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Thread: How did you create your web site?

  1. #1

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    How did you create your web site?

    I reserved a domain name now what do I do next?

    I would like to create a web site to use as my own online gallery as well as allowing others to purchase my work.

    I have seen many impressive sites that members here have and would love any advice you can share.

    I don’t have a clue how to begin. Do you use a service to create your site for you, or do you use software or an online service to create it yourself?

    When I registered my domain name at Go Daddy.com I also purchased their economy web hosting with 5 gb of storage. Is this enough or do I need more?

    As you can see I am quite clueless here, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

  2. #2
    Moderator Ralph Barker's Avatar
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    Re: How did you create your web site?

    You're likely to get a wide variety of responses on this issue, John.

    A lot depends, I think, on how much of a budget you have for the effort, and how accommodating you want to be to potential print buyers. Nothing will beat a professionally-designed site with the appropriate software adjuncts to enable convenient commerce. The trick is to find a Web designer/graphic artist whose style is consistent with your design desires, or one who is flexible enough artistically to bend to your wishes (or constructively tell you when your wishes are simply wrong).

    If you have a sense for graphic design, there are numerous software tools that will allow you to do your own site, and they are not too difficult to learn. These range from very inexpensive, like the Coffee Cup HTML editor (which I use), to quite expensive, like the Adobe and other high-end design tools. My suggestion would be to stay away from Microsoft Front Page, as the result is often very specific to the use of MS Internet Explorer, and will often crash other browsers. (Crashing a potential customer's browser is usually not considered good PR. )

    There are numerous people here who can give you better, and more specific advice than I.

  3. #3

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    Re: How did you create your web site?

    > Nothing will beat a professionally-designed site with the appropriate software adjuncts to enable convenient commerce.

    This would be the way to go but it is expensive from designing the site to setting up commerce.

    I'd recommend the Keep It Simple Silly approach. If you have Photoshop you could modify the web gallery templates with your “logo”, name and overall look.

    If you don’t’ want to go the Photoshop gallery route consider hiring a designer to make a small site...homepage with links to gallery pages.

    A website like this wouldn’t cost too much to design:

    http://www.ronrosenstock.com/

    A buddy of mine just completed his page for his fine art work...he used a designer:

    http://tylerboley.com/FineArtPhotography/index.html

    Very clean and easy to navigate. Interested buyers just need to email for prices and such...so no commerce to worry about...but I think images with a link to paypal would be an ok solution too.

    Also might just want to surf the internet to find ideas how other photographers present their work and show the designer the “feeling” you are after.

    >When I registered my domain name at Go Daddy.com I also purchased their economy web hosting with 5 gb of storage. Is this enough or do I need more?

    That should be more than enough for a long time!

    If you are on Mac iWeb might be something to look at:

    http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ad.php?t=17366

  4. #4

    Re: How did you create your web site?

    I built my web site as a DIY project. I enrolled in a local tech college and took a web design course. The first version of the site was pretty clunky, the second a bit better and my current web site is the best yet. There are two areas that you need to think about.

    1. What do I want my web site to do, and how to do it. This has to do with the functional design of the web site. I want to show my work, and provide a sales functionality. The best way to show my work is through downloadable adobe acrobat files. The sales functionality is provided through an e*ay store. How to do it will involve you sitting down and drawing a map of how you want people to go through your website.

    2. Your content. Setting up a web site is not that difficult if you use a visual based web design tool. What is time consuming (and expensive if you hire the design) is creating the content. Editing the photographs, graphic design, logos, etc. This is a whole new skill and unless you are conversant with photoshop or other image processing software this is where you will spend about 80% of your time.

  5. #5

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    Re: How did you create your web site?

    Ralph is correct, everyone's experience is different. Quite a bit depends on your goals and plans for your Web site, for commercial or personal interests, who do you want as customers, what products or services you plan to advertise, and so on, and what are your longrange plans with your photography. You need to decide if the Web site will be your portfolio or just an example of your work. I would suggest wandering around looking at a lot of commercial and personal photography Web sites to see what's being done. You'll be surprised it will help identify ideas and goals for yours. Look at them for overall design, organization, style, useability, user-friendliness, navigation, etc.

    I think you need to establish that, then find someone to help design the Web site, not necessarily on the computer but the old-fashion story board idea where you outline the structure, organization, content, look, style, etc., essentially think about all of what you want to present and what you expect the user to see. That may take iterations as you add or modify ideas. After all the last thing you need to develop a Web site to find it needs a complete overhaul or replacement because it can't evolve as you want or your support/help disappeared.

    Another consideration is your knowledge and experience in Web design and work. Do you plan to do your own work or find someone, either a good-hearted friend or a professional graphic/Web designer, who may not come cheap. That's where you need to think about the design. High-tech pages are cool, but require a lot of up front image, coding and/or software work (depending on how you work, through software or writing code).

    And yet another consideration is maintenance and updates. Web sites can take time to keep updated with content and design. There are advantages to each type of Web site design, from a structure of pages to a complete script-generated site. Each have their own demands for time. How much time do you plan to schedule for your Web site?

    In short, think through the Web site and pages before you even start the actual work. Time there saves a lot of time later. But that doesn't mean you can't develop ideas with software. There's quite a few good packages and on-line sites to develop your Web sites and pages and some people think and work best with a computer than pencil/paper.

    As for your questions. I have some Web design and development experience from my previous work (1995-2005 Web site/data manager with the USGS), all of which was using Sun Solaris (Unix) system for Web pages as pages or through databases (programs provided). I've since converted to GoLive and BBEdit on a Mac tested with Safari and Firefox and with friends' PC and IE. I prefer simpler designs and independent pages around a central organization and structure to keep things simple to add and update, and not have to rely on additional software (flash, etc.), but I use javascript for enhancements and am moving to css for better consistency and management. It's all a continuous learning curve.

    I'll add a final note I've seen with many Web sites, and something to consider. Web (html, xhtml, xml, etc.) changes and you have to keep that in mind to make your pages current and backward compatible. Web browsers are fairly robust, but some older flavors aren't necessarily forward compatible, and that's where many designs don't display correctly. And remember many users can override your settings, so you can only design so far. But in any case make sure it's W3C compliant, it's a handy excuse if their browser fails to display correctly (Yeah, right).

    Sorry for the lengthy response. That's my suggestions and experience. And remember your audience and customers. Good luck.
    --Scott--

    Scott M. Knowles, MS-Geography
    scott@wsrphoto.com

    "All things merge into one, and a river flows through it."
    - Norman MacLean

  6. #6
    Moderator Ralph Barker's Avatar
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    Re: How did you create your web site?

    Another thought on your hosting service, John. At the most basic level, there are two things to consider:

    1. storage, and
    2. bandwidth

    Storage is obvious - how much disk space your files consume. Most sites don't actually consume a great amount of storage, so 5GB is "huge" for most purposes. Bandwidth, usually expressed in terms of GB/month, is the measure of the traffic generated by visitors viewing pages and images, and is difficult to predict. Site design and efficient image re-sizing will have a considerable effect on keeping bandwidth usage to a reasonable level. Some hosting services start with a reasonably-priced package with a fairly low bandwidth allotment, and then really zing you for bandwidth upgrades - if such upgrades are even available with them.

    Depending on the site design, you may also need specific software to be supported on the server. So, it's a good idea to coordinate that aspect between the hosting service and whoever does your design.

  7. #7
    darr's Avatar
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    Re: How did you create your web site?

    I design sites for others and can recommend an inexpensive commerce-based option (can turn it off as well) gallery template program called photokorn. I have used it for a gallery/museum here where the commerce is turned off. Just a suggestion to help get you started.

  8. #8

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    Re: How did you create your web site?

    You need:

    Site purpose
    Site design
    Site design implementation (the actual page markup and images)
    Site maintenance (updates to content, updates to the pages and any support services)

    The purpose of the site is important - it dictates the services you will need now and in the future, and the style you choose. Full e-commerce may not be necessary. I believe many personal sites are best used to support personal contacts. The photography buying public is not likely to stumble across your site from a search unless they are looking for you specifically. If you are already a commercial name, then the need for something more than an email address for purchasing becomes more important. You can start with something simple, and add the bells and whistles as you go.

    The design can be separate from the implementation - maybe you can sketch it based on things you like and get someone else to make it live.

    Doing a good job coding a site really takes training as well as practice. If you are going to get a knowledgable friend or a commercial company to do it, get some examples of their work before signing an agreement.

    Who is going to maintain it? I have seen a lot of sites (I work for a university) which were built with student labour and poorly documented. A couple of years later and the site is showing the signs of poor maintenance. Either pay someone or learn to do it yourself.

    Personally, I am better at maintaining a site than I am at original design 8-)

  9. #9
    Founder QT Luong's Avatar
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    Re: How did you create your web site?

    Here is a very readable primer:
    http://bobatkins.com/photography/tut...g_website.html

    One important thing that I'd like to stress is not to set your expectations too high (and budget money and time appropriately, considering those expectations). It takes me a considerable amount of traffic to be able to sell, like several tens of thousands of visits per print sold. Many photographer sites do not even receive that amount of traffic in an entire year.

  10. #10

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    Re: How did you create your web site?

    Thank you all for the great feedback and ideas. After reading all of this it is becoming obvious to me that I have a mountain in front of me.
    I would still like to find a do-it-myself method if possible. It is not critical to have my site set up to handle comerce.
    What other off the shelf programs would you reccomend to aid in this project.
    Ralph, I see you do not reccomend front page which is a program I would have considered.
    QT, thanks for the primer. I have completed the first basic steps he points out but now the real fun begins.
    Please show examples of sites any of you have created yourselfs with off the shelf software. Thanks again....

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