Comments on: PhotoShelter’s New WordPress Plugin + 22 Other Great Add-Ons For Photo Blogs

By: Justin Gill

Justin Gill — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:50:03 +0000

Hi Chris, yes, it seems the plugin detects the IPTC written in LR as opposed to the archive browser. HOWEVER, it writes the IPTC Caption field as a title tag, not the alt tag. As we know, SEO puts more weight in the alt tag than the title tag. Is there something I’m still not doing, or is this the way the plugin functions?

By: Chris Owyoung

Chris Owyoung — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 09:13:14 +0000

Hey Justin, I used Flickr for my blog images for 6 months before discovering PhotoShelter and it’s made a huge difference in time saved and effort spent on my blog. The automatic watermarking in PhotoShelter alone saved me tons of time (not having to make separate low-res watermarked flickr versions of my images) To your question about IPTC into the alt tags… The PS plugin reads the IPTC Description/Caption embedded in your images and writes it as the ALT text of your image so that search engines have an idea of what your photo is. You can write your captions via the archive browser, but IDEALLY, you should be doing this to your master copies on your computer BEFORE uploading them to your PS Archive – it’s a much better workflow to use Lightroom, Bridge, Photo Mechanic, Aperture, etc. to write IPTC data than to use the Archive browser after upload since this creates versions of your files online that have better metadata than your originals, which isn’t good practice. If you have other questions about PhotoShelter, just send a note to support@photoshelter.com or call 212.206.0808 – the client services team is GREAT!

By: Justin

Justin — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 06:34:11 +0000

Hi, I LOVE this plugin, it’s convincing me to migrate from Flickr to host my blog images to Photoshelter. Mainly for its SEO compatibility. However, I’m not understanding how it automatically includes the IPTC into the alt tags. I’m manually entering keywords and captions via the archive browser. Is this not right?

By: Chris Owyoung

Chris Owyoung — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:13:51 +0000

@drifingson, So glad you found that useful. It makes total sense to get things in order first before committing to any kind of longer-term expense, even if it’s not a large sum of money. So many people I know made big decisions that had impacts on their financial bottom line this year; the ones that are happiest now are the ones like you who also made smart adjustments to their expenses. BTW, love your photos of the crater.

By: driftingson.com

driftingson.com — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:10:16 +0000

Thank you, Chris- that is a screaming deal. I was self hosted for years, but I recently sold my business and got in a mood to downscale my life severely, hence the switch to worpress.org. It’s temporary while I reorganize, and that Dreamhost deal is definitely an insane deal, so I just may jump on that. Thank you for your time…

By: Chris Owyoung

Chris Owyoung — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:00:40 +0000

@driftingson.com Yes, this plugin is only for self-hosted sites. Blogs hosted by WordPress do not support plugins as far as I know. I’m not trying to be crass or make any assumptions about your finances, but I looked into it and I thought I would share…. Apparently, Dreamhost, which has a 1-click WordPress installation feature, just lowered it’s hosting prices to 1.95/month, which I think is insane. http://wordpress.org/hosting/ At the point where self-hosting costs less than $50/year – the prices of the monthly hosting and a domain name, I think it deserves a serious look by any photographer who is serious about blogging. In my opinion, plugins add so much functionality and save too much time to be ignored.

By: driftingson.com

driftingson.com — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 03:29:06 +0000

Just to be clear- this plugin is only for self-hosted wordpress sites, right? I’m still hoping for a valid option for wordpress.org hosted blogs. Impoverished photographers unite!

By: Chris Owyoung

Chris Owyoung — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:29:43 +0000

@ Seb, Those are good suggestions as well. Can you send them along to the team? https://www.photoshelter.com/contact

By: Chris Owyoung

Chris Owyoung — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:26:53 +0000

@ Lincoln Barbour I love doughnuts, especially if they’re beautifully photographed. I also like really strong coffee, especially if it’s served in a mug that’s softly focused behind a beautifully photographed doughnut. Be sure to make your way though some of the OTHER plugins in the list – they’re really useful, I swear. Chris

By: Chris Owyoung

Chris Owyoung — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:55:11 +0000

@ Patrick Fallon, Those a great suggestions Patrick I too would love the option to pull the IPTC caption into the WordPress image caption as well as the ability to insert multiple photos at a time. I'll send an email suggesting those features, but it NEVER hurts to send your own email anytime you have a suggestion for PhotoShelter. Member feedback is an incredibly important part in the development of the product. - https://www.photoshelter.com/contact Thanks also for including the link to your site, I love your use of SmoothGallery instead of flash. I've been considering using it for my own site but I'm trying to figure out a way to avoid hard coding every image and caption. Suggestions?