Creating a website?

[birder_herper]

Hello all,

I'm thinking about creating my own wildlife photo website (plus blog)...pretty much by buying a web hosting package and using the templates to create my own desired effect. Now I have no idea how to do such, so I have some questions.

First off, I've been looking at justhost.com . Their prices seem very competitive, with no bandwidth or storage limits. Also a free domain for life. Does anybody have any experience with justhost? As well, I heard somebody mention something about Yola.com and that it was free. What would a pay-host offer that a free one wouldn't?

Basically, I'd like my site to contain my various outings into the field...blog-like really. I also want a photo gallery with all the wildlife photos grouped (mammals, birds, reptiles, etc) and arranged taxonomically to make finding individual shots easier. So if you wanted to find a Blue-winged Warbler shot, you'd click on Galleries, Birds, then scroll down to the warblers and click the link for Blue-winged Warbler. Make sense? So in essence, the two biggest parts of my site would be the blogs, constantly updated and illustrated with photos, and the wildlife galleries arranged taxonomically.

Here's a few sample shots. I'm no wildlife photographer pro, but I recently begun and I'm loving it.

http://i441.photobucket.com/albums/qq131/swamp_ratter/Ribbonportrait.jpg

http://i441.photobucket.com/albums/qq131/swamp_ratter/Soratwo.jpg

http://i441.photobucket.com/albums/qq131/swamp_ratter/Chestnut-sidedduel.jpg

http://i441.photobucket.com/albums/qq131/swamp_ratter/Pheasant.jpg

Any thoughts? Anybody have a similarly-built website, or any other that I can gawk at for more ideas?

Thanks!

--Jared

[tracknut]

Dang, I had a whole long answer written up, and lost it.

Cliff notes:
Get your own domain name registered, to yourself. A "free" domain name will be one that you don't own, and will lose if you cancel the hosting with that company. This is why you'll see folks telling you to get domains registered with a different company from your hosting. They key issue is to ensure you own the domain (i.e. your contact name is the one in the domain registry, not some other company's name).

Free hosting usually comes with a TOS agreement to allow them to put ads on your site. If ads are ok with you, then go for it.

Regarding your site, I'd look into some of the gallery applications (Coppermine comes to mind) that will allow you to tag the images. Then a user can do a search for his favorite animal, and up it comes...

Dave

[Tess320]

If I were you I'd get a wordpress.org (once you choose hosting), you don't really need a seperate website if you are mostly going to blog as you can do static pages on wordpress. Then you could always use Zenfolio or similar to host your images.

That's mostly what I do - http://www.animusphotography.com

[Karl Johnston]

That's a nice shot of the snake, mate !

If you're an HTML idiot like me, then there's magical wizards like these guys: www.prophotoblogs.com or www.smugmug.com or www.squarespace.com that can design a template for you, and for the last two; can host a website for you.

[cobjo]

I would stay from any host that offer free domain for life and force you to pay for 1 or 2 years in advance to get a low rate. I just don't like the idea that I am stuck with a host because you don't know what's going to happen after 3-4 months of hosting. I've been using Chime Host (http://www.chimehost.com) and I am happy with them. I signed up using their special discount pricing of $4.95 per month and that's without paying for 2-3 years in advance. I am paying monthly with them and getting unlimited space/bandwidth.