Creating a web site

I've never created a web site but now find myself in need of one. Can anyone tell me how to go about it and what it should cost or is there a way to get a free one?

You could buy "websites for dummies", that will teach you how to do it yourself - a friend of mine has the book and it's good. Or you could buy a template. Or you could hire a designer, or a local student. Prices range from $50 to $5000 depending on how complex it is, what it does, etc.

tim wrote in post #5282684
You could buy "websites for dummies", that will teach you how to do it yourself - a friend of mine has the book and it's good. Or you could buy a template. Or you could hire a designer, or a local student. Prices range from $50 to $5000 depending on how complex it is, what it does, etc.

Thanks for the info. I was impressed by your gallery. I especially liked the hot light in some of your dance shots. That's something I haven't done in a long time.

Or you could use WebSite tonight by GoDaddy or get hosting through Yahoo and they offer a VERY easy to use java application that will create a decent website.

illm4k3uscr3am wrote in post #5283373
Or you could use WebSite tonight by GoDaddy or get hosting through Yahoo and they offer a VERY easy to use java application that will create a decent website.

I checked out web Site tonight and it looks like the one I'm going with. Thank you very much. The great thing about this forum is all the help available from people willing to share. Thanks people!

Kamra wrote in post #5283222
Thanks for the info. I was impressed by your gallery. I especially liked the hot light in some of your dance shots. That's something I haven't done in a long time.

Ta. I haven't taken any non-wedding photos in about two years, except for a few photos of friends, all the photos in there are kinda old.

tim wrote in post #5283811
Ta. I haven't taken any non-wedding photos in about two years, except for a few photos of friends, all the photos in there are kinda old.

Your style is is really great. I used to shoot comparably using the lighting techniques I see in you photos. I studied under a master photographer for five years but in my quest to complete the time in the Teamsters, Long distance driving took me away from photography as a professional. I took early retirement and am now ready to get back in. As I said, your techniques are allot like what I did and I hope to get back to giving those same quality poses and lighting to my future clients. You're really good. God Bless:

I'd go and have a webdesigner do it to be honest. You want your photos to be as good as they can, so why would you showcase them on a cheapo, self-made website? That's my point anyway.

Make sure to find somebody (maybe a design student who is good, but doesn't charge premium yet) who "understands" what you want and like.

Btw, I'd like to correct

I've had a few mails with a webdesign company who gave me a quote. Their prices are between 20 and 60k per site!!!!!!!!!! I mean wow. A single project a year and they're doing just OK I guess hehe.

i'm in the process of using a contractor i found via scriptlance.com...i'll let you know how my experience is when it's all set.

From what I've seen, cheapo templates tend to suck a lot. I've never used one, but I've seen other photographers' sites that have been done with them, and they often have serious design issues. I think if you want a site fairly quickly, your best bets are buying a good template intended for photographers or hiring a designer. Hiring a designer doesn't have to be expensive if you don't want too many bells and whistles.

notapro wrote in post #5287433
Hiring a designer doesn't have to be expensive if you don't want too many bells and whistles.

that's my hope...my plan is to use zenfolio for hosting, but create a front end site which is used to host my portfolio, contact info, recent/upcoming shots, and links to specific folders on zenfolio.

seems like i should be able to get this done cheap, and you can't beat the $40 per year fees of zenfolio for unlimited storage and bandwidth. plus, it looks a ton better than flickr, and is far cheaper than smugmug.

Kamra wrote in post #5285255
Your style is is really great. I used to shoot comparably using the lighting techniques I see in you photos. I studied under a master photographer for five years but in my quest to complete the time in the Teamsters, Long distance driving took me away from photography as a professional. I took early retirement and am now ready to get back in. As I said, your techniques are allot like what I did and I hope to get back to giving those same quality poses and lighting to my future clients. You're really good. God Bless:

Thanks - all of those photos are me experimenting after picking up a camera and seeing what happened, all within a year or so of buying my first camera.

Floriantrojer.com wrote in post #5286863
Btw, I'd like to correct

I've had a few mails with a webdesign company who gave me a quote. Their prices are between 20 and 60k per site!!!!!!!!!! I mean wow. A single project a year and they're doing just OK I guess hehe.

Yeah absolutely, but talking about the complexity of the typical photographers website that's usually unnecessary. bigfolio or livebooks will do a great site for a few grand. I've been a developer working on web based applications that run into the millions of dollars, but they're complex enterprize systems.

After you start cashing in money, you could go with http://bludomain.com/ - Very Professional templates, they just are not too cheap. My website is actually a free templates I found that I modified a little code wise to look the way I want.

Bludomain are the cheapest of the decent template systems, in my opinion. $400 - $800 is pretty cheap for a flash site, the other ones I listed will run you a few grand but they are better. Some of them have companion html sites with the flash sites, which is great for people on modems, at work, and for search engine optimisation.

tim wrote in post #5290528
Bludomain are the cheapest of the decent template systems, in my opinion. $400 - $800 is pretty cheap for a flash site, the other ones I listed will run you a few grand but they are better. Some of them have companion html sites with the flash sites, which is great for people on modems, at work, and for search engine optimisation.

Flash websites can be search engine optimized, so can sites designed out of images. Google, Yahoo, Ask and many top search engines can read flash sites when indexing pages.