Zenfolio is so much more easy to use. Their back-end system is great. If you haven't yet- set up
trial.
Jumping back into this again.
I got busy with my real "day job' and it has been so grueling that I've not even had time much nor inspiration for my photography/videography interests.
I've been going back and forth on the Zenfolio vs Smugmug thing.
I like that you can get in on SmugMug and do what seems to be somewhat heavy customization of their website offerings, with custom HTML and CSS.
Zenfolio seems to offer little you can do to customize outside of their few templates you have choice from.
It appears zenfolio, has better blogging set up, AND...it appears they have built in email customer list management, and you can capture email addresses and use them from zeonfolio to send out coupons, ads, etc.
I got word from SmugMug with links showing how to hook your SM site into a services like MailChimp tho....
I like that Zenfolio takes less % fee off the top, but their annual fee is slightly higher.
Zenfolio appears to have abandoned cart management which I think would be a big plus.
And just reading blogs out there, some say that the SEO promotion from Zenfolio is superior to SmugMugs (I guess they arrange their site with better path naming, etc?).....I've not read how they came to those conclusions though.
So, I'm trying to figure which way to go. I have my domain I want to use, so I have that ready.
I watched a video the other day that mentioned having a good idea of what you want in a site look and organization before you start one....AND, that setting up the directory locally, with proper SEO encouraging naming of directories and files is a good thing to do...
This way, you can set up your site faster, and be ready to play with it right off to bat and mostly just be left tweaking things, rather that spending a lot of time upfront trying to figure things out.
Anyway...with these things in mind, can anyone comment here on my findings?
Any new thoughts on SM vs ZF.....or do you have a better suggestion?
I've seen other hosting and even sales cart site, but they all seem mostly to be self fulfilment, I want to have a lab behind me printing, mounting and shipping for me.
Thanks again in advance,
cayenne