website help

I am planning on launching a website early 2011. I have had a FB page for awhile and have worked with another photographer. I think it's time to do my own thing but I am a little lost. I have looked into several hosting sites , I have already purchased a domain name. My question is what are the "must haves" for a website? I definitely want to be able to load quickly, have different galleries, some type of template that I can adjust myself, password protected client galleries, allow the client to order prints from my site (so the order comes to me and I can finalize).
Is HTML ir Flash better? thanks

Depends on what you are going for, I used to have an HTML site with a MySQL back end I designed myself and was pretty happy with what I had, easily updatable, but my design skills weren't quite as good as my CSS/HTML was so it didn't look great. I'm working with a flash CMS right now and it's pretty great. You definately want a template with CMS though or you'll have a hard time updating.

see my design skills are null. I am going learn along the way. I just don't want a site that is going to take forever to load. Which I have heard is the bad part of flash

Can be, but if you keep your image file sizes down ie : 72ppi and 800px you should be alright, HTML can take just as long if you don't watch your file sizes.

So do you recommend any specific hosting site. I was thinking hostgator, portfolio sitez, theses are a few. I am trying to keep it to under 12 a month

Where to host my photos?

Well for ease of updating the website I'd suggest something like joomla. It's a good base for your website, you can edit content easily (a bit like using word). There are many plugins to do whatever you want, whether it's a gallery, email forms, shopping cart to sell your photos etc.

It's free, which is always a plus side.

I'm not sure about the US hosts apart from Siteground (which I have some experience of).

From an SEO and load time a HTML site is better than flash. Flash depends highly on the speed of the persons internet connection and their computer, some sites I've seen take quite a long time to load. Also I much prefer HTML to Flash as it works across many areas, for example mobile phones have the ability to read HTML but lots cannot and will never read flash.

As thecackster said, you need to keep your images down in size. I usually use level 8/12 in photoshop for saving photos and never have any above 600px.

For design, again joomla has loads of templates out there and it's pretty easy to install and edit them.

Hosting your photos that are for sale should be on your website although it's always a good idea to have a flickr account, facebook and others. The more people find you the better.

PM me if you want help with your site.

I use html and some simple jQuery for the main page. This allows me css flexibility, (and SEO opportunities that a flash page doesn't) Even though I'm doing website development for folks, I have to admit that I bought into the zenfolio premier package for my e-commerce. if you have that account, you can set a c-name to hide the fact that it is zenfolio - looks like it is all your website. so my site is www.scottkcooper.com, and the zenfolio account is http://photography.sco​ttkcooper.com (otherwise it would be zenfolio.com/scottkcoo​per........ not as easy to remember, and may draw people away from your site to other zenfolio sites). I do hosting too. zenfolio is about 200.00 but there is a save 5 bucks thread on this forum. send me a pm if you'd like to talk about this offline.

nisefase wrote in post #11273585
I am planning on launching a website early 2011. I have had a FB page for awhile and have worked with another photographer. I think it's time to do my own thing but I am a little lost. I have looked into several hosting sites , I have already purchased a domain name. My question is what are the "must haves" for a website? I definitely want to be able to load quickly, have different galleries, some type of template that I can adjust myself, password protected client galleries, allow the client to order prints from my site (so the order comes to me and I can finalize).
Is HTML ir Flash better? thanks

Personally, I think that Flash looks cool, but don't like Flash sites all that much for navigating or looking at photos. I really appreciate encountering photographer websites that are not Flash. Its somewhat remarkable how many photographers lean toward Flash sites. And if some were not using it as a crutch or self-preference, I'd expect to see more like a 50 / 50 split.

You can have a photo gallery that is as simple as inserting a Smugmug album into your own pages if you want to.

Haven't put much thought to whether I like several themed galleries, or just one gallery with a wide assortment.

I am also getting a site up and running for my Wife and I as we start to do more side work. I am comfortable enough with CSS and would definitly suggest looking into it. Dreamweaver, even an older version like I'm using, can go a long way with helping you out.

I also use exposure manager and have been pretty happy with them. The gallery is currently empty as I'm re-doing just about everything.

I like to keep it simple and as such, designed a simple page. You can see it at www.dailygoatphotograp​hy.com I use godaddy for the host and so far have mixed feelings.

After all kinds of sites, I settled on a blogsite with prophoto theme. It's by far the easiest to update and keep fresh. And the prophoto theme has flash galleries or lightbox. If you do a flash gallery, and access it from a iPad or phone it will default to the light box mode...

Wordpress is free, the theme is 189 but so worth it.
I use godaddy, last four years it has never went down or an issue. Not bad for $4.95 a month!

I agree with Gravy Graffix -- consider a Wordpress photo specific blog (many free and many more premium themes). Wordpress is easy to work with, without php or html coding skills. The many free plug-ins that are available make adding special features and functions (like forms, or no-right-click) especially easy. Host with a quality hosting company that gives you free ftp and easy access to a file manager. $4.95 is very feasible.
http://www.mdavisphoto​.com

gravy graffix wrote in post #11282154
After all kinds of sites, I settled on a blogsite with prophoto theme. It's by far the easiest to update and keep fresh. And the prophoto theme has flash galleries or lightbox. If you do a flash gallery, and access it from a iPad or phone it will default to the light box mode...

Wordpress is free, the theme is 189 but so worth it.
I use godaddy, last four years it has never went down or an issue. Not bad for $4.95 a month!

Agreed, agreed, agreed.

I just set one up for an experimental project with almost the same idea:

1) Wordpress (takes literally 10 seconds to install)
3) Photocrati theme (highly rated and looks cool) ($79 I think)
3) SmugMug for photo hosting
4) WP-SmugMug plugin to be able to retrieve pics/galleries from SmugMug feeds
5) WP Lightbox 2 plugin
6) Hosted on goDaddy

Misc:
1) jpictag jQuery plugin to tag pictures (Facebook style)
2) Simple Facebook connect (so FB users and features can integrate into the site)

wowo, thanks. I admit I am totally overwhelmed.
So here is what I have figured out after looking through tons of sites.
I would like a site that has the option for flash or html, do most hosting sites give both options or do you have to pick?

Any site will allow you basic (as opposed to streaming media) Flash but keep in mind what PeteA mentioned above about speed and SEO issues.