Of all the photography sites out there, how do you know which one to pick? It’s too hard a task for anyone to try all of them one by one.
Fortunately, Wise Buyer talked to over 800 real-life users and asked for their opinions on these sites. The good, the bad and the ugly, it’s all there! And these were the Top 5 portfolio sites:
#5 – Fotomerchant (88% customer satisfaction)
People like:
- Print Fulfillment — “I love that people can order what they want from the site and the order goes straight to the lab so I don’t need to worry about it.”, “The only advantage of Fotomerchant would be the direct fulfillment prints.”, “They are easy to and cheap to work with if you want to sell photos off of your website.”, “I use the self-fulfillment option as I print and frame my own. It caters to both, those who want their products printed and shipped and also those like myself who do their own… I would and have recommended Fotomerchant!”, “It’s great, as clients can order right form the site it links direct to my printers.”
- Australian — “I chose Fotomerchant as it was Australian based and local printing services. There are so many others like 500px, SmugMug etc but at the time all the print services were in the US or overseas.”, “I like that it’s an Aus company that also uses Aus customer support & an Australian photo lab”, “Good: Australian (no shifting conversion rates) and I know where they live”
People don’t like:
- Not easy to use — “Navigation is clunky, no breadcrumbs for seeing where you are on the site.”, “I have not had success in understanding their blog setup.”, “The UI is counter-intuitive.”
- Templates — “The templates are fairly limited in the their ability edit unless you know a coder.”, “There is a lack of templates and some things I couldn’t add easily.”, “Only a handful of the website themes are mobile friendly.”, “I found the templates limited and the look and feel I was looking for wasn’t there.”, “Limited and relatively unsophisticated templates.”
#4 – All You (90% customer satisfaction)
People like:
- Typography — “I like the level of detail for font modification”, “It’s quite easy to work with it, there are many possibilities with design and type.”, “I appreciate the fact that I can customize … especially when it comes to spacing and typographic elements.”, “Also the very high quality of fonts is very good.”
- Easy to Use — “Very easy to use and customize.”, “I think it’s easy to configure and handle.”, “Super simple and easy!”, “it’s easy to use and there’s a lot of variations in the templates.”, “it`s quite easy to work with it,”
People don’t like:
- Limited — “Your options are kind of limited.”, “You don’t have too many design options”, “All you is simply, but very limited.”, “Not as much templates as other sites”, “It’s pretty basic when comes to website builders and does have limitations.”, “A bit limited at some areas”, “You don`t have too many design options but if you want a simple site it works well.”
#3 – SmugMug (90% customer satisfaction)
People like:
- Customer Support — “Customer support is lightning fast.”, “Customer service is very, very good.”, “Customer support is ultra fast”, “Email support is really fast, they always reply within a few minutes”, “SmugMug also reply quickly when you contact them.”, “I’ve also contacted support several times and they’ve always been very helpful and customer focused.”
- Printing & E-commerce — “The prints always look great and arrive quickly”, “I’d recommend it to other digital photographers selling their work.”, “Their print lab gurantees are unbeatable”, “They really do a good job of printing”, “I recommend them for selling photos!”, “For print sales and order fulfillment— they’ve been the easiest thing to use.”, “I highly recommend them for client galleries and business features.”, “All the shopping cart functionality is embedded which is great”
- Unlimited Space — “It’s unlimited web space … is a key feature.”, “[I recommend them] for their unlimited photo storage”, “I love it. Esp the unlimited storage, I have over 450,000 photos on their site.”
People don’t like:
- Blog — “They don’t have a blogging feature, or at least I don’t use it, if they have one.”, “It doesn’t quite do everything I want it to do (style of blog, more flexible template options, adding buttons) and I plan to make the change to a wordpress site this winter during my slow season.”, “It doesn’t work well as a blog.”, “It’s not perfect (for example: no blog) but nobody is perfect.”, “For my blog I use WordPress.”
- Complicated — “It’s sort of complicated to get going and contains many features to navigate through.”, “Site design is a steep learning curve, so it’s a time consuming process unless you’re a whiz at such things…. but my site has ended up heads and shoulders above my competitors.”, “Yes, I like it, though it’s not the most user friendly.”, “It took some time figuring out how to modify every aspect of the template”
#2 – 22Slides (92% customer satisfaction)
People like:
- Customer Service — “Bryan is a standup guy and has been extremely helpful since I first signed up.”, “The customer service is second to none.”, “The folks there have always been super responsive to any service requests.”
- Easy to Use — “It’s intuitive”, “It’s really easy to maneuver and setting up your style.”, “Creating the site was really easy.”, “It’s easy to use, intuitive”, “The back end user interface is extremely simple, and makes it easy.”, “Adding new work is easy. Layouts are easy to change as well.”, “Backend is super easy to manage and organize.”
- Price — “It’s fairly cheap.”, “The price is right”, “Their customer service and prices have always been very good.”, “I decided on it after trying out both 22Slides and Squarespace and 22slides had the exact features I was looking for and was a better deal for me.”, “Pricing is better than I’ve found anywhere else”, “22Slides is competitively priced”
People don’t like:
- Video — “I’m looking for a more video-friendly option.”, “I am thinking to switch to Squarespace cause my works are animations and videos. I think 22Sldies is a good choice for photography.”
#1 – Format (95% customer satisfaction)
People like:
- Easy to Use — “Simple and easy all around”, “I find Format very clean and user friendly”, “It’s really easy to edit the captions and the alt text on photos”, ”Easy to learn and use”, “Easy to use interface”, “It’s really simple to use”, “I love it, simple, easy to use and navigate when putting together.”, “I know Squarespace always advertises how easy it is to use, but compared to Squarespace, Format is idiot proof.”, “Format provides a super clean, modern, easy to navigate site.”, “The editing interface is pretty self explanatory”
- Price — “At a great price too.. I pay $6.99”, “I forgot what I’m paying for Format but as you can imagine, if you can forget the cost, it is pretty nominal!”, “The price is actually really good for the service and build that you get”, “It’s quite simple to use and doesn’t cost too much”
- Templates — “Also customizing the design is quite easy”, “They have a good few design templates you can choose from”, “It’s really good on iPad and mobile”, “I tried out other website builders but Format was the only … where my website is exactly how I want it to look.”, “The layouts are nice and simple.”, “I’ve tried several other platforms, and this one is the best design and quality”, “They also add new layouts regularly”, “The designs / templates are nice and sleek and compliment whatever work you have.”, “They have so many layout options that are specially formatted for still and motion portfolios that it was very well suited for what I was looking for even before I did any customization.”, “would definitely recommend to anyone looking to create an online portfolio that is sleek and modern”
People don’t like:
- no consistent complaints
Read the full article over at Wise Buyer to get even more tips on photography portfolio sites.
Source: Wise Buyer
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