Yet another web design software question

[Roger Hicks]

What's the simplest web design software you can buy (or get free, for that matter)?

To me, the bells and whistles (the things my web-master calls 'the dancing marmosets') are most useful when you've nothing to say. It's fashionable to say that templates are too limiting, but as far as I can see, the real limitations on most web-sites come from lack of imagination or content or both.

Foolishly, I bought Dreamweaver, but as far as I can see, it's Nerd Paradise: I want to spend time on content, not presentation.

Edit: Price isn't that important (as you can tell from the fact that I wasted my money on Dreamweaver), but I DON'T want a subscription service or one where I have to work online all the time: I want to buy (or acquire for free, if it's free) a program that allows me to create uploadable content. I'm currently leaning towards using just PDF...

Cheers,

R.

 

[Frank Petronio]

Chuck Dreamweaver out the door!

I think a Tumblr canned free website that points to your URL and has a list of social media and contact links down the side is all you'll ever need as your main website.... Pay a geek to get your logo up on a customized template and to marry your URL, $100 tops.

Put the majority of your portfolio on Flickr, tag and caption the images properly... this is now your main online portfolio. So it isn't branded? So what?

Put up a business "Like-able" page on Facebook (not a personal page) and put an abbreviated portfolio and bio, plus key articles in the Notes section. So it isn't branded? So what?

Have someone do a Wikipedia article about the famous Roger Hicks.... So it isn't branded? So what?

Put up a Blogger site for your articles. They have a decent indexing system and very legible, reader-friendly templates. So it isn't branded? So what? (Actually you can brand it with your logo up on top.)

Post new or vintage work daily on that main Tumblr site every day. Tag and caption well. This will boost you in the search engines and bring new customers and traffic.

And then... with all your mostly free stuff - generate amazing content. And laugh at the photographers who dropped $10K on a custom Flash website that loads slow, is a pain to update, and the search engines can't "see".

Just another point... when I do a slideshow in Flickr, or go through the indexing in Blogger, or use the easy but powerful interface in Tumblr, I think from a web developer's viewpoint that there are hundreds of thousands of dollars and hours put into creating those and they are the best in the industry... compared to having some geek crank something halfass out for a few grand, it is kind of stupid to work that way, it is very 2005.

I always liked this ad agency's approach: http://www.modernista.com/

The next twenty posts will dispute everything I just wrote. Go look at their websites before you take their advice ;-p

 

[Jamie123]

Get a cargocollective site. $25/year including hosting and you can change the code on the site to your liking. Another option is indexhibit, although I find it more complicated.

Edit: Just saw your edit. You don't want a subscription service, so cargocollective is out of the question (even though it's very cheap). Try Wordpress.org. It's a free software.

 

[mugent]

Are you a Mac user? If so, I'd go for Flux www.theescapers.com/flux , but I would say that, I wrote it. If you want something really simple, RapidWeaver is easy to use.

MT

 

[Colin Corneau]

If you use Apple computers, they have built in software that can make a good looking website very easily...no geek-nerd wankery, just intuitive well-designed tools.

You could also just go to Wordpress and find a 'theme' to drop your images into...they have a ton specifically made for photographers. Many are free, some are available for a small (40 bucks or so) fee. It doesn't get much simpler than that, and the results are pretty great.

 

[Viktor Sebastian]

Firstly, the term "webmaster" is some relic from the 1990s.

Wordpress is a great system that has a lot of possibilities and runs for free on linux webhosts, but I am guessing that something like indexhibit may be more to your liking.

http://wordpress.org

http://www.indexhibit.org/

However, for fast, simple and relatively reliable tumblr is your best bet.

http://tumblr.com

 

[shadowfox]

Roger,
Ask your web-master to install a Wordpress instance for you. Before you say "but that's a blog engine" realize this: It doesn't have to look like a Blog unless you wanted it to. As the admin to your own Wordpress, you choose some settings to begin with but from then on, it's all content.

Then you can choose thousands of templates that suits you. I can usually find the one I like for free, but I always put a credit to the template author's name on the footer. It's his/her design, why shouldn't she/he gets the credit?

The next step is to familiarize yourself with the concepts of Post and Pages where you'll arrange your contents. Pages are good for static content such as About Page, Biography, while Posts are for your articles, how-tos, updates, announcements, etc.

I host websites on my own server, including mine, both photography and IT; all using this framework, so far it's flexible enough to handle my requirements.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Thanks for all the advice so far, especially to Frank for the great detail. The only trouble with your post, Frank, is that while I understand most of the words, I don't actually understand the context in which you use them. I hesitate to impose further on your good nature but... Logo on a customized template? branded? Business Like-able?

I probably won't bother with a portfolio: I'm not really looking for shooting commissions, and in the (relatively tiny) market for my packages of words-and-pictures I doubt I'd pick up as much from a site as from targeted approaches to editors.

What I'll do, if you don't mind, is copy your letter to my brother-in-law/webmaster so he can talk me through it. For a couple of other points, though, everything on the site is free, and there is a Wikipedia entry that leads you to two Roger Hickses, an Australian musician and me.

@ Jamie: the reason for not going to a subscription service is that my webmaster/ brother in law built and maintains the site, but I'll ask him why he doesn't use a subscription service. I want to take as much load off him as possible, in the interests of speed and trying to keep the site closer to what I want. I'm currently investigating Wordpress: thanks very much.

@Mugent: thanks, but I'm unlikely to change from Windows. As soon as I've finished looking at Wordpress, I'll look at Rapidweaver.

Once again, thanks very much to everyone who has replied.

Cheers,

R.

 

[christian.rudman]

If you understand PS, Fireworks is good for layout and overall design. Really good intergration between PS and Dreamweaver for a whole webnerd workflow, but it's simple enough with some basic PS skills. It's what I am using to layout my Wordpress site.

 

[Roger Hicks]

And thanks once more to the others who posted further advice while I was writing the above. I'm feeling a bit more positive about it now. I really was getting very, very depressed with Dreamweaver.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Paul T.]

Roger, are you Mac or PC?

If the former, iWeb is great. Clean templates, simple to use, works well for text and gelleries. It's what I use for my own website, which has grown like Topsy but works well for me, as I need to be able to update it myself. Only drawback is that you can't really run a Blog from them (or rather, you can't run a blog with comments) - but you could use it in parallel with a simple blog hosted elsewhere. As others will attest, it's always better to enable comments somewhere on your site.

www.trynka.com

 

[kdemas]

Just a FYI...

iWeb is being discontinued in early '12.

Roger, are you Mac or PC?

If the former, iWeb is great. Clean templates, simple to use, works well for text and gelleries. It's what I use for my own website, which has grown like Topsy but works well for me, as I need to be able to update it myself. Only drawback is that you can't really run a Blog from them (or rather, you can't run a blog with comments) - but you could use it in parallel with a simple blog hosted elsewhere. As others will attest, it's always better to enable comments somewhere on your site.

www.trynka.com

 

[Rogier]

WordPress.

Make sure you do NOT use wordpress.com !

You have to sign up with a service provider who offer the hosting of the WP.
Once that is done, you can pick a template and start filling in the blanks.

Fine tuning and tweaking is not that hard and there is plenty of help available on the internet. Or sign up with www.lynda.com they are awesome.

Check out my website:
www.scooter-it.com

The provider I am using is:
www.hostmonster.com


Good luck!

 

[Frank Petronio]

You know WordPress actually requires attention and updating (for security if nothing else), hackers try to break in through it all the time, and for someone who posts frequently and likes to play around I think it's great... but for someone tech-adverse, why burden yourself with it?

Roger - A nice way to start is simply visit tumblr.com, sign up and create a test site, post a few images and try some different templates and play around - keep it quiet, don't publicize it and nobody will see it. Perhaps Tumblr, with it's culture of youths sharing photos, isn't ideal for a professional photographer, but on the other hand, you can control who comments and shares (i.e. don't let anyone!)

You can do the same with Facebook, Blogger, Flickr... just blow an hour exploring around each with a test account, making note of what you like and don't like. You may find Blogger to suit your needs just fine.

Even if you later decide to build a custom website on your own or with a developer, you will learn a lot about what works. Even the process of picking a few images or text to post on a free site is valuable as it forces you to make the same decisions that you would have to do "while on the clock" with a developer. Even if you do the web geekery yourself, using the free sites you can refine what content to include so that don't have to do more work than you need to later on.

As for branding, logos, etc. with most of these you would typically want your logo up at the top of the site. If you use a site like Blogger, you can have your logo right up there, prominent and glowing, just like it is your own personal site.

 

[Rogier]

Any popular online web building application is subject to this.

You know WordPress actually requires attention and updating (for security if nothing else), hackers try to break in through it all the time, and for someone who posts frequently and likes to play around I think it's great... but for someone tech-adverse, why burden yourself with it?

 

[majid]

Go with Wordpress.

Dreamweaver, iWeb and other such tools are "missing the forest for the trees" solutions. You can't design a site page by page, you need a holistic view of it, including navigation, search, and so on. For that you need a content management system, and Wordpress is the best for a personal site, even one that isn't a blog. There are also many people who photoblog or host their portfolios on WP. There is a reason why 14% of all sites on the Internet (and rising) run on Wordpress.

Wordpress "themes" and "plugins" offer tremendous customization capabilities, far beyond templates. They can change the entire behavior of the site. Some allow you to turn your site into a full-fledged e-commerce engine. Look at www.basetrack.org for another impressive example. You can hire someone to build a custom theme for you, or just use one of the thousands of themes available on the market. See also:
http://www.demilked.com/free-photo-gallery-and-portfolio-wordpress-themes/
http://www.premiumwp.com/best-portfolio-photo-gallery-wordpress-themes/

As others have mentioned, just because you use Wordpress doesn't mean you have to host with wordpress.com. I run WP for my site www.majid.info and host myself. If you are not very technical, it makes sense to host with them to minimize the amount of maintenance you have to do, just make sure you pay for the option to have your own domain, i.e. www.rogerhicks.com rather than rogerhicks.wordpress.com. You can always migrate to another host later if you find them too limiting.

 

[dave lackey]

Jeez, after reading these posts it is no wonder why I have never set up a website. If it only takes 3 hours or less, I would prefer to pay one of you folks to do it as it is cheaper than psychotherapy for me afterwards!😱

 

[tstermitz]

I've been doing web since 1995 (Yes, I helped invent the internet... hah!). As a developer I eventually left Wordpress (fine platform) for Drupal which is more customizable and can serve bigger clients. I wouldn't recommend either of those for an average small business. Instead, use pre-fab, online systems like blogspot, facebook, google.

I highly recommend that you read and reread Frank Version Two's considerations. Try them and choose the pieces that make sense for you. I use Drupal for my business website, but like I said, that is overkill. I use Facebook for networking. Smugmug for my portfolio, sales and fulfillment, which is one of several good solutions.

The three specific, most-important pieces are the following:

(1) Your Website/Blog is your Online Business Card. These days, this should have social media connections, at least a Facebook "like" button, and web metrics. Blogspot is great for this, and allows stock or custom templates. Branding means look-and-feel, but in this context includes locking in your domain name and making yourself appear or rank in google.

(2) Facebook page which enables you to leverage networks of friends of friends.

(3) Portfolio, with sales and fulfillment, even if you only use that later.

Again, Frank is right on with his points. As he says, you can always spend money on a good graphic designer who can turn a stock into a custom template. That is money well-spent. Even though I'm a web programmer, I think the graphic designer is more important.

 

[tstermitz]

The importance of Facebook is demonstrated by this headline in New York Times, five minutes ago:

Pew: Half of US Adults Now Use Social Networks

 

[johndan]

I've been teaching web design at the college level since, well, there was a web. But I agree that Frank V2's suggestion for a Tumbler site is your best bet if you want to keep things simple. See some examples of photography-related Tumblr sites at http://www.tumblr.com/spotlight/photography.

Wordpress is your best bet if you want a robust site with different types of content but not a lot of hand coding. As several people have noted, you do have to do some maintenance in terms of security upgrades, but if your brother-in-law is doing your tech support and is comfortable with linux (or whatever OS this will run on), maintenance is pretty minimal.

Dreamweaver will give you a huge amount of additional flexibility, at the cost of a very steep learning curve. A third-party online tutorial or book would be useful in helping filter out some of things you don't need--the basics that you would need are pretty easy to learn, but unless you have something or someone to help you figure out where those basics are on the screen or in menus, you won't have a chance.