I’m usually not too much into pimping myself out, but a few clients already have asked about providing their testimonials, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt too much to do a little groveling.  I’m just happy that y’all are happy with my work!

So if you have a sec, just clicky on this link: http://blogsforphotogs.com/testimonials

Then leave a little somethin’ somethin’ for me. Pretty please?

As you can see, I’m back in the office now. Thank you so much to everyone who expressed their condolences. You guys really lift my spirits!

I’m really excited to offer this new package, which is available to existing clients. It’s a way of providing much needed customer service to my valuable, and much appreciated clients.

For 5 days only, this package is available for $149/year (offer expires October 26, 2009). It will be priced regularly at $199/year.

The Very Important Blogger Club package includes:

1. Nearly-instant Wordpress and plugin upgrades for all members. Tired of having to upgrade several times a year, only to find out a) it’s more difficult than you though and b) your plugins need to be updated as well?  Don’t worry about having to do it yourself.  Once we’ve tested the Wordpress upgrade, we will start upgrading our VIB clients.  Plugins will also be updated at the same time.
2. Wordpress tech support. Yup, you heard it.  Got a question about a new Wordpress feature or what you can do to fully harness the power of Wordpress?  Just ask and we’ll make every effort to answer your questions.  Note: this does NOT include tutorials for html, css, or php.
3. Unlimited customizations for an entire year. Woah, that’s a lot!  I know, I know.  I think I’ve gone slightly insane but don’t ask me about this one or I might change my mind!  These customizations don’t include gallery add-ons however (those are a whole separate beast themselves)

So really, that’s it.  $149 for all that for AN ENTIRE YEAR.  Sign up here before I change my mind!

I will be out of the office starting Thursday, Oct. 8th for 10 days due to a death in the family. For anyone who wants to sign up for the special, I will be extending the deadline until the end of the month. Thank you for understanding!

Ya might want to pass on this blog post to your photographer friends who still haven’t transferred their blogs to a self-hosted Wordpress blog. They’ll love you for it (especially if you read the end).

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to this subject, noticing for one, that I still see a lot of photographers who still host their blog with Blogspot, Typepad, or even Wordpress.com. It surprises me most of all coming from photographers because with our work out there on the internet, ownership of our photos is usually top priority in our business. Having someone else store your photos (and words) for you seems to me to be a security issue in and of itself, and completely goes against our copyright/ownership policies.

Besides that though, there are plenty of other reasons to self-host your blog, and in essence, own your photos and words.

I’ve compiled this list from various sources, which I will be citing at the end of this post. And of course, I’ve added my own reasons (in asterisks **) to make it more geared toward photographers.

Top 11 Reasons to Host Your Own Wordpress Blog

(because I couldn’t stop at just 10)

1. Store your own photos ** (yeah, this was an easy #1 to come up with)
With Blogspot, you never know what is done with your photos and where they are stored. I’ve found it very difficult to even import images from a Blogger site to be self-stored. Although Blogspot is free to use and you can assume that your images won’t *poof* disappear, how will you ever be sure? They’ve been known to hide the locations of stored images very well.

With Typepad, your images are deleted when you cancel your account (which you would inevitably do if you move to a self-hosted Wordpress blog), and unless you import your stored images into your server, they will disappear from your imported entries. Blogs for Photogs will import your images from Typepad (called remote image caching) if you request your Typepad posts to be imported into your self-hosted Wordpress blog.

2. Have full control of your blog content **
By hosting your own Wordpress blog, you have FULL control over every aspect of your blog. Every word, every photo, every ad (if you so wish) is there because you alone want it there, not because the free blogging company you signed up with wanted to include some paid advertising on your site.

3. You’ll be building links to your own domain.
When you host your blog at a service where your blog is just a subdomain, links to “your” blog are building page rank and links for the main domain, which isn’t yours. Instead, host your own blog, and all those links will be pointed to your domain and helping to boost your domain’s page rank and links.

4. Better SEO (Wordpress)
You can use plugins to SEO your blog. You can use plugins like All-in-One SEO to SEO each post, link checker to check for dead links i.e. links that are not working.

5. You can choose (and customize) your theme.
There are thousands of free themes available for WordPress and you can only use them if you host your own WordPress blog. You can also hire a designer (aka Blogs for Photogs) to build a theme for you that is unique to your business.

With many other blogging services you are limited to only the themes they’ve chosen to allow.

6. You can add any plugins you’d like.
One of my favorite things about WordPress is that there are so many fantastic plugins available. You can choose which work best for you and install anything you’d like on your own blog.

7. Ability to Backup your blog
You have the ability to back up your blog and store it in your email address or on your computer. It would be devastating if you lose all your blog posts because your free hosting company went out of business. There have been many horror stories like that.

8. Scripts
Hosting your own site will allow you to use many popular scripts that aren’t allowed on wordpress.com and blogspot. And you can also add other features like forums, vBulletin, membership features, and much more.

9.  Transform your blog into a blogsite**
Yup, here’s something you won’t find on Blogspot or Typepad.  Harness the full power of Wordpress and add photo galleries to your blog, essentially using Wordpress as a CMS (content management system). With a gallery plugin and some nifty scripting, your average photo blog becomes an full-on photography business website. And unlike those flash website templates, you can have UNLIMITED galleries.

10. Gain more Respect
If you have a free hosted blog, people would think that you are just dabbling in blogging. You probably just want to use your blog to pass time instead of staying idle doing nothing. But if you have a self hosted blog, people would know that you are a serious blogger and you have a passion for blogging.

11. Encourage Commenting
Commenting on blogspot can be a pain at times. You cannot enter your email address to receive your comment replies by email. Depending on the blog, you need to have a gmail address to comment on the blog.

Sources: http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2008/08/self-hosting-your-blog/ , http://creocommunico.com/five-great-reasons-to-host-your-own-wordpress-blog/941 , http://idwpublishing.info/2009/08/11/reasons-to-self-host-your-blog/

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FOR A LIMITED TIME: If you have an existing blog hosted off-site, sign up for a full custom blog or blogsite install package and receive $50 off
Offer ends October 15 31st, 2009. Refer to this blog post to receive discount.