My website sucks.... need help

[NikonNewbie]

On smugmug you can lock the album and give the client a password, and there are features you can use as well (messages ...thumbs up or down) to have them let you know which ones they want or like...although I personally would want to talk to someone...you can make their album public or private, there are several options.
the higher service you pick the more custom you can make your site as well. It has right click disable (so no one can copy your shots) it also has automatic water marking if you choose you want that as well...I like it.
I see you mention a shopping cart...here on smugmug you can set the price you want to charge for each thing that they sell or make..they make their profit and you get the rest of the price you set...it's like using snapfish or shutterfly..except you get the money.
You have to file tax forms and such, I say check it out!

 

[ababysean]

same for zenfolio but I can not make the album invisible, that would work as well. I hate that people checking out my portfolio section also have to see the locked client albums.

 

[WebLuke]

I'd like a front page where they can go to my blog or enter website.
I need galleries for my sample work and I need a proofing gallery that has a shopping cart.

Best way to achieve this:

1. Build a site on the wordpress platform. Hire a professional to build the site for you. Wordpress is a good platform to combine your blog, sample work and website pages.
2. For your client proofing, use something like PhotoCart or Photography Orders. They're dedicated photography shopping carts and will make it easy for you to sell photos.

Best of luck!

 

[twoboysnmygirl]

You can make another gallery! I have zenfolio and I have my password protect files for clients in there. Let me see if I can go look and give you detailed instructions on how to do it...

Ok, when you are on your site, go to "Back to edit view"
when you get to this page, on the left, it will have and organzer
It should say: My zenfolio and have a couple things under it like featured and recently added.
then below that it should say galleries. If you click on the arrow to the right of that, there will be a drop down box where you can choose to make another gallery OR another group. I have quite a few galleries and separate out everything: family gallery, wedding gallery, pregnancy gallery, etc. and also have a client group (which has many galleries in it) where all the password protect galleries are.

you just need to play around with it and do some organizing! HTH!

 

[Ub3rdoRK]

flash will be obsolete in the next couple of years IMO but it looks so damn good and I hate to say it'l be gone once HTML5 gets in the hand of every consumer.....

Zenfolio was a decent place but I didnt get everything I wanted from them so I left. I really like Blu Domain because they have good pricing and clean templates with shopping carts. for $200 set up and hosted for a year then $100 annually ....thats pretty amazing. Plus they are growing templates to have redirects to HTML for mobile users so you arent limited to a flash site only.

I dont think the page sucks, Just being limited sucks....and learning HTML and all these different plug ins and widgets etc is VERY time consuming. Honestly check out Bludomain....I know I'm going to be switching to them very soon.

 

[twoboysnmygirl]

and funny that I'm telling you how to add more galleries, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to change the choices on the main page? How did you get your blog on there and to have it say portfolio instead of All my photos?

edited...I figured it out! Just had to look harder.