C100: How did you have your website done?

Website is a medium to communicate. If you create a website that is terrible, then it gives a bad impression. So from that perspective it is important to have a good website, even though your more leads may be generated by Vimeo or social media presence. If you are making 80k a year, then you can always spend 5% of that. Also better to give the maintenance to someone who can do it throughout, so you are not tensed about the site being down when you are shooting at an inaccessible place.

There are some prospective clients who get assured by looking at the list of good equipment.

Based on the enquiries, one also gets to know what kind of clients predominantly look at your site. That would help on strategising and making changes to the website and/or promotions. So there is one more reason why it is better not to mention the day rates in the website.
 
slavikb said:
Squarespace all the way. I've developed Wordpress sites for years and Squarespace is about a 1000x more professional looking out of the box, without a hundred plugins. It defaults to responsive design, is video friendly, and just works. The basic act of making columns on a post/page is so much simpler than any other CMS WYSIWYG out there. It's $10/month.

Anyway here's my site for example, took a few hours to put together, pretty simple: www.videodads.com

Cheers,
Slavik
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Thanks for the heads up on Squarespace. I like how it looks on your site, and the other guy who posted. I'm going to look into it. How does it do on Google SEO? Because my Wordpress site's SEO has me second on the list for "video production" and my city. I was first at one time.

Which template did you guys use?
 
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Just because you have money to spend doesn't mean everything is a wise investment. If Slavik can put together a decent looking site in two hours it may not make financial sense to invest $1500-$5000 to have a wed designer do a better website. For myself, I always find gear to be a great investment as it continually increases the money I make. Website, maybe a good investment for me to hire professionally, maybe not, but not something at this very moment that I want to spend a good chunk of change on, thus the current plan to give designing it myself another try once I get some free time in the next few weeks or so.

I don't understand the "maintenance" talk. Are your websites crashing, or do you just mean updating it with new videos and such? I don't do "maintenance" on my Word Press site and haven't had any issues in the past three years; everything just stays the same when untouched and works fine, and adding new videos or pages doesn't make anything crash.
 
I've always had issues with Squarespace, being somewhat buggy. Sometimes things just wouldn't work so I'd have to copy code, delete, repaste, and then it would work. Kind of just a pain. Though it does look good.

I admittedly use Weebly and it works well for me, at least for now. Super easy to create which also makes it fairly fun. Only problem is lack of customization. Things like a blog and I can't pick how many posts show up on the front page so it's just stacking up.
 
I don't know how SEO compares, sorry.

We used one of the early popular templates, Bedford. Probably lame because everyone else and their mom uses that template, but I doubt most visitors would recognize that.
 
Eric Coughlin said:
Just because you have money to spend doesn't mean everything is a wise investment. If Slavik can put together a decent looking site in two hours it may not make financial sense to invest $1500-$5000 to have a wed designer do a better website. For myself, I always find gear to be a great investment as it continually increases the money I make. Website, maybe a good investment for me to hire professionally, maybe not, but not something at this very moment that I want to spend a good chunk of change on, thus the current plan to give designing it myself another try once I get some free time in the next few weeks or so.

I don't understand the "maintenance" talk. Are your websites crashing, or do you just mean updating it with new videos and such? I don't do "maintenance" on my Word Press site and haven't had any issues in the past three years; everything just stays the same when untouched and works fine, and adding new videos or pages doesn't make anything crash.
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Are you saying you haven't updated your site's WordPress installation in three years?

If so, that's pretty irresponsible and you're hurting the security of every other site on the server (if it's shared hosting).

Keeping your software updated is essential.
 
I don't recall doing any updates; it's possible or even probable I have, but I generally I don't pay much attention to it. Why should I? There's only one other site currently on my host and it's practically a blank page I haven't done anything with, so no loss there. Basically, if my site got hacked (which is unlikely, I'd think, and hasn't happened), it probably wouldn't bother me much. I don't have a ton of content on there, and if anything, it getting hacked would motivate me to get on the ball in regards to updating it in general. Plus, all of my content is backed up and it wouldn't take long to get it all back up if everything got erased.
 
There have been 24 production releases of WordPress since the end of 2012 if I counted right. That doesn't count beta releases. Almost half of those are specifically security releases.

but I generally I don't pay much attention to it. Why should I? There's only one other site currently on my host and it's practically a blank page I haven't done anything with, so no loss there.
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Do you pay for a virtual private server or a dedicated server? If not, you're on what's called "shared hosting." This means that while it LOOKS like you have your own private space, you don't. It's trivially easy to find out how many sites are hosted on the box that hosts your site... and for the record that number is 644 according to DomainTools. You're using HostGator and they're well known for vastly overselling their boxes, so the number is probably pretty accurate.

All of the web sites hosted on that server are at risk from an exploit on your WordPress installation. You're right that it's unlikely and it hasn't happened (that you know of... I had a client who didn't update their CMS for a while and ended up having their hosting used to silently host a "warez" repository... the host finally figured it out and suspended their account)... but it's trivially easy to update WordPress, you just have to actually DO it.

Of course, if you haven't updated since 2012, you're probably running WP 3.5.x and the current version is 4.3... so upgrading at this point may be a bit of a headache.

Like I said before, if you're going to use self-hosted software keep it patched up. That's part of the responsibility you take on when you self-host something like WordPress. If you're not willing to assume that responsibility, it's irresponsible of you to just slap WP out there and let it get stale and insecure. If you're in love with WordPress, there are hosts (they're significantly more expensive than bottom-feeder hosting like HostGator though) that specialize in WP hosting and will keep your install patched up and running well.

If you don't care that it's WordPress, look into SquareSpace and Wix. They're FAR better suited to the "set it and forget it" crowd than self-hosted WordPress.
 
It's such a shame Apple stopped developing iWeb. That was the best web design app I've ever used. Now I use an app that is trying to be an iWeb replacement - EverWeb. It's ok, but miss some of the things that made iWeb truly great.
one of my favourite things about iWeb was that it was based on Pages. So when I was organising events, I could design a poster in Pages, and copy/paste into iWeb and with just some little tweaks I had a web page that looked like the poster!

EverWeb seems to be in quite rapid development and improves all the time. They also have web services etc. Might be worth looking into.
 
Everybody: Forget SEO. It's ephemeral. You think you have good SEO looking yourself up? Have a buddy on the other side of the country do it. I just searched Tampa Videographer and Eric doesn't show up in the first 5 pages. I have excellent non-wedding SEO because I was probably the first DP to have a website in my city. Google respects longevity.

So, you'll notice Thumbtack, Production Hub, Manta, Gig Salad, etc. have much, much better SEO results than us mere shooters, they have entire departments dedicated to it. So you're better off beefing up your profiles on those sites.
 
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We used a template and paid a developer to customize it a bit. Probably about a $1000 when all done. Load speed was an issue for our portfolio page on WP, so we did the Vimeography plug-in. You lose some SEO juice but get points for fast load times (I guess)
 
nedcam said:
Everybody: Forget SEO. It's ephemeral. You think you have good SEO looking yourself up? Have a buddy on the other side of the country do it. I just searched Tampa Videographer and Eric doesn't show up in the first 5 pages. I have excellent non-wedding SEO because I was probably the first DP to have a website in my city. Google respects longevity.

So, you'll notice Thumbtack, Production Hub, Manta, Gig Salad, etc. have much, much better SEO results than us mere shooters, they have entire departments dedicated to it. So you're better off beefing up your profiles on those sites.
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I, of course, always do my test search from a wiped browser. But you're saying that the location that you search from matters? I tried "videographer chicago" and you showed up at page 3. I tried "video production chicago", and didn't see you in the first 10 pages.

By my tests, I show up as the second company (third link, the first two links are the same company), after ads and/ or maps listings-- for "video production macon ga". Now I just checked "videographer macon ga", and no luck on that. But I've made the effort to optimize for "video production". My thinking is that people looking for a "videographer" are more likely to be looking for a wedding, which I don't do. Production companies who are located elsewhere and are looking to hire freelance here, I figure are going to use "video production". A local business, I figure it could go either way.

If you don't mind, and get a chance, would you see how I do when you search for "video production macon ga"? It's BT Media Productions.

My concern is that Squarespace might not do as well for me. Like you said, longevity matters. I wonder if, to Google, moving to that (still under the same domain), would see it as an entirely new website. Since it technically would be.
 
Ahhhh grashopper...

I may show up on Page 3 BUT...there's a 95% chance I am the FIRST who shows up who is NOT a wedding guy or production company. Please check again and report back. And yes, geography has a tremendous effect on G's alogorithms. If you ask 20 friends around the globe to do your keyword search and send you screen grabs of pages 1,2 & 3 you will see how different they are. I have done this.

If someone is looking for a corporate, documentary or non-fiction TV specialist (my 3 specialties), in Chicago they will blow by any listing that has the word Wedding or Production Company in it (I know I would), so in effect I have excellent SEO. When I am looking for a DP in another city, the word Wedding is the Kiss of Death (no offense) and if it smells like a prod co I figure they will be more expensive than a freelance DP so I avoid "full service" production companies.

When someone emails me I ask how they found me and if they say a search I then ask what words they used, and inevitably they say either Chicago Videographer or Videographer in Chicago. Since I'm not a prod co I don't care if they search for Video Production in Chicago and I don't appear, fine by me. I don't want to give away too many of my secrets but suffice it to say there's a hell of a lot less competition in Videographers than in Video Production Companies.

Also, if you, like me, uses Ad Blocker (it's free) then a lot of the commercial clutter crap does not appear and listings have a whole different look.

So please Google Chicago Videographer and tell me if I am not the first real shooter who does not do weddings or appears to be a production company. My market is looking for a specialist in what I do. I know 100% that if they see the word Wedding they keep going, so page 3 is cool by me.

In getting back to my post, I'd say there's a definite movement for people, especially under 30, to post on a crowd sourcing site rather than doing a search which requires them to "do work" once they get a few listings. So Production Hub, Thumbtack, Staff Me Up, etc. etc. are becoming more important.

Thanks
 
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I could be wrong, but I'd think that the average person searching for "[City] Videographer," upon finding just wedding videographers on the first two pages, would often give up before getting to the third page, and try different search terms. It's also interesting that most of the "[City] Videographer" wedding results tend to be lower end wedding companies since most of the higher end wedding companies refer to themselves as "wedding filmmakers."


My work is split 50/50 between freelance clients and my own production company's clients. Should I have a separate website for each?
 
Eric, I don't want to give away my secret sauce ingredients but trust me, they don't give up. They scroll till they find a "guy like me". They have a To Do list and one item will say "Find videographer in Chicago"

Also, I did what you're proposing: one site for freelance DP and the other for producing, in the false belief that there were two separate client demographics. Wow, what a waste of money. They overlap. I had BIZ Video, Inc. for producing and Ned Miller Film & Video, Inc. for shooting. As it turns out: You Are the Brand. Forget cutesy names, they want Eric Coughlin. Just do one identity: site, business cards, stationery, etc. It gets expensive and complex to keep two sites going, that's why I recently let BIZ Video fall to the wayside. At your age, as you start to build your base, I suggest you have your name in the title of your company and become the main reason they use your company. After all, it's not a company in the sense of other industries, it's You. In essence you are providing (freelance) creative services in the video area, it's that simple. Some will spin it that they are communication specialists but basically you, Eric Coughlin, are "their video guy".

And I forgot to tell Brandon: It's a hell of a lot easier to have higher SEO in a smaller market like Macon than it is a megalopolis like Chicago. Here there's got to be 500-700 guys calling themselves Videographers and perhaps 1200-1600 video production entities. It was a lot easier when all I had to do was look at the Yellow Page listings!
 
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groveChuck said:
Brandon- you're #3/second company searching from Miami, too.
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Thank you for checking!! :)

nedcam said:
Ahhhh grashopper...

I may show up on Page 3 BUT...there's a 95% chance I am the FIRST who shows up who is NOT a wedding guy or production company. Please check again and report back. And yes, geography has a tremendous effect on G's alogorithms. If you ask 20 friends around the globe to do your keyword search and send you screen grabs of pages 1,2 & 3 you will see how different they are. I have done this.

If someone is looking for a corporate, documentary or non-fiction TV specialist (my 3 specialties), in Chicago they will blow by any listing that has the word Wedding or Production Company in it (I know I would), so in effect I have excellent SEO. When I am looking for a DP in another city, the word Wedding is the Kiss of Death (no offense) and if it smells like a prod co I figure they will be more expensive than a freelance DP so I avoid "full service" production companies.

When someone emails me I ask how they found me and if they say a search I then ask what words they used, and inevitably they say either Chicago Videographer or Videographer in Chicago. Since I'm not a prod co I don't care if they search for Video Production in Chicago and I don't appear, fine by me. I don't want to give away too many of my secrets but suffice it to say there's a hell of a lot less competition in Videographers than in Video Production Companies.

Also, if you, like me, uses Ad Blocker (it's free) then a lot of the commercial clutter crap does not appear and listings have a whole different look.

So please Google Chicago Videographer and tell me if I am not the first real shooter who does not do weddings or appears to be a production company. My market is looking for a specialist in what I do. I know 100% that if they see the word Wedding they keep going, so page 3 is cool by me.

In getting back to my post, I'd say there's a definite movement for people, especially under 30, to post on a crowd sourcing site rather than doing a search which requires them to "do work" once they get a few listings. So Production Hub, Thumbtack, Staff Me Up, etc. etc. are becoming more important.

Thanks
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Cool, good info to keep in mind, Ned. Thanks for the thorough response.
 
good and necessary topic to be discussed.

i look forward to reading other thoughts and seeing examples.

thanks in advance.

be well.

rob
smalltalk productions/nyc
 
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