Developing a website.

I've been considering branching out from Flickr and starting a small website under my own name. Catch is I have no idea where to start. Small, simple. Just a way for me to be 'out there' and for people to see what I can do without them having to go through Flickr. Seeing as though you guys have far more experience with these things....Thoughts? Opinions? Where do I start????

What do you think of this?

http://www.slightclutter.com/

Her site is hosted at:

http://bludomain.com/

which looks like a customizable template based photo hosting provider.

Katya made the leap from Flickr amateur to professional.

I don't know how much help I will be, my website always gets about 75% done before I change my mind and start over again.

But first step is to decide what you want to do... a portfolio site? A photo blog?

Bludomain which mike posted is what a lot of wedding photogs are using these days. I've been getting various reports on good/bad service from them. Their sites act as a flash template/portfolio for you and have different price ranges. You then have the option of hosting with them or having them install it on your own hosting (if you find the right host you'll end up paying less I think in the long run).

There are alternatives to bludomain as well some more expensive, some less. There are also alternatives which are more expensive but you can say exactly how you want the site to look. For bludomain you basically pic a template and that's what you have, from there you can change colours and such but not much else -- you'll find sites start looking the same after awhile (I'm getting into the wedding field and on some forums and a lot of people are using blu and then to me all the sites just start looking the same).

If you're going more "photo blog" way a great piece of software (and free) is PixelPost (http://www.pixelpost.org/). My non-updated photo blog runs it (http://www.whitematte.com), it was pretty easy to set up and I'm just using the default theme, there's many more to download and it is pretty customizable if you want to jump into it more -- I started to customize then had client work to work on instead and never finished, I usually never finish my own projects but I think that's true for a lot of us.

Another option is using something like wordpress (wordpress.org -- the one you install on a server, not the .com that is a hosted blog) and customize it to act as your online portfolio - not sure if there are any themes set up out there for that sort of purpose but there's lots you can do with the software. This way you not only have your photos/portfolio/info about you, you also have a blog engine built in as well if you want to "blog" as well.

From there it then depends on what you really want it to do -- I'm in the process of branching out and becoming "pro" and developing a site and all of that fun stuff right now. I'm designing/developing my own site as I do have my own development company and it'd look kind of funny if I didn't. I also have the skill set to get what I want which is a plus and saving myself money there for other aspects of the business.

But all this really means nothing if you don't know exactly what you want and what you want to do with it at this moment. So like Ken said, decide what you want to do then we can narrow it down better for you.

Leaning towards more of a portfolio sort of site with contact information and such. Needs to be 'unique' and something that I can change from time to time. Don't like being stuck with someone else's idea of how things should look.

One thing about flash-based websites, like slightclutter.com posted by Mike, is that don't play very nicely with search engines. Lots of photographers with websites are moving away from flash because of that and sticking with html or some sort of blogging format.

Hmm.... okay here's some options:

Flash Template Sites:
You choose a template, can customize some colours and some other things, cheap option as they have differing values for the templates, there's no limit on sales of these however. Some sites are:
BluDomain - http://www.bludomain.com
Flash Palette - http://www.flashpalette.com/ (you can actually demo these guys on your own server)
Photo Identities - http://photoidentities.com/

Flash Template / Custom Sites
Same idea as above but you can specify what you want, how you want it to look etc. Basically no limits on the design changes after choosing your first bit (to my knowledge)
Photo Identities - http://photoidentities.com/
Live Books - http://www.livebooks.com/

Simple Photo Blog
If you don't want "galleries" although I'm sure you can probably customize this to set it up to display galleries I haven't looked at the software that much but to show a large sample of work, possibly one a day. People can leave comments, subscribe to your RSS feed etc these are for you. You can still create your "about" page and add other pages if you please. For customizations some knowledge of html, css and maybe php (or another coding language) may be needed. You can use set templates, if you get bored just download and install a new template. You can also create your own.
PixelPost - http://www.pixelpost.com - free/open source

Custom Design by Company
Depending the company, their location, work load etc prices can vary quite a bit here. Also vary depending customer demands. For a fully customized back end type system where you can control everything, a custom design that is exactly what you want etc this is your best solution (although I think the Flash Custom Sites may get you close). This will probably be the priciest option as it is all direct work and they won't sell duplicates -- or shouldn't, you should only see one copy of your site etc -- this is part of what you're paying for.


As you can see there are lots of choices and other things to take into consideration (SEO like Nando mentioned etc). I guess the easiest thing for you to do right now is map out what you want to do with your photography, are you going to try selling prints, try getting clients etc. If so you may also need a proofing area and other such things in your site. If you're creating a site to show off your work and hope to get jobs from there a simpler site may work to get you going. Money is also a factor, how much do you have to spend on this right now and what are you getting in return. If you think you're going full throttle into it spending money on a top notch site may be worth it as if you get clients/work it'll start to pay it off -- if your site is just for show however at the start spending $500, $1000, $2000 etc does not seem feasible.

From there cruise the web, find some sites you like of photographers, you don't have to like the photographer but you can dig their site and layout etc. A lot of the different options will provide sample sites or current client sites etc. PixelPost I believe has a whole gallery section on their page of people who've installed and customized their site. Think of a topic you like, slam that into google and see what photographer names show up, click through and see what their site looks like, bookmark them, then go back at everything you've bookmarked and see what the common theme is and you may get your answer.

Flash = fancier/action/movement, may contain music, depending on site may take time to load, depending on coder can lack SEO capabilities
Photoblog = simpler but could be fancy, great for SEO as always sending updates, people able to comment on specific shots, can subscribe to your feed
Custom = anything you want, simple/clean/fancy etc.

All of these options will/should provide a way for you to upload new shots at any time. Some have them in specific galleries and will appear in there, some can be the latest shot etc etc.

Wow, I type too much, sorry about that, it's somewhat my background and I like to think I'm knowledgeable in the area, sorry if I confused you even more.

Or I'll just get you to do it for me!! lol.

viewsthroughmylens wrote:Or I'll just get you to do it for me!! lol.

Well you got your sensor cleaned for free, so why not a free website?

Weigh all your options before any decisions first and see what you think will best suit you. But if you do have any questions feel free to ask and I'll do my best to give you the answer.

Well you got your sensor cleaned for free, so why not a free website?

Hmmmm. That's not very nice. Good thing I don't get offended easily!!

viewsthroughmylens wrote:

Well you got your sensor cleaned for free, so why not a free website?

Hmmmm. That's not very nice. Good thing I don't get offended easily!!

That's good, because it was just a joke and not meant to offend.