How our “Hosted” sites work

First, I should explain how our sites work because people who have owned a hosting account are used to things working a little differently.

While we “host” the BlogSite we are not a “hosting provider”. We provide premium managed hosting of a WordPress site – handling daily backups, seamless upgrades, and development of new features.

We work similar to the way someone like SmugMug or AlbumExposure or Basecamp or DropBox, or any “hosted” web app does – we host that one thing and do it extremely well, better than would ever be possible to sell as a one-off site. Basically it is WordPress as a Service and even more specifically as a service for Photographers.

Simply put,  our websites for photographers are a little different from the rest.

Email

While we do not host email, you can definitely get email at your domain – in fact we encourage it and help point out solutions for that. Google Apps for business (not gmail but works like it ) is awesome. It works just like gmail and has the best spam protection around. It even has a free version that provides up to 50 emails at your domain for free.

Everyone should own a domain and everyone should have email at that domain. It is a very inexpensive way (around $10/year) to look more professional and provide brand recognition online. info@myphotostudio.com just sounds much better than myname@hotmail.com.

FTP Access and File Sharing

“FTP” stands for “File Transfer Protocol”. It is a tool used to upload and download files straight to a server. Many people are used to using this method with a hosting account in order to share slideshows, pricing guides, images, movies, and anything else. We do not provide any type of FTP access with our sites, but that should not limit the ability to share files with clients in anyway.

Even if we did provide FTP access, we would not recommend using FTP for sharing files from your server anyway. In fact, the terms of most hosting accounts explicitly prohibit that. They may never catch on or do anything about it but it is generally against hosting terms. If that is not enough reason to not do it, how about some good reasons to use other tools? There are some great file sharing services out there like DropBox and You Send It that provide better encryption, security and privacy in addition to faster upload and download times for your clients. The free version of DropBox is often enough for that at 2GB.

Premium Support

We also support our sites with detailed documentation, tutorial videos, email, live chat and a support ticket system that allows us to prioritize and assign everything that we need to address with the sites. But there are lots of places that would describe their support systems that way.

The biggest thing that makes our support a step better is that all of our sites use a networked version of WordPress, where all sites share the same software. When we add a new feature or make an upgrade is gets added for everyone instantly. This also means that when a bug is found, it gets fixed for everyone. Since we first started developing the BlogSites, thousands of users have been testing every aspect of the sites.

Because we have thousands of eyes looking at the sites and can fix things for all users at once, it allows us to provide a level of support that is simply not possible with one-at-a-time sites. We know this because we were building custom one-off sites for several years and it gets very difficult to maintain separate sites.

A word about pricing

A shared hosting account can be found for as little as $5/month. But you essentially get an empty box and you need to create the website: maybe install WordPress (or another CMS), find a theme and add that, add plugins, tweak settings… and so on. And even after all that… How is your site being backed up? Do you need to hire someone to help upgrade WordPress several times a year? Are the settings optimized for SEO? Does your site have built-in caching so that it loads as fast as possible? And on the simplest level – do you have an on call support team that can answer questions any day of the week? Or did you use a WordPress theme that is just a blog, so you still need something to be a portfolio site?

For people that know a little programming, some of those things may not factor in, but when you really consider all that we are providing, I can guarantee you we are one of the lowest price options out there for a full portfolio site, blog, hosting and the level of support we provide.

Couture SnapShots!

The new Couture SnapShots will provide BlogSite owners premium designs that “snap” into place. They will come with easy to activate settings that bring a new look to your site and will even include layered Photoshop files, allowing further customization. All of our BlogSite themes are extremely customizable but these new design starting points will help you take your site to the next level.

WordPress Plugins for Everyone!

We have been able to build a lot of great tools for the photographers and creative professionals using our sites. They have been tested by our users for over two years now. But most of the tools built within our system have only been available to our hosted sites.
Starting in February, we will start making plugins available to everyone. Some will be free. Some will be premium (paid) plugins that will be available in our new Marketplace. All will be tools built for photographers, based on feedback and years of working with photographers.

Marketplace!

The Couture SnapShots and plugins and more will all be made available in a new Marketplace, to be launched soon. We have been planning and building this behind the scenes and are looking forward to starting a whole new way to help creative professionals create a better online presence.

Have ever wanted to start a 2nd or third arm of your business? Boudoir, commercial, a new product line, workshops? We want to make it really easy to take that leap. If you have at least one site that is currently paid, you can get any number of additional sites at 1/2 price. All you need to do is create a new site while logged in under your same username. When you visit the Blog Account page, all prices will marked down.

Yes, you heard that right. 50% off! ANYTIME.

And to make things even easier, we are happy to announce a very cool new feature that we are calling “SnapShots”. If you want to keep a similar look and keep some brand recognition on your other sites, you can use our new SnapShot tool to save, export and import style settings between sites. By simply copying and pasting your exported settings, you can spin-off a second site with the same exact look!

What are SnapShots?

On the most basic level, SnapShots allow you to save your site’s style settings. This means you can save a look, change it and go back to a SnapShot at any time. You can create multiple looks for time of year, holidays, or any other reason then save them and switch between them at any point. You can experiment with new looks for your site and go back to any one of them if you don’t like what you came up with.

Consistent Branding Across Sites

You can also export your settings and start a second site with the EXACT look of the first site. Imagine starting a new portrait or boudoir business that you want to have a separate site for. Using a SnapShot of your main site, you can instantly keep the branding consistent. And if you ever change the design, you can just export and update the second site in seconds.

But Wait, there’s more!

Over the coming weeks, we will be releasing our own SnapShots to the entire Photography BlogSites community, available for free. For new users, these will be great starting points for your site. For current users, it will be like we just released a whole bunch of new themes.

Each SnapShot includes the theme it was built on. We will have SnapShots based on all of our themes, adding new color schemes, moving page layouts and more. You won’t need to worry about which theme you use or which theme the snapshot is based on. When you select a SnapShot, the site automatically changes the theme.

Themes Unlimited

As we release new SnapShots, the idea of “themes” will start to become less important. In some ways, we could develop one theme and build snapshots that do everything we need for a new look or feel. In the end, that is the important part – can you create a personalized site that is customized to fit your brand? With SnapShots, we will be able to very quickly develop new looks for you and expand the possibilities like never before.

New Lower Pricing!

We are happy to announce our new even lower pricing for 2012! BlogSite subscriptions are now $29/month or $299/year!

So why are we lowering the prices? In the time since we launched, we have been able to improve our entire process so much, that we decided to pass along the savings to our clients.

Our sites have been tested, refined and improved. We have built and added new features. Our server has been optimized and tweaked. Our support system has been streamlined, and we have found and squashed bugs thanks to the input of all our amazing BlogSite owners.

One of the founding principals of Photography BlogSites was to make the process of getting your small business online, easier. Part of that process is to make the maintenance of your professional website as affordable as possible. This is just another step towards that goal.

What about current BlogSite accounts?

If you are a current Photography BlogSite owner the new lower pricing will automatically be reflected in your next billing cycle. You don’t need to do a thing. It is all just a part of that “full service” you have come to expect from us. You may have seen emails from us explaining the changes, but if you have any questions about how the new prices effect your account, just let us know.

Integration and Extra Savings for SmugMug Power and Pro Users.

We have extended our SmugMug Integration to Power Users. Now SmugMug Power Users can enjoy the same integration benefits as Pro Users. And because we always have a special place in our hearts for our SmugMug clients, we have included an extra discount of $50 off your first year. Once you are authorized, new features and pricing options open up for SmugMug Power and Pro users.

Start out 2012 with a fabulous new web presence. From Midnight on Sunday January 1st, through the end of Monday January 2nd, we will be running a half price sale to celebrate the New Year!

That’s 50% off the regular subscription price your first year – that’s your first year for $199.50.

If you were thinking about updating your web presence to an All-In-One, search engine optimized, WordPress and HTML5 portfolio site…today is the day!

Happy New Year!

*Offer available for new accounts only.

Sign up Here and use Coupon code: HAPPY2012

Happy Holidays to all our amazing clients!  Our office will be “officially” closed from December 24th – January 3rd. We will still be answering all support questions, and keeping a watchful eye on everything, but the response time might be a little more delayed than usual. We look forward to introducing a ton of new products early in 2012 and seeing you at Imaging and WPPI. Hope you all enjoy some downtime with your loved ones!

We are honored to be a part of a new Photo District News article called “Creating Your Photography Brand”, alongside the amazing design firm of Liska + Associates and brand consultant Beth Taubner. Creating and maintaining a web presence is a crucial part of your brand but there is a lot that goes into that. One of the biggest goals with our creation of Photography BlogSites was to make it as easy as possible to bring your photography brand online. We are so happy to be included in this article!

The print version is expected to be available in January, which will be an exciting way to start the new year!

WordPress is an award winning Content Management System (CMS) that allows you to log in and edit your own content. While it is famous for being a blogging platform, it has grown over the years to become a full website management tool. Our sites use WordPress and allow you to combine your portfolio site and blog into one easily editable service.

The old way – Buying Themes

Until now, the idea of having a WordPress site has meant finding and buying a “theme” or template that determines your overall structure and look.

Any theme, whether free or paid, needs to be installed, setup, and maintained. Themes will (hopefully) be built to be compatible with the current version or WordPress. But when the next version of WordPress comes out, themes and plugins are at the very least not prepared for new features (because they did not exist yet when the theme was created) or at worst can break your site because WordPress changes the way they did things.

Recently WordPress has stepped up their production schedule and has said they will release a new major version every 3 months. Just this year we have seen versions 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 is on its way by the end of the year.

They have changed the version of jQuery that they include, and are about to change it again. Javascript conflicts, especially around the versions of jQuery are one of the major reasons why WordPress themes and plugins break on upgrades. They also, as of the last version, made it so that WP has stricter minimum server requirements of PHP 5.3 and MySQL 5. While most hosts have those, it is not a guarantee.

How we do things

We provide WordPress as a service – always up-to-date and working, built specifically for photographers. We are an on-call webmaster/support staff and upgrade and test everything so that new versions and features work together without breaking a site.

So the “theme” is actually a very small part of what we provide. But even so, one of the benefits of our system is that you can access all our themes and SnapShots and switch between them at anytime. Any new themes or features are available to you the second they are released as well.

We have upgraded WordPress from versions 2.8 through the current 3.2 since we started developing the sites. Users never noticed because we tested on a beta site, then upgrade overnight, only when it is all working. We have constantly upgraded our themes, added plugins and enhanced features as we went. But again, we only make new changes live when they are fully tested and ready so that users and your visitors get a seamless experience on the sites.

Pricing

Our pricing is comprised of many factors. We mostly wanted to consider all of the things we are replacing: a portfolio site (some are $39/month just for that – and maybe built in Flash), a WordPress blog (free-$199 for a theme) a hosting account ($60-$100/year even for really bad shared hosting) plus maybe hiring someone to set it all up ($200-???). Then a year later, you might need to hire someone to fix it when WordPress is upgraded and the old theme breaks.

When you compare it to all of that, we can confidently say that we are one of the most affordable options out there. And when you try and put a price on peace of mind…well, that might be priceless.

Starting at Midnight on Friday, November 25 through Midnight we will be running our first ever Black Friday One Day Sale!

50% off the regular subscription price your first year – that’s your first year for $199.50.

Membership will renew at the regular rate of $399. If you are a SmugMug Pro member your membership will renew at $299.

If you were thinking about updating your web presence to an All-In-One, search engine optimized, WordPress and HTML5 portfolio site…today is the day!

If you are tired of your portfolio site not being available on iPads or Mobile devices, you are in luck.

Happy Black Friday everyone!

*Offer available for new accounts only.

Sign up Here and use Coupon code: BLACKFRIDAY

Teryn Robinson of Teryn Robinson Photography! You are our Grand Prize winner!

Give us a shout at info(at)photographyblogsites.com so we can get you your prizes!! Thank you to everyone who entered. Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

PS: Stop back here on Friday November 25th …for a BIG Black Friday Deal!!