New design options: custom slideshows and page backgrounds

Posted on November 14, 2016 by J-F

website_slideshows_static_splash

You probably know that you can display any gallery in slideshow mode, that’s what the Portfolio gallery style does by default. A little-less known PhotoDeck feature is the ability to add a custom slideshow to a custom content page or a gallery overview.

We’ve just completely revamped and expanded that feature.

website_slideshows_gallery_banner

Here is what’s now possible:

– display a slideshow as the background of a page
– display a slideshow as a banner which size depends on the viewer display size
– overlay text on slideshow
– show text that changes with the images
– add images to the slideshow more easily than before

website_slideshows_metadata_splash

This allows for eye-catching full-bleed frontpage slideshows (see live example), elegant banners above content pages or gallery indexes, a custom background image on your contact page… the possibilities are limitless.

Learn how to make the most of it and share on our Facebook` a screenshot what you’ve done with it!


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TIP // Automatically Sharing to Social Media

Posted on November 4, 2016 by David

For many businesses, social media is an essential marketing tool. For some, it’s considered a necessary evil. In either case, your PhotoDeck website makes it easy to automatically share new content to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

socialnetworks

You’ll first need to connect your social media accounts to PhotoDeck. To do this, go to Dashboard / Me / Social Networks. Click on Connect a new social media account and follow the prompts on the page. Once you’ve done this, you’re ready to set up automatic sharing. Simply add the message you want to share with your followers, choose a time of day, and you’re done! The system will check for new images every 24 hours, and update your social networks if there is new content.

Connecting your social media accounts has an added benefit: it makes it really easy to share images or galleries directly from your My Images & Videos panel. In your gallery, go to MORE / Share gallery link and select the pages you want to share to. Additionally, you can select a single image and share it via the dedicated share button in the right-hand-side panel.

Whether you’re a social butterfly or just want to take the work out of social media marketing, connecting your social accounts makes it easy to “set it and forget it”.


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TIP // Capturing Visitor Information

Posted on October 20, 2016 by David

As you build your website or business, it’s important to know who your customers are. The more information you can capture about your visitors, the better you can target your content to your audience. Here are a few things you can do to make sure you’re not left in the dark.

Visitor Statistics

The first and easiest step is to use the Statistics page, available directly from your dashboard. This will allow you to see an overview of visitors, searches, and price lookups of your product. You can use this information to get a better understanding of what your visitors are interested in.

statistics

Another thing you can do is to integrate your website with a dedicated analytics service such as Google Analytics, StatCounter, or Facebook. You can connect your analytics accounts to your PhotoDeck website easily via My Website / Setup / Analytics & site verification. Some of these services also track device an browser information, as well as where on a particular page visitors were active.

Capturing Email Addresses

Beyond analytics and statistics, one thing you may really want is a visitor’s email address. In order to get signups on your website, you’ll need to create some incentives.

For example, you could set up a gallery with free high-resolution downloads. In your gallery’s authorizations panel, enable free 1-click downloads, and choose the method “via cart.” This will let visitors get the image for free, but they will need to go through the checkout process and leave their information with you.

viacart

Another incentive could be a valuable newsletter with interesting content or offers for subscribers. There are many powerful third-party services available, but your Pro/Studio membership already comes with an easy-to-use mailing facility.

Using a combination of website analytics tools and email capture methods, you should be able to get a good understanding of who your visitors are and what they’re doing on your website.


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TIP // Using Image Metadata

Posted on October 7, 2016 by David

When you’re uploading images to your PhotoDeck website, all embedded IPTC metadata is automatically imported along with it. But how much time and effort should you spend on metadata? And which fields are most important for your website?

keywords

TITLE

The title is arguably the most important metadata field. Giving your images a title is important because it’s what we show in the browser bar in the enlarged image view. If no title is present, the description field will be used instead. Without a title or description, the filename will be displayed, and while that may be fine for a proofing gallery, it’s not the best option for a portfolio gallery. It also helps search engines better determine the relevance of your image for search results.

DESCRIPTION

The description field is a great opportunity to use some strong, relevant keywords to help search engines more accurately index your image pages. It may be worth taking the time to write a sentence or two about each of your portfolio images. If you’re diligent about the description field, it may help you achieve better search engine rankings.

KEYWORDS

Keywords are often misunderstood and misused. We frequently see members add dozens of keywords to their images in hopes of climbing up the search engine rankings. In truth, most modern search engines, including Google, do not look at the keywords at all. For SEO purposes, it simply makes no sense to spend time adding keywords. However, the keywords are used in your internal site search. If you’re building a stock image library, they could be a valuable tool and certainly worth the effort.

OTHER METADATA FIELDS

Additional metadata fields such as Author and Location can be helpful for your visitors to provide more context, but are generally not as important from an SEO standpoint.

To learn more about metadata and the individual fields, please see our metadata help documentation.

Search engines only index content that’s actually visible on the page, so check your gallery display styles to make sure everything is properly displayed.


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Designs update: thin fonts

Posted on September 27, 2016 by J-F

A current website design trend is to use thinner-than-normal fonts, and we’ve now made sure you can do that on PhotoDeck websites.

Matt Leete // www.mattleete.com

Matt Leete // www.mattleete.com

You will see today an invitation to upgrade your designs (desktop and mobile) to take advantage of these new options. Note that the desktop design upgrade will push a lighter font weight on your website’s main content, and we invite you to adjust to your taste (under All theme styles / Overall site).

font_weight_option

Everywhere where you can select a different font (e.g. logo, menu bar…), you can now also select a font weight! Just don’t overdo it: mixing many different weights will look unprofessional and will slow down your site. Super-light fonts (weight of 100) might also not display well on non-retina displays.

Although most do, not all fonts come with lighter versions. Remember you can also use TypeKit fonts if you have a TypeKit account!

Updated forms styles

We’ve also updated the styling on forms (e.g. contact, address forms). You’ll see the changes as soon as you edit your design, even if you don’t upgrade it.

contact

Hope you’ll enjoy these improvements! As always let us know what you think.


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TIP // Moving a Gallery

Posted on September 22, 2016 by David

Sometimes you want to change or clean up your gallery structure. Other times, you may have just created a gallery, uploaded images to it, only to realize that you accidentally created it in the wrong place. Rather than delete everything and start over, you can simply move a gallery to the desired location.

First, navigate to the gallery you want to move. Then, open the Name and main settings panel via the MORE menu. Alternatively, you can click on the small pencil icon next to the name of the gallery. From this screen, you can re-assign your gallery to a different part of your website using the This gallery goes under dialog.

movegallery

If you need to move many galleries at once, another great way to do this is by using the PhotoDeck Lightroom plugin. Once you’ve set it up and imported your gallery structure, you can simply drag and drop galleries to where you want them. Your PhotoDeck admin panel will update accordingly and make the changes.

Moving a gallery also changes its URL, so be careful about moving it since both SEO and inbound links may be affected.


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TIP // Your Own Newsletter

Posted on August 25, 2016 by David

A newsletter is an often underutilized tool, ideal for promoting sales, studio events, or new offerings. What you may not know is that your Pro/Studio PhotoDeck membership already comes with an easy-to-use mailing facility that allows you to send out newsletters to your existing client list within minutes.

Newsletter

To create a new mailing, simply navigate to My Business / Mailings, then click on Create a new mailing. Once you’ve selected which clients you want to reach, simply insert a title and use the visual editor to format your message.

While you’re preparing to send out your first newsletter, it be a good opportunity to clean up your client list and create some groups.

Choosing a good title is essential, as it can mean the difference between your message being opened or going straight to the trash folder. Try to keep it short and catchy, but be aware of your messaging: a “clickbait” title may not resonate well with your professional clients.

We recommend that you first send yourself a test message to see what your mailing will look like to your clients. Feel free to insert images and links, but keep in mind that emails are often met with a short attention span. Depending on your goals, a simple message with a clear call to action will be most effective.


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TIP // Gallery Display Style Basics

Posted on August 18, 2016 by David

Gallery display styles are an important and powerful tool to control the way your galleries, thumbnails, and images are displayed to your visitors. It is what allows you to match a gallery’s presentation with your own style, but also with the purpose of that gallery (a client gallery isn’t necessarily best presented in the same way as a portfolio gallery).

They are assigned upon gallery creation, but can be re-assigned later on. The 4 default gallery styles are a great place to start when setting up your website. And if you want more control, gallery styles offer a great deal of customizability.

Gallery display styles

You can access your gallery styles via My Website / Gallery Styles. The top menu of every gallery in your administration panel also has an indicator of which gallery style is currently in use. You can click on it to switch and customize your gallery styles.

Customize the gallery styles to change the size and style of thumbnails, pagination settings, how metadata is displayed, and much more. This is also the place to customize the placement of the recently introduced share button. For more detailed information about gallery styles, please have a look at the documentation.

Gallery styles are applied to all galleries using that particular style, so if you only want the changes to apply to one particular gallery, you should create a new style using the “duplicate” button.


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TIP // Setting gallery covers

Posted on August 11, 2016 by David

Gallery cover images are a great opportunity to give your visitors a preview of what to expect before entering a gallery. A great gallery cover can mean the difference between a visitor exploring more of your website or leaving. Your PhotoDeck site offers a great deal of flexibility for gallery covers that you may not know about.

In the My images & videos tab, navigate to a gallery and select the image you want to use as the cover. Then, in the right-hand-side panel, click on Set as cover image. Confirming the dialog will set the image as the cover, which is denoted with a small icon on the thumbnail.

Gallery cover image

However, the cover image doesn’t need to be in the same gallery. You can select any image on your website to be the cover for any gallery. In the aforementioned popup dialog, you’ll see that you can enter any gallery name in the field. You can even set the image to be the cover for multiple galleries.

If you want to use unique cover images but not make visible in any public gallery, you can simply create a new gallery containing all your cover images and set it to “hidden” in the authorizations panel.

Setting a nice gallery cover is often overlooked, so take a look at your galleries and make sure they’re set to your liking. A simple tweak such as this can lead to more clicks within your PhotoDeck website and entice your visitors to explore more.


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TIP // Finding unpublished files

Posted on August 4, 2016 by David

If you’ve been using your website for a while, chances are you’ve not only been creating galleries, but also removing some. When deleting a gallery, you’re presented with two options: Delete all files in the gallery, or keep them. In this post we’ll show how to find those unpublished files if you chose to keep them.

Under the My images & videos tab, click on All my files in the top left corner of the page. Then, open the search panel and set the Published drop-down to No. The search will then return all unpublished images, videos, and documents on your website.

Find unpublished files

From this view, you can re-publish them to other galleries, or use the multi-selection to delete them all permanently. You can use the search tools to further narrow down your results. For example, find all unpublished files with a rating of 2 stars or less.

Like any search, it can also be saved as a Smart Collection, a time-saver if you access it often. And in fact, every PhotoDeck account is created with an “Not published” Smart Collection already!

Whether you’re just looking to clean up your archive or free some storage, finding unpublished files is a good place to start.


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