Oct 11, 2009 – Cameras and technology are changing everyday. As prices of the equipment come down so does the barrier to entry making it easier and easier for the amateur photographer to turn pro. As we all know the equipment doesn’t make the photographer, the person behind the lens does, but to the average consumer, separating the new photographers from the experienced is sometimes difficult. There’s so much competition out there that if the pro photographer wants to survive, they’re going to have to change as well.
One of the biggest buzz phrases from the last few years is “build your personal brand”. That doesn’t just mean come up with a cool looking logo and print up some business cards and start handing them out. It’s also about how you present yourself and the way you conduct business, identifying and emphasizing what makes you different from all the other photographers, being authentic and consistent with your message and making yourself visible to your audience. None of this is new, this has been the way successful people have been building their business for decades, only now we have access to tools and resources that photographers from years ago could have only dreamed of.
Photographers start off with some kind of portfolio website to build visibility but unfortunately that’s not enough. Every photographer has a portfolio website, so what can you do to be different? Many photographers have started blogging, writing interesting articles that pertain to their target audience. Some are creating videos with behind the scenes footage from their photo shoots. Others are creating how-to guides for making better photos. What ever you choose, the idea is to create compelling content that draws your potential customer in and maintains their attention while building visibility for “your personal brand”.
Creating a portfolio website and blog are not without some technical challenges. A lot of times the photographer will go to one service to host their portfolio site and to another to host their blog. Without knowing how to program and design or hiring someone that does, it was difficult to make the two look cohesive and maintain your brands identity. There are some workarounds that will help but usually with some kind of sacrifice.
Well now there’s a solution…
PhotoShelter, a leader in portfolio websites, photo sales and archiving tools for photographers, has teamed up with Graph Paper Press creators of the best WordPress themes and tools for photographers. The partnership provides an easy way for photographers to maintain a single brand image across their PhotoShelter website and WordPress blog. Graph Paper Press’ “Modularity” theme is the first to be included in PhotoShelter’s new website template generator. This simple tool eliminates the need for complex coding or design work to unify the branding between the two different web destinations. Photographers can now present a fully seamless experience for website visitors to navigate between their website, blog, searchable image archive, private client log-in and e-commerce platform.
Graph Paper Press has also released a series of WordPress plug-ins that further expand the integration with PhotoShelter. Now you can publish images hosted by PhotoShelter without the need to upload them to WordPress first. You can also display your most recently updated PhotoShelter gallery in your blog as well as display the PhotoShelter archive search box so visitors can search for images directly from the blog and purchase prints or license work from the PhotoShelter shopping cart.
PRESS RELEASE
PhotoShelter & Graph Paper Press Launch New Tools to Help Photographers Easily Integrate Photography Websites and WordPress Blogs
Partnership provides a simple way for photographers to unify their brand online, save time, and maximize search engine optimization
NEW YORK–PhotoShelter (http://pa.photoshelter.com/), the leader in websites and online tools for serious photographers, today announced a new partnership with Graph Paper Press (http://graphpaperpress.com/), maker of the best WordPress themes and tools for photographers. The partnership provides an easy way for photographers to maintain a single brand across their PhotoShelter website and WordPress blog, beginning with the popular “Modularity” theme by Graph Paper Press. Graph Paper Press also today released several new WordPress plug-ins that enable photographers to easily display images hosted by PhotoShelter via their WordPress blogs. Full details on the partnership: http://pa.photoshelter.com/mkt/gpp.
To accomplish this integration, PhotoShelter has launched a new website template generator that can instantly match a PhotoShelter website with the look and feel of Graph Paper Press themes, starting today with Modularity. This simple tool eliminates the need for any complex coding or design work to unify the branding between these two different web destinations. As a result, photographers can present a fully seamless experience for website visitors to navigate between their website, blog, searchable image archive, private client log-in and e-commerce platform.
“Photography websites have moved away from the static ‘digital portfolios’ of the 20th century to something that is more interactive, social, and e-commerce enabled. This partnership perfectly demonstrates our vision for how photographers must adapt to embrace new online marketing opportunities,” said Allen Murabayashi, PhotoShelter CEO. “To attract website traffic via search engines and generate new business online, photographers want to eliminate barriers between their blogs, portfolio sites, image archives, and social media– while maintaining a consistent look-and-feel. This is driving a fundamental shift away from passive, design-intensive flash websites that can’t be crawled by search engines – toward more flexible, robust platforms like what PhotoShelter and Graph Paper Press are doing today. Plus, Graph Paper Press themes look fantastic – so we’re delighted to bring these designs to PhotoShelter photographers.”
In addition, Graph Paper Press today released a series of WordPress plug-ins that further expand the integration with PhotoShelter. These plug-ins include a simple method to publish images hosted by PhotoShelter in blog entries, eliminating the need to upload images to WordPress separately. In addition, Graph Paper Press now provides a widget that displays a photographer’s most recently updated PhotoShelter gallery via the WordPress blog, as well as a plug-in that displays the PhotoShelter archive search box anywhere in a WordPress blog – so visitors may search for images directly from a photographers’ blog and purchase prints or license work via the photographer’s PhotoShelter shopping cart.
Thad Allender, Graph Paper Press founder, added: “When you link together tools like PhotoShelter‘s platform with Graph Paper Press themes and plug-ins for WordPress, you get an elegantly designed front-end, plus a powerful content management platform that is incredibly easy to update and publish search-engine friendly content. Photographers can save time in getting their work live online, and consistently build new traffic to view images, hire them for new assignments, or purchase their work online.”
PhotoShelter today also announced a limited-time opportunity to sample PhotoShelter’s website tools for free, for 30 days only – a feature that normally requires upgrade to PhotoShelter Standard & Pro Accounts. More details on the free trial – good through October 9th – can be found at: http://pa.photoshelter.com/mkt/200909/join.html. Meanwhile, Graph Paper Press today also launched Visual Society (http://visualsociety.com/), a one-stop-shop for WordPress hosting, themes, and plug-ins for photographers, designed to help photographers transition to easily to this new approach to displaying and marketing their photography.
About PhotoShelter
PhotoShelter is the leader in portfolio websites, photo sales and archiving tools for photographers.
Over 48,000 photographers worldwide use PhotoShelter to power their success online, with customizable website templates, searchable galleries, e-commerce capabilities, and bulletproof image storage. Photographers can create a professional PhotoShelter website in under five minutes, or customize PhotoShelter to power their existing website. A true solution designed to make the business of photography easier to manage – PhotoShelter offers security, global accessibility, and advanced marketing tools so photographers can make their images work harder for them. To join our community, visit www.photoshelter.com.
About Graph Paper Press
Graph Paper Press is a repository for WordPress themes created by photographer and multimedia producer Thad Allender. Graph Paper Press peddles minimalistic modular designs that can transform your blog from a tubular list of posts into an aesthetically-pleasing portfolio or news magazine website. Graph Paper Press is increasingly focused on helping visual artists, photographers, video, and new media producers present their work to the world. Our goal is simple: We want to help you to look good online. We are also developing tools and plugins to help make integration with third party services a breeze. For more information, visit http://graphpaperpress.com/.
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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Founder of Current Photographer, co-host of The Digital Photography Cafe Show, Designer, Photographer, and overall tech geek.
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