Squarespace

I started with Squarespace because I have been interested in using them for my hosting for a long time. I just never had the money to do it. It seems that most of the photographers I listen to on podcast seem to like their Squarespace site. And knowing that some of them are being sponsored by Squarespace I believe that they would not take the money if they did not believe in the product. Well I am hoping that is the case for the most part. So Squarespace had some name recognition with well known photographers, let’s see what else they have.

Templates:

When you select the template from the menu you are brought over to a selection of templates to choose from. On this page they have them in selections of “Business, Portfolios, Stories, Restaurants, and Personal.” For myself, I chose Portfolios and nine templates of the twenty six remain on the screen to choose from. All nine are very clean and easy on the eye to look at. Click on one that strikes your fancy and you are in another screen of portfolios using that template. In the template that caught my eye there were twenty four examples of customer’s websites using that template. On the top of the page you can click on and see an example of how that template will look on a mobile device or a live view on screen. Because mobile is the trend of how people consume their internet, how it will look on a smart phone is important to me. Going back to the selection of templates from customers, you are able to click on one and explore their site without actually opening a new tab. All features of their site are operational which is great because you can see how they organized their work using the template that you like.

Templates have Blogs:

The template that I had selected has a blog feature and for most like me I believe that is important. The blog gives you the ability to create postings about the projects you are doing, shoots your doing and events your attending. Blogs let potential clients and followers know the human side of you and what you feel is important in your life. I like to use it to bring knowledge, talk about projects or the things that bug me. So I am excited to see this part included with the website. It bothers me to be shuffled off to other links to read or see work the photographer has. Keep them all in one spot.

Social Networks:

Being socially connected is important in order to be seen. With Squarespace not only can you link to your pages but update to your pages as you update your site. No more copy and paste to each of your social network pages just one touch and you can update them all according to their feature page.

Commerce:

It appears you can sell in the U.S, U.K, and Canada but in beta are Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands and Spain. When you sign up Stripe gives you instant approval so you can receive your earnings via direct deposit. Stripe charges a 2.9% + 30 cent transaction fee which to me doesn’t sound like too much. You can sell both digital and physical goods on one page. Digital downloads are delivered by email links and expire in 24 hrs. Depending on what plan you are using you are able to sell one item only on the Personal Plan, twenty items with the Professional Pan or unlimited items on the Business Plan. If you are looking to set up Donations there is a way to set up a page for that. There is a lot more to go into but to be honest I am not sure how it all fits into what I want to do. I know that I will have to keep records of my sales and with the Xero Intergration you can do that. There is data collected for marketing and social integration about your store to your social pages.

SEO:

Search Engine Optimization. According to the site there is no plug-ins that is necessary. Squarespace has multiple ways of getting your website easily found through the major search engines. By creating clean HTML mark ups, Canonical Tagging, Automatic Tagging and more they are helping you get out there and be discovered.

Analytics:

In order to understand who the people are visiting your site you need to know here they are coming from. Website Analytics helps you understand just that. According to Squarespace they monitor you site for page views, including raw, unique and robot hits. All web stats are computed every few minutes giving you real time numbers. They also let you know the keywords that sent them there, what content held them there and what platform they are using.

Price:

The big question; how much will this cost me? Well there are 3 plans, Personal, Professional, and Business plan. Each plan offering a group of core services like free custom domain, e-commerce, the site and storage and a monthly charge if you rather pay for the site that way. But as you go up in price so does all the goodies that come with it. For the most part the cost is not as high as some webhosting sites I have seen but it is not the cheapest either. To me with all they offer it seems to be a fair price for what you get.

Personal plan runs eight dollars a month (billed annually or ten dollars month to month). With that you get twenty pages, galleries and blogs with five hundred GB bandwidth along with two GB of storage and two contributors. Contributors are others that can access your account.  Fully integrated e-commerce selling one product and accept donations. Mobile website and store, custom domain and twenty-four seven customer support. To be honest this sounds like a great pan for the price if you are looking for a gallery site only which is not what I am looking for.

Professional plan runs sixteen dollars a month (billed annually or twenty dollars month to month). That plan gets you unlimited pages, galleries ,blogs, storage, bandwidth and contributors. Fully integrated e-commerce with twenty items you can sell, developer platform, Mobile site and store, free custom domain and customer service. This is a plan I think I like, in my budget and I can sell more than just one thing. I will most likely go with this plan if I chose Squarespace.

Business Plan is twenty-four a month (billed annually or thirty dollars month to month).   You get unlimited galleries ,blogs, storage, bandwidth and contributors. Fully integrated e-commerce, unlimited products, Real-time carrier shipping, label printing via shipstation, integrated accounting. Developer platform, mobile website and store, free custom domain and customer support. Although this plan would be the best I am not sure it is within my budget now but if I end up selling enough then I can upgrade to this plan.

So far this space looks good but I do have a lot to learn about websites and all that go with it. Right now everything looks great and confusing at the same time. I still need to look at SumgMug and compare the services and price to Squarespace. When I do pick one I guess that is when the real learning begins and I will know if I pick the right one or not. I just have to compare, make the choice and get my work out there. 

Looking for a Website Host

Now that I have a little birthday money and some put a side I am looking for a website to host my webpage. I had a free one a long time ago but it did nothing for me. One down fall was the fact the templates for photography did not look very professional and I think that turned off a lot of potential customers. To be fair I did not invest a lot of time or energy in it therefore it I got nothing in return. But if you want to get noticed and more to the point, make some money you need a website. Oh and you have to work on it as well as on your social networks.

There are a lot of website hosts out there that I could choose from but I have narrowed it down to two sites. The first is Square Space and the second is Smug Mug. Both are popular and have been around for quite some time, but which one to choose? Deciding on which one to go with has been the problem rattling in my head for too long. So I have written down what I am looking for in a webhost and with that I will compare the two sites based on that. Whichever one fits my needs the best I will go with.

So why am I telling you this? Why don’t I just go out, compare and buy a website and announce the web address on my blog? Well I can’t be the only one who is paralyzed by the myriad of choices out there. So as I investigate each site and write about it, I am hoping to help others out who are in the same boat as I am. This is a sort of a ride along to either a great outcome or a spectacular crash that will benefit you, the reader, in what to or not to do. I am your crash test dummy and I am ready to take a fall that either I live or die in. On with the list and note the categories are not listed in order of most to least important.

Professional Looking Templates;

My last free website was ok but because I did not have professional looking templates to choose from I believed I lost more customers than gained. What I am looking for are clean and simple templates that are easy on the eyes as well as easy to find your way through the site. One thing you cannot have is the viewer thinking hard on how to get around your site. You get one look and if it is not eye catching or too hard to navigate through to the next pages they will move on. I know I do. Also I am not looking to create a flash movie or add music to the site. I find that when it takes time to load I tend to move on to the next photographers website. Keep it simple, be eye catching and don’t make them think too hard.

Being able to Blog;

I believe that blogging is important so that I can let you into my little world. To tell the story of what my work is about and get feedback from you as the audience. So it is vital for me that I can either create a blog as one of the pages or link my site to my blog.

Social Networking;

Let’s face it, without being able to link your social network to your web and vise versa you can’t drive traffic around to the website or out to the posts you place. For the most part the two I have in mind do place social networking buttons on the site. What I am looking into are the ascetics and ease of placement it has for my audience.

Upgrading;

How easy is it to upgrade or downgrade my site? I need to be able to grow the site to handle any additional commerce that I may get. As well as downgrade incase after a year my site sucks and I make nothing. In that event I will still keep the site but in only gallery form because that should be the least you should have to direct people to see your work. A flicker account is really not professional enough.

Commerce;

How easy is it to use the commerce part of the site for myself and my customers? I need a site that I don’t have to think too hard to set up. That I can use and when someone buys something I can get paid. I also want to control the price of items and offer discounts. I want to offer a gallery page that requires a special invitation to see and purchase from. Is that possible? I am looking for price points for commerce items. How much do I have to spend in order to get these types of amenities?

Customer Service;

I want an easy way to contact customer service if I have a question and get a quick and understandable response. Not that I am worried that my customer service comes from India but the answer I get is not so far above my head that I am not able to rectifying the problem. Be there when I need them and to advise me on ideas I may have.

Great Analytics;

I am not a rocket scientist nor did I go to school in marketing. I am an Art Major with the inability to comprehend advance statical information. I am willing to meet half way and learn as much as I can but I don’t have the funds to take a Stat Class. So the Analytics must be simple and to the point. I need to have the information in a simple format so that I can act on it as I see fit.

Storage;

One thing I don’t have a lot of at my house is storage for my digital files. At this time I burn my files to disk. So part of the service I will need to be storage of my best work on the site. I need it to be safe and downloadable when I need it. As I make money I will start looking for a better solution to the storage situation because I know it is just a matter of time before something bad happens. Then I will be shit out of luck.

Cost;

I have to balance affordability with service. If money was no object I would have someone build it for me but because I have a budget I need to get the most for what I can pay.

Membership Benefits;

By being a part of this webhosting group I am looking for helpful information in order to be more successful in my business. I am looking for tips, education on the market place, and information on people who are successful in areas in or outside of photography. A really good webhosting company wants to be successful, grow and make more money. The only way to do that is have their clients grow and make more money. A symbiotic relationship that is vital in order to succeed in the business world.

I am sure this foray into the world of webhosting will open be eye opening. I will learn more about it and what is possible to do as I dig into the nuts and bolts of it all, and my hope is you will too. In the next post I will be breaking down each webhosting site in the categories I have listed. Then the last post I will give my decision on which site I chose and why. Until then Shoot well and Shoot often.