Help Setting Up a Web Site

[scottbergerphoto]

I have my own domain (www.scottbergerphotography.com) . I know nothing about making a web page, but the templates provided by Earthlink leave me wanting. Can someone direct me to the basics on creating a web page and uploading to my site?
Thanks in advance.

[etaf]

well - it would be useful to learn html
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tut/lessons.html
then you can get editors - some free
you will also need space to put your website - do you have webspace at all ?

[scottbergerphoto]

My space is www.scottbergerphotography.com . What would be a reasonable price to pay for someone to design it and set it up?

[etaf]

This price can vary enormously,
I have done very simple 4 page websites for around £200, which include domain name and free space from a commercial hosting company. Too £1200 for a complicated site , with images and graphics, but you can pay a lot more

[picman]

Hi Scott,

If you want EE installed drop me a line and I will do it for you, if not I know where to find some really nice gallery templates.

picman

[db2dba]

Hey Scott,


What type of site do you want? I can point you in the right direction for several free open src packages. It all depends on what you want to do. Let me know.

Ray Lopez

[condyk]

My business uses a small team of developers in India, who benefit through better fees than they normally get via local projects and I found them originally via www.elance.com ... this is a good source of developers world wide and pricing very competitive.

With any developer you need to specify what you want very clearly (a good one will help you do that, which is why local is often best unless you know what you're doing), as that saves lots of time and money. It needs to be in writing as web projects are terrible for shifting spec., usually because of the customer constant changing ideas and needs!! If it's nailed and pricing clear then things go much easier. We live and learn ;)

It also helps to offer 3-4 example sites that you like the look and feel of so they can get a sense of design needs. I often find clients don't know what they want and choose the site of a friend, or a competitor, or whatever as a sample ... often they are not appropriate for their business :rolleyes: This whole side of things takes me 4-5 hours to nail over a week or two.

If you can get this far then at Elance people bid on providing the site for you and I will normally select the best priced from bidders with the best reputation. I only ever deal with proven and talented people and you need to be careful not to just choose on price alone!!

I get all sorts done now at Elance, from promo materials, to web sites, logo's, stationary and letterhead design, etc. Most web developers expect 40% up front which is pretty standard unless you use a 'bloke living next door' style 'developer'.

Then you have hosting fee's on top which vary a great deal. I only sell to businesses and charge £80 per annum, incl. web and email related support, but there are many that are crazy cheap who hope to live on volume and low bandwidth usage. I'd avoid cheap and go with a trusted name but not one of the big corporate style operations. There are many in the US and it's worth paying the extra for decent support.

You'll need a FTP program to upload and download your site and images. I use Smart FTP which is free, but I paid for it as it's so good.

You need to learn HTML, at least the basics, or Flash, if you go DIY. Then there's all the server related stuff!

Personally, I would just outsource as the learning curve makes photography look easy. Depends on your standards and what you want. A simple HTML site is dirt cheap because everyone and his Dog has learnt to do it. More facilities, such as shop, better design, greater attention to detail all costs, as does Flash and any graphic design elements needed, copywriting, etc.

If you only want a single web PAGE the best approach is to find someone local to do it in their spare time for a beer or two, but don't expect much.

If you want a simple and easy image gallery then I just installed Pixelpost. Was easy, but you need to know at least some basics to configure and install.

You'll need some server space for it and for your images and will need to have your domain pointed to it. Normally there's a control panel you get when you buy a domain. You'll need to check it out with your domain reseller. You also normally get a control panel to sort your server space, like adding email addresses, monitoring usage, visitors, adding MySQL databases, etc.

Pixelpost info via:

http://www.pixelpost.org/