Getting a website of my own

[nonot]

I think it's the responsibility of a Creative Professional to suggest the best solutions for their clients, not the solution that necessarily nets them the most money, I'm into return customers, not a dried-out off of one job type of client, so if I were hired by you I'd say something like this:

Don't use "free" website builders as you'll most definitely get burned.

Be wary of sites offering you "complete control over your website" they are most often the ones that offer the least of it.

Make a list of what you want in a website, as well as what you need, take that to a designer before engaging in any business with them, they should have no problem going over your list of requirements to let you know if they are possible, not possible, or just out of your budget.

Be careful of people who tell you not to ever design a site in flash.

Be careful of people who only design sites in flash.

Good luck.

*** this is in no way a solicitation for work.

 

[tstermitz]

I love smugmug

I love smugmug

Best user experience I've ever had with a technical product! Documentation was amazingly good; technical issues explained very clearly. Operationally clean and easy. You can separate your portfolio from a hidden friends and family area.

You can freebee for a couple weeks, then decide on your level. Pro is $150 for a year, which gets you shopping cart with complete print fulfillment (you set the prices), and custom domain name. You can use Google analytics or internal statistics. They have a non-US payment scheme, but I'm not sure how it works.

You can do a lot of customization if you want, but I use the default template, which is clean and puts my photos at the center of the user experience. I figure visitors shouldn't have to learn a new interaction on each new website. My photos provide the attraction, not the template.

I've played with making my own photography galleries on Drupal; I love control. But, It takes a LOT of effort to match the features of smugmug, or a similar dedicated hosting service. I'll use Drupal for blogging, not my portfolio.

I look at high-end photographer websites, and they are polished, but I'm not fond of fancy photo-flows and slideshows on the front page. Flash doesn't work on iPhone, and I want the website to get out of the way, not lose me with bells and whistles.

http://photokinesis.info

 

[click]

Hi,

I built my own website and it was easy, though I do have a background in computing. I made some content errors but the actual innards are rock solid using CSS. I don't think my website looks packaged but it is very simple which means it's easy for people to use, loads quickly and is easy on the eyes. There are zero gimmicks to building a good website. Flash is a waste of time and I know more about Flash than any other program and can build amazing things with it, but it doesn't make sense to display my site with it.

Whatever you do, keep it simple. The Tao says "Recognize the utility of what is not."

What's your budget?

 

[Steve M.]

Just my 2 cents here. I know quite a few good photographers, many of whom have made a fair amount of money w/ their prints. Not one has made a sale from their websites. Maybe that's just a fluke, but it's a point to consider. They get lots of hits, they get some inquiries, but no sales. Sadly, the same is a given for gallery shows. Maybe they sell a print or two, but I seriously doubt it covers all the framing and matting costs. Right now the only people I know making any sales are people at the Saturday Downtown Market, and they have small prints at very modest prices. Nearly all the substantial sales ($50 or more), including mine, come from friends and word of mouth.

I also agree that for the money, if you want to give it a try, smugmug is hard to beat.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Just my 2 cents here. I know quite a few good photographers, many of whom have made a fair amount of money w/ their prints. Not one has made a sale from their websites. Maybe that's just a fluke, but it's a point to consider. They get lots of hits, they get some inquiries, but no sales. Sadly, the same is a given for gallery shows. Maybe they sell a print or two, but I seriously doubt it covers all the framing and matting costs. Right now the only people I know making any sales are people at the Saturday Downtown Market, and they have small prints at very modest prices. Nearly all the substantial sales ($50 or more), including mine, come from friends and word of mouth.

I also agree that for the money, if you want to give it a try, smugmug is hard to beat.

I sold one last week and two this week from my site. I've sold quite a bit off mine in the last couple years. I sell nothing in the city I live, ever. The people here simply have no use for anything creative from anyone (no one else sells locally either and I know EVERY artist in town). The net has been a godsend to me.

 

[dimkasta]

Well this is a huge discussion.

It all depends on what you expect from your site. Just a gallery? A blog? A forum? Some sales system? Newsletter? Custom design? Of course, the more elements, the more exposed your site will be to attacks.
But this is probably what you can get even from a "Hyperactive nerd" as was mentioned above. And visitors do not really care if your site uses a template or 10k super custom design. What they care is that it looks pleasing to the eye without any annoying elements (like music..........) and that it is easy to find what they came for.
Unfortunately users are mercyless at rejecting annoying or difficult to use sites. And they do it within seconds.
This is were a professional makes the difference. He has the knowledge to provide advice on the layout to keep it as functional as possible without making visual compromises.

But even then, the notion "Build it and they will come" does not work... A true professional will provide proper search engine optimization and offer advice on how to properly promote your site (with or without spending money)

hope it s not too long ot read 🙂

 

[surfer dude]

Well, Dreamweaver isn't THAT difficult to get your head around. Build up a database of websites that you like (not necessarily - in fact, preferably NOT - photographers' ones) and decide the "look and feel" that you want. Decide what you want the home page to say, what pages you wish to link to etc and what other content you want - artist bio, blog, maybe a shopping cart. Do extremely rough mock ups on A4 sheets of paper.

Don't forget, you can get the source code of any web page by control clicking (on a Mac - I guess right clicking on a PC?) and use that as a starting point. I am certainly NOT advocating stealing someone else's website creativity - but it is a good starting point to know where to begin. Get the source code, work out what commands do what (fairly easy when you use the split screen facility of Dreamweaver) then get rid of the original content and put what YOU want in it and where. Background colour, font, content, pictures, placement on the page - all your own work.

This is enormously satisfying, although it does take time. But so what if you do it over a couple of months in the evenings - it sure beats watching TV!

 

[wgerrard]

Standing up a web site requires two basic skill sets. Someone needs to create its design and functionality, i.e., what it does and how it looks. Then someones needs to stand up a server and install perhaps write the code that runs the site and provides that functionality. Once the site is live, of course, someones needs to administer it, which especially means staying current with bug and security fixes and installing them promptly.

On one side of the complexity spectrum are simple sites that only display photos. Wordpress and a few plugins can handle that quite well. On the other side of the complexity spectrum are sites that are self-hosted and sell images.

Having built a handful of sites, my strong suggestion to anyone needing a photo site is to first ensure that offerings from places like SmugMug and Zenfolio, or even one of the photoblog flavors of Wordpress, can not met your needs. If they can't, anyone who can afford it should shop the job out to a competent professional team. If you are a pro and your interface with your customers and your potential customers is going to be your web site, you don't want it to look like a 16-year-old built it. Professional design and reliability counts for more than originality.

Designing, coding and maintaining a serious web site requires building a skill set and an investment of time that people who are busy elsewhere really ought to think twice about.

 

[Ryan1938]

www.atomicindustry.com

Good web design. Affordable.

 

[Brian Puccio]

Then again, how many web designers are web designers? And how many are hyperactive nerds?

Cheers,

R.

Your prejudices aside, the more techy people will not call themselves web desginers (because they're not big into design) but something more appropriate like web application developer, because they develop a software product.

Want someone to make something that looks pretty? Hire a web designer.
Want someone to make something that does something and does it securely (handle credit card payments, store personal information, manage media, aggregate large sets of data and display it in on the fly filterable tables, maps and graphs, etc, etc)? Hire a web developer.

Can you get someone to do both? Sure. One camp needs to understand the other camp, but usually a person is really good at just one of the two.

 

[tstermitz]

What you said!

What you said!

Having built a handful of sites, my strong suggestion to anyone needing a photo site is to first ensure that offerings from places like SmugMug and Zenfolio, or even one of the photoblog flavors of Wordpress, can not met your needs. If they can't, anyone who can afford it should shop the job out to a competent professional team. If you are a pro and your interface with your customers and your potential customers is going to be your web site, you don't want it to look like a 16-year-old built it. Professional design and reliability counts for more than originality.

It's like building a house, each task isn't that hard, but no single person can efficiently do it all.

I'm totally a control freak, and love Drupal and doing my own websites. I could spend a lot of time and finally imitate a SmugMug appearance, but they deliver so much functionality that would take me forever to put in place: fulfillment, pricing, shopping carts, arrangements with quality printshops.

So there are two issues: Appearance/design and functionality.

If you really want to present your self in a business-like manner, you may want a graphic design professional to make it look top-end. With that done, turning a professional design into an actual gallery website is not hard at all.

But, if you want to add shopping cart and fulfillment, then you are talking serious money and a lot of implementation time.

This is why the SmugMug templates are such a good alternative. You get a website that looks good, works right, and has all the upload, pricing, gallery creation, tagging, etc. all set up, plus they have the fulfillment partners in place.

 

[cz23]

Thanks Chris that was exactly the info I was looking for! Everything has its price so I must either learn dreamweaver or find a person who can work with it. Although I would not mind using templates at the beginning.
Best regards from Vienna
Des

Personally, I think if you have the time and interest, Dreamweaver is worth learning, especially over the long haul and if your preference is for relatively simple sites. Most photo sites are just iterations of three or four page layouts. Once you identify sites you like, it's not that difficult to create your own versions of them. But I happen to enjoy these software tools.

Of course there are low-cost site builders like SimpleViewerPro (which I use), Autoviewer, and others, as well as web output from Lightroom and Photoshop.

John

 

[mimetic]

You might also try mimetic.com. You can get a free gallery by going to http://info.mimetic.com/

It's not a Flash system, like many others. It's really for people who want more of a gallery look than a computer look.

 

[Dwayneb9584]

I can build you a website for a good deal. I can also construct a blog for your website. I built my website and many for clients. I have a BFA in Graphic Design and studied Web Design as well. Although my heart is photography and that is what I do. I also can use some extra cash. You can check out my portfolio site at www.dwayneburgessphotography.com and sites I built for clients... www.micahwallace.com www.lerixmusic.com, www.noodlesandberries.com (which is currently in the development stages still.)