How do I make a website?

Okay, I would love to have my own website, and 1&1's ads in the photography magazine have me a bit interested. If I have nothing ( no experience), what will I have to get? I think you have to pay for a adress, then hosting, and design my own? What software should a first timer use to make my own? If someone could explain this stuff to me, I would greatly appreciate it!!

So you're saying you want to create a photography website but you don't have any experience with photography? Sorry, the post was a little confusing. There's a lot of information out there on creating websites that a simple google search would yield you.

The first thing we need to know is just what do you need the site for? If you want a gallery of images with the option to sell some, take a look at free www.JAlbum.net. Many of the skins are made by the participants & can be customized.

Otherwise, we have several members who make sites. Look in "Classifieds: Services Offered", or these threads:
Some Friendly Advice on Websites

web site... yeah i know.. lol

Online orders question

I meant no experience with a website.. Except for the time when I tried to make one and the software started putting my images, with green borders, all over the computer!

Pay a professional. Thats the best advice I can give you. Not just because I'm one of those people you could pay, but because 99 times out of 100, if you have zero experience with making a website (there's a lot more to it than what software to use), you will get fed up and pay someone anyway.

Save the headache and hire a designer from the start.

While I build and design custom sites, I will say 1and1 offers a solid system. just understand your going to be stuck in their box..as with most site generating system.

I highly recommend a wordpress solution, that will allow you to expand and is still open enough for you to edit and create pages at will.

I charge $75 a year for basic hosting and domain name(wordpress included), getting wordpress set up is around 350..good luck and do your research!!
cheers
Darrin

Zenfolio or Smugmug are your friends.

Custom website means you buy domain name, hosting, design webpage and graphics, program webpage, update everytime you want to add a gallery, image, or discussion.

Using something like Zenfolio, you just click add gallery, upload images, type a little description and done. You can use your own domain name, too, if you don't like CameraClicker.zenfolio​.com, etc.

I was thinking of doing the same thing myself at one point and so i spoke with a friend on how i could go about doing it and here's what he told me.

"You are an idiot - and if you set it up yourself you are going to cause more harm than good"

Yep not very nice words but then after he explained it to me i began to understand why...

Basically this is what he told me -

- You are not buying a website, you are buying a way to get customers through the internet
- Everyone thinks they can chuck up a website and magically get business, thats why a large portion of the websites dont actually work
- If you want a website that can get you business then it needs to act, look and behave like a sales rep for your business
- You only have 8 seconds at best to get this right, if you stuff up then visitors won't ever look back because the internet is full of people who do what you do - and internet surfers will continue to surf until they find a 'sales man' that speaks their language, and when that happens, so does the money

After he said that it made sense so i just asked him to build the site for me which i thought was a bargain at the price he was offering.

So yeah i wouldnt recommend doing it yourself, definitely get a professional to do it for you - if you want his details just pm me - good quality and price

CameraClicker wrote in post #12508831
Okay, I would love to have my own website, and 1&1's ads in the photography magazine have me a bit interested. If I have nothing ( no experience), what will I have to get? I think you have to pay for a adress, then hosting, and design my own? What software should a first timer use to make my own? If someone could explain this stuff to me, I would greatly appreciate it!!

It depends on what you want to do on your site.

Get a domain name.
Get hosting.
Build a site.

Sounds easy. Some of it is but little things creep up here and there. Like working on a car an needing a new tool every time you get in there.

Can you do it? Probably. Will it be pro and have the feel you want? My guess is no because you have no experience. It would be like getting a camera and the next day thinking you can "go pro." You can't. You don't have the experience yet.

You can try and learn. It will take you a little bit. I'm not saying you can't or you must hire someone but expect the learning curve to be higher than you expect.

I think you should do something like smugmug (mentioned already). You can start off easily and design as you get more comfortable.

garammon wrote in post #12512714
I was thinking of doing the same thing myself at one point and so i spoke with a friend on how i could go about doing it and here's what he told me.

"You are an idiot - and if you set it up yourself you are going to cause more harm than good"

Yep not very nice words but then after he explained it to me i began to understand why...

Basically this is what he told me -

- You are not buying a website, you are buying a way to get customers through the internet

Good point! It reminds me of the annoying business owners that do their own radio commercials. (Anyone else have Tom Shane commercials in your area? ) If this is for business, let someone make it look professional. If it is for personal use, just get a zenfolio/smugmug like I said.

I work for a webhost and would also suggest to just hire someone if you have 0 experience in this area. Especially if you plan on making money with your photography. If not, then just get a flickr, zenfolio, smugmug, etc.

I lol'd at thread title.

I know it's one of those things that people think they can just make, but unfortunately as others have aptly pointed out, it's not. I freelance as a web designer and I consider myself to not know enough to do it professionally, so to expect yourself to make a 'decent' looking website (by today's standards) with zero experience something next to impossible.

Pay a professional and what you pay for is what you get. Since web designing is very open and non restrictive people have their own styles and MOST designers have one thing in their website they'll be stubborn about using which is totally pointless, so find someone that matches the sty;e you're looking for.

There are softwares that will assist you in such. You just have to search for it.
One I have in mind is Coffeecup
http://www.coffeecup.c​om/

And dreamweaver

http://www.adobe.com/p​roducts/dreamweaver.ht​ml

Anyway, search for it.

tkbslc wrote in post #12513251
Good point! It reminds me of the annoying business owners that do their own radio commercials. (Anyone else have Tom Shane commercials in your area? ) If this is for business, let someone make it look professional. If it is for personal use, just get a zenfolio/smugmug like I said.

Tom Shane sells a lot of diamonds.

cameraperson wrote in post #12517041
Tom Shane sells a lot of diamonds.

Because of his commercials?