Website building???

Okay, so I am a total newb when it comes to this. I have a zenfolio account and a blog. I would like to create a welcome page I suppose that would allow you to click the hyperlinks to get to these other sites. Would I be okay with going with website tonight and redirecting this way? Is that a capability of this service? I have my domain name already through godaddy, so I am assuming that the website tonight could host my domain and I could potentially redirect traffic through this? I am so confused. I have been looking on here for a while and have not had much luck with this specific question. I appreciate the help!

You can use sites like photoshelter (which I use to sell/archive pro sports) or exposure manager (which I use to sell image prints), among many other choices or you can get with a webhost that has templates (hostdog.net). Any way you look at it you're paying for it, it's a service - you can get one of those free sites with 30 pop ups and ads everywhere but doesn't look too professional. HTML is easy to learn and you can buy templates online. As for google searches and such you need something that people are going to look for, some webhosts (hostdog.net again) WILL get you put at the top of those sites by filling out a few requests that takes 10-20 mins at most.

cdifoto wrote in post #5492504
Of course you won't be different than anyone else if you go with a purchased template either. Especially if it's from one of the more popular companies like BluDomain. I liked the first 100 photographers' sites from them I saw, then it got old.

Three things...
First - Templates are able to be customized. Hence the term "template". I should say, they are supposed to be customized. Those that dont customize them, will look similar.

Second - Try pricing out a custom website design from scratch. You will be looking at around $1500 - $5000 if you are serious.

Third - You being a photog, it's easy for you to pick out a 100 photogs sites and see that some are similar...To the general public, who I assume the OP is trying to market too, they won't have a clue, nor will they care. However, you will look professional in their eyes.

If building websites is not your gig, your best bet is a template that you can change up. OR - pony up the cash and hire someone that knows what they are doing.

laurap33 wrote in post #5519836
Okay, so I am a total newb when it comes to this. I have a zenfolio account and a blog. I would like to create a welcome page I suppose that would allow you to click the hyperlinks to get to these other sites. Would I be okay with going with website tonight and redirecting this way? Is that a capability of this service? I have my domain name already through godaddy, so I am assuming that the website tonight could host my domain and I could potentially redirect traffic through this? I am so confused. I have been looking on here for a while and have not had much luck with this specific question. I appreciate the help!

Do you know HTML? Well, some programs you dont even have to know html anymore.
Never heard of website tonight, but if you already have your domain, thats a start. Think of a domain as a telephone number. You call the number by entering in the domain (www.yournamehere.com) and it gets directed to your hosting company and calls for your page. Now, the hosting company, which can be any number of free companies like yahoo hosting, etc or you can pay a company to host yours. I pay $4 a month. Paying for your own hosting eliminates all the advertisements on your page and other restrictions that are placed. When signing up for hosting, you will be walked through a number of steps to redirect your domain to the site. Kind of like assigning your phone number to your house. Its pretty simple.
As far as redirecting with links, thats a simple coding change added to your page. You can also forward domain names as well... example would be www.yournamehere.com gets forwarded to www.yournamehere.zenfo​lio.com. With a few added steps you can even mask the zenfolio domain after your forwarded.

If your site is simple, all you have to do with just create the page and label it index.html and it will be good to go.

Hope this helps...

laurap33 wrote in post #5519836
Okay, so I am a total newb when it comes to this. I have a zenfolio account and a blog. I would like to create a welcome page I suppose that would allow you to click the hyperlinks to get to these other sites. Would I be okay with going with website tonight and redirecting this way? Is that a capability of this service? I have my domain name already through godaddy, so I am assuming that the website tonight could host my domain and I could potentially redirect traffic through this? I am so confused. I have been looking on here for a while and have not had much luck with this specific question. I appreciate the help!

laura, i had the exact thoughts you do (building a site that integrates w/ my existing zenfolio account). i ended up posting a project on scriptlance and worked w/ a coder to get it done. there still are a couple of minor issues to sort out, but i'm happy.

check it out to see if it's along the same lines as what you are thinking:

www.tinnitus-photography.com

cory1848 wrote in post #5521962
Do you know HTML? Well, some programs you dont even have to know html anymore.
Never heard of website tonight, but if you already have your domain, thats a start. Think of a domain as a telephone number. You call the number by entering in the domain (www.yournamehere.com) and it gets directed to your hosting company and calls for your page. Now, the hosting company, which can be any number of free companies like yahoo hosting, etc or you can pay a company to host yours. I pay $4 a month. Paying for your own hosting eliminates all the advertisements on your page and other restrictions that are placed. When signing up for hosting, you will be walked through a number of steps to redirect your domain to the site. Kind of like assigning your phone number to your house. Its pretty simple.
As far as redirecting with links, thats a simple coding change added to your page. You can also forward domain names as well... example would be www.yournamehere.com gets forwarded to www.yournamehere.zenfo​lio.com. With a few added steps you can even mask the zenfolio domain after your forwarded.

If your site is simple, all you have to do with just create the page and label it index.html and it will be good to go.

Hope this helps...

It does help. I was thinking about doing it that way. You know how when you tend to overthink and analyze everything that you do? I currently have my domain, www.Laurajeffriesphoto​graphy.com going to zenfolio. I think that I have a good grasp of what I am looking for now. I greatly appreciate all of the help. I will keep you posted on how it goes. I know it will take me sometime to create and tweak.

narlus wrote in post #5522479
laura, i had the exact thoughts you do (building a site that integrates w/ my existing zenfolio account). i ended up posting a project on scriptlance and worked w/ a coder to get it done. there still are a couple of minor issues to sort out, but i'm happy.

check it out to see if it's along the same lines as what you are thinking:

www.tinnitus-photography.com

I looked at your site and it is very nice. I do have a silly question, I might have missed it... How are your customers able to order prints through zenfolio? I enjoy this particular capability of zenfolio and that is why I am wanting to intergrate my blog and zenfolio to one hub page under my domain name. You have some very nice pictures as well. =) Thank you for the help. This board is wonderful for ideas. Y'all rock!

laurap33 wrote in post #5522968
I looked at your site and it is very nice. I do have a silly question, I might have missed it... How are your customers able to order prints through zenfolio? I enjoy this particular capability of zenfolio and that is why I am wanting to intergrate my blog and zenfolio to one hub page under my domain name. You have some very nice pictures as well. =) Thank you for the help. This board is wonderful for ideas. Y'all rock!

thanks for checking it out!

i don't have the pro account on zenfolio to set my own prices, and i have the 'order prints' disabled since i don't want people to buy prints at just the printing cost. there really isn't much market for live music print sales, at least that i can tell, to justify the additional cost of upgrading my zenfolio membership level.

i've had exactly one request for a print, and never heard back from the guy. i don't actively push for sales, though.

Looks good, you're ahead of the advice I gave, so you're off to a great start. Another option with the blog, is that you can set up a subdomain and direct that to your blog as well. For example, www.blog.Laurajeffries​photography.com. Its just nit picky stuff but I think its look more professional and its easier to remember...

The blogs are somewhat customizable too, in the header of the blog, you can put images in there too... Create a nice photo collage and place it there... just some other options to play with..

cory1848 wrote in post #5523482
Looks good, you're ahead of the advice I gave, so you're off to a great start. Another option with the blog, is that you can set up a subdomain and direct that to your blog as well. For example, www.blog.Laurajeffries​photography.com. Its just nit picky stuff but I think its look more professional and its easier to remember...

The blogs are somewhat customizable too, in the header of the blog, you can put images in there too... Create a nice photo collage and place it there... just some other options to play with..

Great idea! I didn't know how to go about the subdomain. Thank you so much for the awesome feedback! That is a huge help! Thank you for all of your patience while I am learning! =)

Wow! you guys have a lot of good advice! Well I guess I'll have to wait till I start making money then I've still only done one paid shoot so far and still havnt gotten paid for it yet. Soon...

This is -just my $.02- here...

If you are just starting out, I wouldn't worry about search engine optimization or even expensive pay sites with your own specific domain. Very simply at this point it's unlikely that someone other than from your own area is going to hire you. Some big New York based company for example isn't going to fork out a ton of dough to have a virtually unheard of photographer come out and do their work for them so getting your name "at the top of the list" is pretty much a waste of money. It's kind of like advertising in the Yellow Pages anymore...unless you are convenient and affordable, no one's really going to pay attention. In this business, word of mouth is still your best resource.

Once you've established yourself and your business it's different, but for now your best resource is going to be word of mouth with a basic website that people can reference from home. It's a highly competitive business...-you- have to get out and sell your work.

Beyond that, the only advice I would offer is avoid hosting sites that have LOTS of ads and popups (such as Freeservers)...popups annoy the crap out of people and they're libel to leave before they even look at your pictures. A few are ok, but if your website ends up being more trouble than it's worth, people aren't going to look. I also agree with whoever said, "don't use a template". To even most inexperience people, templates look cheesy and amateurish. I think most people can get more just by using a basic HTML editor (such as Netscape Composer) and their own imagination...it takes a little more time, but usually you get better results.

Peace,
Jim

My wife and I currently use moonfruit.com I don't really have any complaints about it. It's WYSIYG (what you see is what you get) editor so it's straight forward. I had a basic html class in high school so I have understanding of website design. Also other research I've done on my own time.

We have been thinking about zenfolio or another site geared towards photographers. We are also waiting on getting hosted until we get settled down on a place where we want the website.
We currently pay 8.99 a month and that gives us 5 sites to mess around with. I have mine, my wife has hers that I designed for her and we also have a gallery website for online proofs. I have the capability of using dreamweaver and designing it that way, but don't have the time for that at the moment.

Walczak Photo wrote in post #5526856
I also agree with whoever said, "don't use a template". To even most inexperience people, templates look cheesy and amateurish. I think most people can get more just by using a basic HTML editor (such as Netscape Composer) and their own imagination...it takes a little more time, but usually you get better results.

Peace,
Jim

Normally I would agree with you here, however, when was the last time you actually looked at what templates are out there? A templated site will look 100 times better than someone who is just starting out not knowing what to do. I am not talking about yahoo or microsoft word templates either...

Many flash templates and also straight HTML templates out there that incorporate some award winning designs. If you can accomplish that with some basic HTML knowledge, then hell, you should be design webpages for a living cause your onto something big... Seriously though, google photography website templates and take a look around, you might be surprised at what you find...

cory1848 wrote in post #5532834
Normally I would agree with you here, however, when was the last time you actually looked at what templates are out there? A templated site will look 100 times better than someone who is just starting out not knowing what to do. I am not talking about yahoo or microsoft word templates either...

Many flash templates and also straight HTML templates out there that incorporate some award winning designs. If you can accomplish that with some basic HTML knowledge, then hell, you should be design webpages for a living cause your onto something big... Seriously though, google photography website templates and take a look around, you might be surprised at what you find...

I agree there are some good templates out there. Granted if you want it customized it will cost you, but you'll pay for what you get. I also like looking at the templates to get an idea of different layouts and other elements that I would like to incorporate into a design of a website.