Couple kayaking Utica Reservoir, Alpine County, Northern California.
One of the questions I get asked a lot is “What do you like about your PhotoShelter Website?” Since there is so much interest in this subject, I decided rather than answering everyone individually, that it would be a good subject for a Blog post.
First of all, we don’t really have a PhotoShelter Website, we have our Website integraded with PhotoShelter. That’s how WE do it, but stand alone Websites can also be built in a matter of minutes, with one of several templates they provide.
PhotoShelter offers so many awesome features, but here are a few of my favorites. I’ll be adding to this list in future posts.
Best Bang For Your Buck!
If you are looking for a service for storing images, selling prints, licensing images to name just a few, I believe PhotoShelter is “The Best Bang for Your Buck.” They offer several plans ranging from FREE to $49.99. We currently have the Standard Plan, which costs us $29.99 per month and serves all of our current needs.
Sell Products & License Images
We upload our images to our Photo Archive, which is where all of our online images are stored. Images can be ordered as prints, note cards or licensed for personal use, directly from our photo archive. We don’t offer automated Rights Managed images through PhotoShelter. For Rights-Managed licensing, clients contact us directly for a stock photo quote. After a fee has been determined, we invoice the client. After we receive payment, we set up a Private PhotoShelter Gallery for the client, where they can download their images.
Great SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
PhotoShelter has been working hard to improve their SEO and it and it’s finally paying off. During the last few months, we have been seeing an increased amount of traffic to our Website and we have to give credit to PhotoShelter for some of it!
Easy To Create Galleries
I love how easy it is to create galleries, copy the same images to other galleries and rearrange the images within a gallery however you want. For instance, you can find this image of Auburn, California in our Auburn Gallery. Auburn is located in the California Gold Country, so we copied it into that gallery as well. We even took it one step further for this image. Since it is a landscape image it also went into our Landscape Gallery.
Slide Shows
Slide shows can be created from any gallery with a click of a button. You can group together a selection of images in a gallery, click the slide show button and use it like a portfolio. Here is a slide show I just put together for this post. If you hover over the top of the image, you will see the photo caption. It’s pretty cool!
Free Photography Reports
PhotoShelter provides an incredible amount of marketing tools for the photographer. Their free photography reports (PDF) on blogging, social media, google analytics, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and what photo buyer’s want in photography websites are very informative.
Blog
PhotoShelter also distributes great information via their Blog “A Picture’s Worth.” There you can find a ton of really helpful articles including these:
“Top 10 Ways To Piss Off A Photographer”
“Top 10 Ways To Make A Photographer Fall In Love With You”
“Top 13 Ways To Piss Off A Photo Editor”
Grover was also kind enough to include a mention about my post on “Shooting the Amgen Tour of California” in their weekly Friday Shout-Outs!” Thanks again Grover!
Free Training
If what you have read thus far isn’t enough to convince you to join, maybe this will. PhotoShelter also offers a variety of FREE Webinars and I can tell you from personal experience, they are worth the investment in time. They even welcome suggestions for future Webinars.
Post To Social Networks
The ability to post a gallery of images directly to Facebook, Flickr, SportsShooter and Twitter is a really nice feature. Here is a gallery of images I posted directly from PhotoShelter to Facebook.
Coupons
Everyone is jumping on the “coupon bandwagon” these days including PhotoShelter. They make it really easy to offer discounts on prints and products to your customers. I thought it was so cool, I decided to give it a “test drive.” Check out my “Fans Only 4th of July Coupon Sale”, to see how I incorporated coupons into my marketing plan. I will be using them on a regular basis!
I hope this has shed at least a little bit of light on PhotoShelter. Your comments and questions are certainly welcomed and appreciated as always, so fire away!
Thanks for stopping by and be sure to visit again sometime!
Cheers,
Sherri
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