Who built your website?

[sponserv]

I am just going through the craziness of trying to find a local website builder. If I do a search for local website developers I call them and they are states away if not countries away. Why would they even try to say they are local? Its a bunch of crap. And then when I do get a local person they don't return calls or emails. Very frustrated. I understand artists are not very good business people but it would seem there is a huge opportunity for a professionally run graphics firm in just about any town. Am I wrong?

[sponserv]

Now it gets better. Just met with a local web designer and had a great meeting. Very impressed with everything they do, great pricing on design and hosting but........I can't edit the site unless I use Internet Explorer.

Dealbreaker. I am a Firefox Mac guy. She told me I could go buy a cheap laptop to use for editing. Uh...no.

Losing my mind with this whole process.

[turbo212003]

photobiz.com :)

[jonwhite]

LiveBooks (http://www.livebooks.com/) - editable in whatever browser you want to use so long as it supports flash.

[Tiger1]

Build your own with Yahoo Site Builder; it's really easy and FREE and you can design it however you want to. Then, get a web site guru to take it from there and set up everything web technical which gets you to the top of the lists.

It doesn't take very long to set up a nice site that tells the story you're trying to tell.
Gene

[Hikin Mike]

Now it gets better. Just met with a local web designer and had a great meeting. Very impressed with everything they do, great pricing on design and hosting but........I can't edit the site unless I use Internet Explorer.

Dealbreaker. I am a Firefox Mac guy. She told me I could go buy a cheap laptop to use for editing. Uh...no.

Losing my mind with this whole process.

Then I would assume he/she is not a professional web designer. A pro can design a site in all platforms/browsers.

FWIW, I designed my own site (not a brag) and I'm not a "pro"...I have just enough knowledge in HTML/CSS/PHP to be dangerous! :lol:

[motoyen]

I agree that web designers are some of the worst people to try and do business with. Have you thought about buying a template and doing some customizing with css?

[Jon Foster]

I do my own sites plus others. As a result my sites are the worst, the least updated or are still waiting to be done. I've had my new photography site sitting around for at least a year and haven't touched it. It's just a black page with a picture and a note that the new site will be online soon.

Having said that, I would still recommend doing a site on your own. Start out simple and let it grow with time and your skills. Dreamweaver is a pretty nice editor to start with. There are also tons of great templates you can buy for a few bucks to get you started. A good template will have most of the code pre-validated and will probably be in the CSS format which will help with search engine optimization down the road.

Anything requiring Internet Explorer (or any other Micreysoft product) should be stayed away from at all costs.

Jon.

[omgistommy]

http://www.showitfast.com/.......

[Strnge]

Then I would assume he/she is not a professional web designer. A pro can design a site in all platforms/browsers.

FWIW, I designed my own site (not a brag) and I'm not a "pro"...I have just enough knowledge in HTML/CSS/PHP to be dangerous! :lol:

I love your site!

[Tunneruk]

I built mine myself (I must stress that it's in it's infancy!!!) using iWeb, Give it a go!

www.ct-photo.co.uk

[ashleykaryl]

I did my own, but they need updating and frankly I am out of practice. Recently I have discovered that you can do some wonderful things with wordpress on a blog that I started and I adore all those clever automated plugins. I may well redo a couple of other sites using wordpress and if necessary have a custom template made together with a CMS. It won't cost that much and they seem to work well across a wide range of browsers. There is a huge community of wordpress designers out there and you could have work done at very reasonable prices. For me wordpress was a revelation and I think it could solve a lot of your problems.

[Hikin Mike]

I love your site!

Thanks! I used Notepad++ and FileZilla. :D

[MJPhotos24]

Wrote the html myself for my two sites main pages (youth & high school print oriented as well as an editorial archive). Exposure Manager is the back end of the prints and PhotoShelter is back end of the editorial archive. Youth site needs a clean up badly at the moment, off-season project. Always good when you have total control over your site.

[sponserv]

Thanks for all the tips folks. I went into Dreamweaver to build their sample site from the tutorial. It was cool but I am really not into writing code, etc. Just need to find somebody that I can actually sit down with and get comfortable.

[sponserv]

By the way...I am actually looking to build a site for another business I have and not photography based. Although the suggested sites you folks gave were awesome for the photography side.

[shaktipalooza]

For my commercial site I built my own

www.michaelsessionsphotography.com

For my family stuff I did a mashup on smugmug

www.largelifephotography.com

Being a former backoffice developer I can say there are multiple valid reasons why the designer you mentioned only offered their content management interface under Explorer.

[cosworth]

I built mine. It was quite simple.

I know a lot of you aren't technical but it's time to learn. Take control of your creative process. If you need a website, you should know how to make one. :)

[narlus]

why do you need someone local?

i used scriptlance to find a coder and it turned out he was from Romania...very very good price, and i was totally satisfied w/ his work.

[sdsviet]

try squarespace.com free 2 week trial. best wisiwig editer around IMO.

[GwagDesigns]

I second squarespace as its very easy once you get the hang of it, just check the examples to see whats possible. I'm using it to slowly build my portfolio space, until then, I have fully customized smugmug www.gwagdesigns.com

[PhotosGuy]

I guess it depends on what you need your site to do for you.
I combined three into one (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=379495) with simple html links. The home page is www.FrankCizek.COM & the PrintRoom site is www.FrankCizek.NET
The PrintRoom home page isn't intrusive, & this way I can use either URL on a card depending on who I'm targeting.

I haven't updated the site in two years, but it still does what I needed. Since then, one of the builders I used for the samples, free JAlbum.net (http://jalbum.net/tour) - Will build excellent galleries & now has free hosting, too. A few skins incorporate shopping cart features like FotoPlayer ($39-$89). (http://jalbum.net/skins/skin/FotoPlayer), & some of those aren't free.
http://jalbum.net/hosting/

[mjc_ma]

http://www.firehausstudio.com/ built mine :)

[Ultimate CC]

zenfolio.com :)

[Ham1]

By the way...I am actually looking to build a site for another business I have and not photography based. Although the suggested sites you folks gave were awesome for the photography side.

Hey Sponserv,

We have a lot of SmugMug sites starting to crop up that don't have much to do with Photography. Because we allow you to virtually customize everything on the site. Here is an example: http://kandelconstruction.com/

Our Pro and Power accounts allow for full customization.

There is a thriving 3rd party market for customizing SmugMug sites.

Here are some good companies we recommend:
http://zohodesign.smugmug.com/
http://www.wolfsnap.com/
http://www.jrphotosandwebdesign.com/gallery/2959631#422042396_fusja
http://www.spilledmilkdesigns.com/
http://www.greatexpectationsdesign.com/

Thanks,
Markham

[flauri]

Joe I was total PC and did my own site using FrontPage. Converted to total Mac in Dec. 2008 and started to go crazy trying to decide what to do. Was still using the PC to update things. Then one night I started messing around with iWeb on my laptop and in about an hour I was just about there. Basic...simple.....but it does what I need it to do.

www.franklauriphotography.com

Hope this helps.

[OdiN1701]

I did.

[Keyword Geek]

Look in my sig if you want to build multiple sites yourself with out needing to learn or write code. There are some amazing things you can do.

[mariusz]

I would try to do it yourself by getting a tamplate. That way you will have a control and know how to do any updates.

[SoaringUSAEagle]

I went through bludomain. I know there are plenty of mixed reviews about them but I've had no issues to this point.

[matrix311]

I used www.smugmug.com internal website builder to build my website (http://www.esimaging.net)and I use them to host my photos. Go check it out! Super easy and lots of friendly people there to assist you with the process of building your website. I had no website experience until I created an account there.

[evilryu530]

hey sponserv. my day job is web design. i an build your site for you. i am not local but with my means on communication, i am better than local. skype, video chat, aim, email, phone, you name it. PM me for my website and contact info. I'll give you 10% off POTN member discount. i guarantee you will not find a better price for quality. thanks. my web work speaks for itself.

oh yeah, i can build your site with a content management system back end, you'll be able to make changes easily (without having to know code), updates and add-ons as you like, with any browser on any computer.

[damonb]

Didn't build mine. I just got a hosted solution from Wordpress because it was pretty easy to do (took all of about 30 mins to migrate my content from the free blog to a hosted). Wordpress already has a ton of themes to choose from, and I don't feel like taking too much time to build it.

[ashleykaryl]

Wordpress certainly makes it quite easy to set up and operate a site if you are prepared to spend a little time to see how it works.

[harvey3]

learning the basic dreamweaver will help you do your simple editing...
dreamweaver is pretty easy and tutorials are everywhere.

good luck!