If you found youself here...than Hi!

Chances are if you found yourself in this specific blog than you are either 1) looking for a new website or 2) looking to change. Yeah that was me! Here are some tips that could help aide your search!

Here are some of my personal tips when it comes to choosing a website.

* Find a website platform that is easy to use, not only for you but also the user. Nothing is worse than having a "good" website to find out the customer side is garbage. I have been there and it sucked!

* If you plan on selling things (photos, calendars, apperal) than find a site that allows a storefront. Ensure that you can set up payments online and offline. Building a store is kind of tricky the first couple times but once you get the hang of it, than its easier going forward. Don't be afraid to reach out to their support either. Pixieset has a wonderful customer service team who is always there to help me!

* Does the layout work for you? Is it geared towards what YOU are doing?

* Does the pricing fit your budget? A free site might sound appealing but there is a lot of work that goes into building that, some "free" sites don't come with templates to start off. Personally for me, its worth the 80 something dollars a month that i pay. A free website, as far as i am aware, does not come with any security features, so if you were to add a e-commerce storefront the likelyhood of having security for purchases isn't there. A paid website platform offers more storage, with the option to upgrade, emailing services and much more. It really is worth looking into both!

* Have a domain name. THIS speaks volume about YOU. I personally LOVE the look of www.(nameofbusiness).com or .ca or whatever you decide. I find it rather unappealing when a website it www.(name).wix.com i find it cheap and not really investing in yourself. It's more of a personal opinion, however in the same aspect would you hire a law firm (for example) with a website like www.(name).wix.lawfirm.com? Probably not!

I previously used a website platform called Photobiz, i loved it at first, however there was a few drawbacks. One being the pricing was USD and the conversion to CAD was BRUTAL sometimes. I later found out that the purchasing side (store front) was not that user friendly and rather unappealing to put in short term, making me wonder how much business i lost because of it, some of my images would not load and when i spoke with support about it, i was told they could not duplicate the problem and gave me the typical "tell them to clear their browser cache, try Chrome, Firefox, ect - As a business i felt that i should not have to tell clients that, and that it should work given the amount of money i was paying out monthly for it. I posted to a local group on Facebook asking who everyone was through and Pixieset came to light, i checked out their platform and everything fit my needs, the price was in my range. I have received SO MANY compliments on my website and that is like the best feeling ever. The store front side was super easy to setup and is extremely user friendly which has been a godsent if you ask me! Switching from one site to another was a new learning curve, transferring my domain and all that fun stuff took some time, but while i was doing that i kept my Photobiz site live while i worked on my Pixieset website. Proud of myself because it took 2 all-nighters to get my website done outside of my normal working schedule.