I'm wondering about setting up a website, but know nothing about such a venture - too many years isolated in the American outback as a wildlife biologist maybe. I guess I'm asking "where do I start?". I don't really want to dump a lot of cash into it (if any), but would like a site floating around the nebulous world wide web. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
You could just set up a photoportfolio here on NPN. Our portfolios get quite a few hits and it is part of the NPN membership. You could also use one of the free or inexpensive image hosting services such as photobucket, image shack, Yahoo or even MySpace.
For a more sophisticated site you could get a program like WebEasy. This is a what you see is what you get software. It converts what you write to HTML. The software is about $50. you then must have a URL. This costs about $15 per year. I use this system and have my site hosted on iEasy for $9.95 per month.
Look around at the sites of the various NPN members and see what they are doing.
Jay, to add to what Ed said, if you've decided to go beyond the photosharing for a more custom design you have several choices. Design it yourself, buy a template, or hire someone to do it for you. Each has advantages/disadvantages. Either way, I'd suggest you a) come up with and purchase a url and b) decide and purchase on a website server space. From there, if you wish to do it yourself, there are several high quality tutorials on html and the like. http://www.w3schools.com/ have some awesome tutorials. Lastly, I will send you an email with a link, I wrote an article recently that isn't quite complete, but if you want you can take a looksy. May or may not answer some of your questions...Greg
Depends exactly what you want to get out of your website. If it's just about getting your name out there, PhotoPortfolios, MySpace, and so forth are cheap/free, pretty effective, and low maintenance. Alternatively, getting your own website gives you much more freedom, but subsequently takes a bit more work.
If you're looking to go the custom website route:
The no-cost option:
Teach yourself HTML and find a free web host.
The mid-cost option:
Pay somebody to do the initial grunt work, pay for a host, but add/maintain content all by yourself.
The high-cost option:
Pay somebody else to do everything.
The high-cost option is impractical, especially since photography websites don't tend to reel in the money to pay for the expenses. It'll also likely give you a website that's far more advanced than what you really need, especially if you just want to get your name out there...
The no cost option isn't realistic, because even though HTML is quite easy to learn, it takes some experience to create a website that is functional and attractive and doesn't scare people away. Also, websites with geocities.com URLs just don't reflect positively upon a persons work...
Therefore, most likely the best choice for you is to pay somebody to design and code the skeleton of the website. Then, if you learn some basic HTML, it'll be easy for you to add and maintain the site's content. Since I've always designed my own sites, I can't really tell you how much that'd cost from a professional firm.
I'm currently redesigning and moving my site, and the actual design/coding part only took me a few hours (it's a fairly simple site). If I were charging somebody, I think it'd be in the $150 - $250 area. Adding content is what's taking my time, but it doesn't require much technical know-how.
Also, spend a few bucks to get your own domain (ie. www.jaymartin.com) and have a reliable host. Having your own domain not only looks better, but it helps with getting your name up there in search engines.
Probably the toughest part of the website is designing it. What do you want the site to look like?
Using a professional, depending on the nature of the contract signed, may mean that if the two of you part ways down the road, you *might* be left no recourse but to start the site again. Some designers may let you keep the site as designed (which is what you might have paid them for), with no further input from them, or they might take their design elements with them.
Some website hosting companies will offer a template design for websites. You might have the same issue with them - if you move you site to another hosting company down the road, you won't get the template design and will find yourself starting over again.
Now, there is nothing wrong with either of these. Just make it clear to yourself what you are actually paying for and what happens if things change in two or three years.
I went the route of designing my own site, mainly because I didn't want to pay someone and wasn't too thrilled with the templates offered by my hosting company.
The first thing I needed to think about was the opening page. What do I want there? Then the navigation design. How do I want to present it? What will the backgrounds look like? My background was one of the presets offered by FrontPage, slightly tweaked in Photoshop. What is the color scheme? Dark, light? How are the images presented? Framed? Thumbnails?
Spend several hours, or even days if you are on dial-up, looking at other photographers websites. See what they have done, what you like and what you dislike. Try to figure out why you like or dislike the sites.
Flash makes it harder to steal images, but isn't searchable by web engines and is a bear to download on dialup. For the latter reason, I simply won't visit a flash website, no matter how good it is. It also tends to be overused to show off programmer skills rather than the images.
Do you intend to use it as a marketing tool, sell images, and/or just show images? That will make a big difference in how you design it.
Keep it simple at first. You can always make it more complicated later.
Spend an eveing in Border's and read some books on web design and the web. You won't be trying to become an expert - just looking for things to keep in mind.
Feel free to look at my site and the coding behind it. It is fairly simple. I found that reviewing other sites for ideas for my site took about a month of evenings here and there, the home page/site structure about 2 weeks to design and look presentable, and the rest of the pages about another two weeks total. The version you see is version 2. There will probably be a version 3 later this summer. All three are/will be similar, just incremental improvements over the previous versions. The first version started at 1.1 and finished at 1.ten gazillion
Oh, and if you have any aspirations of marketing your work, you absolutely MUST have your own domain name. www.flicker.com\galleries\JayMartinImages\ , or whatever the structure may be, will do more damage to your credibility as a photo marketer than almost anything else you can do. I'm not picking on Flicker in particular - there are a number of hosting companies that put their name first and then eventually get to your name. They are great for sharing photos, but not for running a business through them (and you might find yourself in violation of user agreements!).
Like everyone said, it really depends what you want to do on and with your website. As noted above, most websites are not money makers. They do help you get your name out there. You have to understand keywording and meta-data in order to get your images found near the top of the google (or other) search pages.
If you just want to jump right in for now until you learn more about what you really like, then try smugmug.com. You can get on their free system and give it a whirl. You can also see other sites that have used smugmug. It's not the best and it's not the worst. IF you decide you like it, then upgrade to their Pro account and get your own url pointed to it.
I myself used to be a programmer and decided I did not not want to be an html programmer. I also did not want to have someone else do it and be dependent on them. So, smugmug fits nicely right in-between. And if I wanted to modify what they offer, then they allow html coding to be added by you.
Anyway, it's worth looking at. You will be up and running fast.
Jay:
I have found this Web site to be very helpful: http://webstyleguide.com. It is the entire text of the book of the same name. I use this text when I teach Web site design and development.
Like the others have said a lot depends on what you with to do with your site.A pretty easy solution is at betterphotos.com they offer several options there and templates that are fairly easy to use and set up a site. They offer from the basic to a sales site and do turn out pretty nice and you can have your own url name also and the cost is not all that bad. Might be an option for you to at last get your feet wet and see what you really want and need.
I have gone to a site called www.ifp3.com and I am fairly happy with them. As I have Zero intrest in learning about website design it has worked out good for me. Support from the host people has been quite good as well. I just changed my URL to www.hiredgunphoto.ca and it was quite painless. I have PayPal attached so people can buy photos from the event I covered online, which has worked out fairly well. If you don't want to get involved in all the website design like I did, this was the best I could find that was affordable.
Discussion
12 repliesFor a more sophisticated site you could get a program like WebEasy. This is a what you see is what you get software. It converts what you write to HTML. The software is about $50. you then must have a URL. This costs about $15 per year. I use this system and have my site hosted on iEasy for $9.95 per month.
Look around at the sites of the various NPN members and see what they are doing.
Good luck. Hope to see your site up soon.
Cheers,
Ed
If you're looking to go the custom website route:
The no-cost option:
Teach yourself HTML and find a free web host.
The mid-cost option:
Pay somebody to do the initial grunt work, pay for a host, but add/maintain content all by yourself.
The high-cost option:
Pay somebody else to do everything.
The high-cost option is impractical, especially since photography websites don't tend to reel in the money to pay for the expenses. It'll also likely give you a website that's far more advanced than what you really need, especially if you just want to get your name out there...
The no cost option isn't realistic, because even though HTML is quite easy to learn, it takes some experience to create a website that is functional and attractive and doesn't scare people away. Also, websites with geocities.com URLs just don't reflect positively upon a persons work...
Therefore, most likely the best choice for you is to pay somebody to design and code the skeleton of the website. Then, if you learn some basic HTML, it'll be easy for you to add and maintain the site's content. Since I've always designed my own sites, I can't really tell you how much that'd cost from a professional firm.
I'm currently redesigning and moving my site, and the actual design/coding part only took me a few hours (it's a fairly simple site). If I were charging somebody, I think it'd be in the $150 - $250 area. Adding content is what's taking my time, but it doesn't require much technical know-how.
Also, spend a few bucks to get your own domain (ie. www.jaymartin.com) and have a reliable host. Having your own domain not only looks better, but it helps with getting your name up there in search engines.
Using a professional, depending on the nature of the contract signed, may mean that if the two of you part ways down the road, you *might* be left no recourse but to start the site again. Some designers may let you keep the site as designed (which is what you might have paid them for), with no further input from them, or they might take their design elements with them.
Some website hosting companies will offer a template design for websites. You might have the same issue with them - if you move you site to another hosting company down the road, you won't get the template design and will find yourself starting over again.
Now, there is nothing wrong with either of these. Just make it clear to yourself what you are actually paying for and what happens if things change in two or three years.
I went the route of designing my own site, mainly because I didn't want to pay someone and wasn't too thrilled with the templates offered by my hosting company.
The first thing I needed to think about was the opening page. What do I want there? Then the navigation design. How do I want to present it? What will the backgrounds look like? My background was one of the presets offered by FrontPage, slightly tweaked in Photoshop. What is the color scheme? Dark, light? How are the images presented? Framed? Thumbnails?
Spend several hours, or even days if you are on dial-up, looking at other photographers websites. See what they have done, what you like and what you dislike. Try to figure out why you like or dislike the sites.
Flash makes it harder to steal images, but isn't searchable by web engines and is a bear to download on dialup. For the latter reason, I simply won't visit a flash website, no matter how good it is. It also tends to be overused to show off programmer skills rather than the images.
Do you intend to use it as a marketing tool, sell images, and/or just show images? That will make a big difference in how you design it.
Keep it simple at first. You can always make it more complicated later.
Spend an eveing in Border's and read some books on web design and the web. You won't be trying to become an expert - just looking for things to keep in mind.
Feel free to look at my site and the coding behind it. It is fairly simple. I found that reviewing other sites for ideas for my site took about a month of evenings here and there, the home page/site structure about 2 weeks to design and look presentable, and the rest of the pages about another two weeks total. The version you see is version 2. There will probably be a version 3 later this summer. All three are/will be similar, just incremental improvements over the previous versions. The first version started at 1.1 and finished at 1.ten gazillion
If you just want to jump right in for now until you learn more about what you really like, then try smugmug.com. You can get on their free system and give it a whirl. You can also see other sites that have used smugmug. It's not the best and it's not the worst. IF you decide you like it, then upgrade to their Pro account and get your own url pointed to it.
I myself used to be a programmer and decided I did not not want to be an html programmer. I also did not want to have someone else do it and be dependent on them. So, smugmug fits nicely right in-between. And if I wanted to modify what they offer, then they allow html coding to be added by you.
Anyway, it's worth looking at. You will be up and running fast.
Troup Nightingale
I have found this Web site to be very helpful: http://webstyleguide.com. It is the entire text of the book of the same name. I use this text when I teach Web site design and development.
Cheers,
Bernie
Like the others have said a lot depends on what you with to do with your site.A pretty easy solution is at betterphotos.com they offer several options there and templates that are fairly easy to use and set up a site. They offer from the basic to a sales site and do turn out pretty nice and you can have your own url name also and the cost is not all that bad. Might be an option for you to at last get your feet wet and see what you really want and need.
Dennis
Harold
Tracy H.