I just looked at them and evaluated them for my current SM usage for a year and each was much more expensive--as much as 10x more in the end.

ajava wrote: »

2. SM is good, but isn't nearly as slick (looks-wise) as some of the other hosting sites. I'm not necessarily talking about flash, either. Just....I don't know....other photog sites I visit are so clean and simple. I know I can probably get there with SM, but again, the whole customization thing.

I agree with you on this point, but SM is making big leaps in this area. The new style that's been in beta for months definitely brings this new 'slick' look to it. Granted, there will be some customizing, but it won't be just you. There will be thousands like me that haven't touched their site in ages that will be joining you. And SM is aware of this and I have a feeling they won't leave us in the dust.

ajava wrote: »

3. I just reserved another domain name. Can my SM Pro account host more than one site? I would have to pay for that, right? Full price?

If you want to have two different domain names going to the same site, it's pretty simple as answered above.

But if you're looking to do two completely different sites on two completely different domain names, then you're looking at two different accounts. No real way around that.

ajava wrote: »

4. Ugh. I can't remember what I was going to write.

I have this same problem too!

If you figure out how to solve this, let me know!

ajava wrote: »

I guess I'm looking for advice, mostly. I want to have a more professional, dedicated site - to show I'm serious. But I want to still have a place for my non-professional pix, as well. But I don't want to spend a ton of cash and make things all confusing, with multiple sites and all that comes with managing that sort of scenario. And the thought of customizing with SM is a downer. Some may love the flexibility, but it seems to me that most of the customizations are aimed at getting SM sites to "act" and "look" more like the the "slick' sites mentioned above.

I think you said it best right here when you said you want a place for your professional and non-professional pics. This definitely calls for two different sites, on SM or another site or a combination of both. The advantage of both being on one system is that there's only one learning curve, but since you already know SM, there's only going to be one learning curve if you migrate one of your sites to another place. Worst case, two, if you migrate both to two different places.

But I'd compare options this way--look at what you get in 'default' modes. Does SM look slick enough? Does it have enough features? Do competitors? How much customization will you need to do on competitor's sites? That's an unknown that will need an answer before you truly know the benefit from a switch.

SM has evolved a lot since I first signed on with them over 5 years ago. The photo-hosting marketplace has completely changed since then too. And yet, when looking back now, they've done what seems like the impossible--scaled and adapted their entire infrastructure and business model to match technology and market trends, while retaining profitability. It's an astounding feat. And while it does make them sometimes slower to adapt things (like FTP uploading that is now #6 on the most wanted list

), they eventually address everything in a way that is satisfactory to most of their user base.

Hope I was of some help.

ajava · January 6, 2012

I appreciate your detailed reply;) I think I'm committed to SM....I'm in the process of changing things right now. And of course, I'm already stuck;) Waiting for a reply over in the Customization forum. It's going to be tedious, but I just can't justify leaving SM. So let the swearing begin!!!

Adamideas · January 6, 2012

I am also frustrated by having to know how to write code in order to really make your site look cool. Thats not something that I understood when I signed up, I just believed the marketing that it was easy to customize and the sky was the limit as far as what could be done. I was pretty pissed when I realized the easy customizer choices left my site looking rather generic and that I would have to learn how to write code for web design if I wanted something professional looking. I just don't have time for learning another trade. I toiled for a while trying to copy and paste code and search the forums but that was a big pain. I'd much rather be out shooting. Been waiting for this new version of smugmug. Hope its good.

angevin1 · January 6, 2012

ajava wrote: »

3. I just reserved another domain name. Can my SM Pro account host more than one site? I would have to pay for that, right? Full price?

4. Ugh. I can't remember what I was going to write.

I guess I'm looking for advice, mostly. I want to have a more professional, dedicated site - to show I'm serious. But I want to still have a place for my non-professional pix, as well.

I take it you do not pay for any hosting outside of SM? I will say that there are a multitude of ways to really step your footprint up.

For instance. I purchased hosting over at GoDaddy. I pay I think it's like $80 a year for that hosting. Now, with that hosting I can basically host twenty websites.

1. I keep my SM simply for it's interface for hosting all kinds of imagery, and it's ease of use for a buying public/private. And I KNOW you cannot beat the help or service you get here.

2. With my hosting acct. over at GoDaddy, I take a given Domain name, such as "Pretty New House" and I install the WordPress app. ( their site installs it for you!) into that domain name. Once that's done, I then visit my site and install whatever kind of theme I want. There are tons of free themes and tons and tons of pay-for themes that are really cheap: <$40.

3. Now the coolest part of this is I can do what I want when I want it. For instance. My Dad had a Bar-be-que grill for sale last year, I'm talking a dual axle trailer type of grill: Big. We posted small ads in a Naitonal paper and then gave a URL so folks could see the piece. I bought a domain name : "Best Damn Smoker in Georgia", had Godaddy install the WP app. and then went and installed a freebie theme and added my photos and text. Voila, in one afternoon I had a Site set up to give us national exposure.
I'm sure I could have done this in SM too, just by creating a Page for them to land on, but I like the simplicity of WP for just these kinds of things.

4. I could easily imagine if I were multi-involved with differing areas I would set up a hub.
a. Hub is Me. You found me. Interested in my fun click here. Interested in my commercial work, click here. Interested in my ball club, click here, and so on. The wordpress site can easily be set up to land folks and have them to the correct interest-page in one click.

As far as the SM tediousness of waiting for help and so forth. Hey, time or money, which do you have more of?

And not that ANYONE is interested, but in truth, learning new things are very healthy for your brain. Even if you didn't store all this SM stuff in long term memory, relearning is still just as healthy.

Good Luck~

angevin1 · January 6, 2012

Adamideas wrote: »

I am also frustrated by having to know how to write code in order to really make your site look cool. Thats not something that I understood when I signed up, I just believed the marketing that it was easy to customize and the sky was the limit as far as what could be done. I was pretty pissed when I realized the easy customizer choices left my site looking rather generic and that I would have to learn how to write code for web design if I wanted something professional looking. I just don't have time for learning another trade. I toiled for a while trying to copy and paste code and search the forums but that was a big pain. I'd much rather be out shooting. Been waiting for this new version of smugmug. Hope its good.

I don't think you have to know or learn to write code. I thought so at first...and I even ventured that far once, on another of my sites. But really, never again. It changes too much and I am not really interested in that. With so much copy and paste here I just cannot imagine having to"write" code.

ajava · January 6, 2012

I think I want to just keep things simple, and have a dedicated site here at SM. If I arrange categories/galleries differently, I'll be able to do that - coupled with a cosmetic overhaul. I want to make sure, though, that if past customers type www.sellingpointimages.com into their browser, they'll still get directed to my new domain. Both of my domain names are through GoDaddy. From what I think I understand, what I'm looking to do is pretty standard - but I'm still not quite sure how to do it. Just when I think I've got the hang of all of this, I end up back at square one. I know enough to be dangerous - but not enough to be efficient

P.S. I don't know if I'm using the proper terms here in my posts - please forgive me if I'm not. Hope you can make sense of it, anyway.

rainforest1155 · January 8, 2012

ajava wrote: »

I think I want to just keep things simple, and have a dedicated site here at SM. If I arrange categories/galleries differently, I'll be able to do that - coupled with a cosmetic overhaul. I want to make sure, though, that if past customers type www.sellingpointimages.com into their browser, they'll still get directed to my new domain. Both of my domain names are through GoDaddy. From what I think I understand, what I'm looking to do is pretty standard - but I'm still not quite sure how to do it. Just when I think I've got the hang of all of this, I end up back at square one. I know enough to be dangerous - but not enough to be efficient

P.S. I don't know if I'm using the proper terms here in my posts - please forgive me if I'm not. Hope you can make sense of it, anyway.

Within GoDaddy, you should be able to set up a forward / redirect for your old domain and point that to the new domain. Then it should forward visitors to your old domain to the new one.

For the required settings on the new domain to make it work with SmugMug, look at the DIY section here:
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93340-setting-up-a-custom-hostname-domain

If you need further help, you can contact us Heroes at the HelpDesk:
http://help.smugmug.com/

If I stay with SmugMug, what can I do...

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