what is the average cost of setting up your photography website ?

OK ... fair do's ... I maybe should reconsider my line of business then
... but in all honesty, with a bit of gumption, cup of coffee and a few simple and free tools to help with ftp and the like (eg Filezilla which is as simple as drag and drop with windows explorer), then there is not that much too it - I promise

I am in essence a skinflint, and will roll my sleeves up and have a go at pretty much anything before shelling out for someone else to do it ... there is also a sense of satisfaction at building your own website, or a kitchen, or fixing your car or whatever.

Not everyone's bag, but if you can understand the correlation between apertures, shutter speeds and how a DSLR or speedlight works, then I believe you have more than enough between your ears to build your own website ...

damnit wrote in post #11076057
OK ... fair do's ... I maybe should reconsider my line of business then
... but in all honesty, with a bit of gumption, cup of coffee and a few simple and free tools to help with ftp and the like (eg Filezilla which is as simple as drag and drop with windows explorer), then there is not that much too it - I promise

I am in essence a skinflint, and will roll my sleeves up and have a go at pretty much anything before shelling out for someone else to do it ... there is also a sense of satisfaction at building your own website, or a kitchen, or fixing your car or whatever.

Not everyone's bag, but if you can understand the correlation between apertures, shutter speeds and how a DSLR or speedlight works, then I believe you have more than enough between your ears to build your own website ...

+1

This is essentially me too.

well, imma rolling up my sleeves and downloading a 30 day trial of Dreamweaver and see what mess i can get myself into... of course, all just monkeying around before or if any of this will go live...

hey, you never know...

but from my last 24 hours of reasearching this... Joomla, Wix, and the likes... even Dreamweaver... it seems that things have gotten much simpler...

damnit wrote in post #11075830
I would be very curious to hear what is involved in your basic blog then ... as I said, that is steep IMHO ...

Like I said, I also did my own website which is nothing special (link in sig), but I would class it as a simple blog with custom theme, and would no way pay someone $1500 for the work involved in doing this ... as I assume neither would others.

Paying for a site is not for everyone. But for businesses and those looking for a serious web presence then paying a professional is worth it. Just like not everyone will see the benefit in paying a professional photographer when their nephew just bought an DSLR and his pics will be just as good and all we have to pay him is $50 and dinner.

damnit wrote in post #11075830
BTW in case you don't know, Wordpress and Joomla plus loads of bolt on tools are free and available under the GNU license!!

Yes I am aware of that and free is not always best. I have done WP themes and they still cost money because I have to pay a graphic designer and then there is my time involved in coding the theme - additionally I find WP to be more expensive than the paid software I use due to the incredibly crappy community and the inability to get support questions answered in a timely fashion. You get what you pay for.

The benefit of paying a professional is that you don't need to take the time to learn how to code/design and that they will give you advice on the best way to proceed as well as make you aware of things (both good and bad) that you may not have been aware of to help you better implement the site you want to build.

If I were making a site just for fun, there's no way I would spend that much money either and I wouldn't recommend that to anyone. but if you are a business/freelancer looking for a more professional presence and want to focus on photography rather than coding it's worth your time to pay a professional do it for you.

Just my 2 cents.

Glad there are others out there who think like me ... $1500 would go a long way to buy a man a nice lens, or feed the kids for a month or two

Don't get me wrong here, there's definitely a place for good web development for highly a bespoke web presence from individuals wishing to go that extra mile and pay a lot more for it, that I am not denying.

What I am questioning is the sanity for people like the OP in paying $1500 for a "basic blog plus custom theme" when there are so many proven and really quite simple ways of doing it yourself with no more coding knowledge required than there is required to insert an image on a forum.

Content management systems such as Joomla and Wordpress have rich text editors built into them, so after selecting and installing your custom theme (as described earlier) making a pretty "article" or webpage is as simple as doing a word document, or indeed using the editor in forums like this one.

I also beg to differ on the support statement you made Creaesan ... Joomla and Wordpress have a huge community base of both professional and first time users, with clear documentation and help for most things the average user would ever require of a website, not to mention all the support forums where most issues or situations have already been encountered and fixed by other people.

Only once hard core developers like yourself get to a low level development and highly bespoke customisation level then yes you will encounter issues that require more involved support, and so yes at this point

A few more things I would suggest to help anyone wanting to build their own website:

1. Keep it as clean and simple as possible, apart from being easier to maintain and looking more appealing, its also much easier to maintain that way.
   
2. Check out lots of other people's sites, make notes about those that you like and why. Use them to help design your own.
   
3. Make sure your granny could navigate your site - fancy obscure menu structures might look groovy for the tech savvy, but you need to make sure everyone can find their way around your site.
   
4. Plan the structure of your site on paper first ... don't start trying to build a site until you can map out what you want it to look like, and how you want the navigation to work on paper.
   
5. Be as flexible as possible when you start building it in your chosen software - sometimes doing exactly what you planned requires extra coding or knowledge, if so have a quick rethink and be prepared to redesign things to work with the limitations of your software.
   
6. Phone a friend ... Google or ask on forums if get a bit stuck. Everyone needs a bit of help sometiems, don't get overawed by it, it really is not that difficult. Some of us have techy mates they could call for some help, but if not, get on the forums, you will be amazed how helpful others can be when you are trying to help yourself.
   
7. No matter what happens, be proud of yourself for having a go. If it looks a bit of a dogs dinner when you are finished, so what, you have learnt loads along the way and can use this knowledge in the future to quickly redesign things and clean it up a bit.
   

I have no time or skills to build my own website. I am a photographer. Not a web dev. Not a graphics designer. I pay talented people to do that.

I use a modified wordpress theme for my blog. I paid someone to make changes to the theme. I really like it and those who have cared to provide feedback love the simplicity of the design, and the mood/persona of the blog. For my upcoming business front website, I've gone with portfoliositez. I don't have time to muck around with learning something I'm no good at.

I have spent less than $1000 AUD for web presence. That's not even half a wedding. So put things into perspective. Focus on what you're good at.

dche5390,

That is exactly what I'm talking about - put your energy and money to the area where it is most needed. For me, photography is a hobby and all that it will ever be, but web development is my future.

At the end of the day, it boils down to just a few things ... cash, time, talent and desire.

If the above 4 elements line up one way, then you will get exactly where I am coming from and I really hope my posts help you to take the plunge and point you in the right direction with a few ideas of how to do it.

If they line up in other ways ... then I totally understand this too, so of course there is the far easier and probably quicker route of paying a professional to do it.

What works for one person may not work for another, that's why the human race is so great ... its diversity

BTW ... Createsean, I do not wish to be rude mate and please take this as constructive but IMHO your site really looks quite basic and standard ... it is quite clean, but it wouldn't really sell your services to me if I was someone looking for a web developer. You've also got errors with the twitter section on your pages (at least when I just looked at it you did) ... better look into that before any prospective customers see it

Check out www.smugmug.com

A smart businessman knows when outsourcing is better than having a go at it himself.

Don't think anyone will disagree, but your smart businessman should also make well informed decisions ... knowledge is power, so now many of you should have an idea of what is involved in building a "simple blog with customised theme" (EDIT: at least if you read my posts you will have some idea or at least a starting point), which will enable you to better decide for yourself if its worth it.

I pay 8$ from host gator.. and I designed mine myself.

www.thejasonbassett.co​m