How to create a website?

[Sama]

Hi people,
I have managed to get together 50 of some of my favourite shots (and have added copyright to them aswell) and would like to make my own website with them and add more eventually.
Whats the best way to go about this?
Whats free flash websites about?
Any advise, info, comments all welcome.......

[ViewFinder711]

Hey Sama - I used zenfolio.com to create a website for my pictures. I think I spent 100 dollars to keep it active for a year and you can make prints of your pictures available for purchase. It was real easy to set up and the layout isn't too bad. Really, you pay for what you get. I am sure you could find somewhere to post your pics for free too if you look around.

[GadgetRick]

Stay away from Flash, it's bad for you.

If you just want to show your work off online, Picasa is a free hosting service from Google. Easy to share photos and protect them.

Zenfolio, SmugMug, etc. all are around $100ish a year but they offer you a lot more than what Picasa does.

[fantasmic2tek]

I would go with smugmug. I have had mine for over a year. It is a very user friendly site. Check out my website for an example. It is very customizable for each gallery you want to create. I am happy with it.

[DeHart05]

Does anyone have an example (their site) at Zenfolio.com. I am interested in this site and would like to see someone's site as an example. Thanks

DeHart
Canon 50D

[zappo]

O.K maybe it's because I'm a professional webdesigner, but I'm really not a fan of free website solutions. My advice if you want to do this for real is: Let someone make you a wordpress blog.

Actually if you want to be sucessfull in the web, there will be no way round getting involved financially and with time. Wordpress is actually a pretty good CMS, and it's not just about blogging, you can make pages about you and with your portfolio, too.

And yes, if your really want someone to visit your site you should blog. At least once a week with something that could interest your clients or even random people. It's not so hard but will draw people to your site. Content is king, that's still true.

You can get a professional template for Wordpress around 50-100$. Of course that's no individual solution, but it's definitly better than the free stuff that is around. I don't know prices for webdesign where you live, but around here someone would charge around 500$ to do the rest that is needed (install wordpress, install theme and extensions, set up gallerie for portfolio etc.)

And a bonus tip, there is a pretty good solution around for wordpress that aims for professional photographers: ProPhoto Blogs » High-end blogs, low-end price This costs 199$ and for an additional 80$ they will install the whole thing including WP for you.

[Free]

Another vote here for Wordpress and like zappo said, pay for a professional theme if you can't swing for a custom one.

I'm a big fan of Woo Themes they look great and are easy to use with heaps of colour and usually layout options.

[Sama]

Thanks for the advise everyone and I have just been told about wordpress so will check that out. Any other advise or info on this is still welcome!

[Browncoat]

Originally Posted by zappo

O.K maybe it's because I'm a professional webdesigner, but I'm really not a fan of free website solutions. My advice if you want to do this for real is: Let someone make you a wordpress blog.

I couldn't agree more.

I'm a web designer too, and these freebie sites offer little return when compared to having your own dot com. WordPress is VERY flexible, and a blog format has many benefits that I won't even delve into here. There are tons of great themes out there and managing a WordPress site is very easy, even for the web novice. One thing to definitely avoid is a Flash-based site.

Personally, I use the Thesis theme for WordPress. It's one of the very best, though it's not free.

[Peter Ahrens]

I would definitely steer clear of Flash too. It takes far too long to load, and there are better systems such as Wordpress that can do the same thing.