What first website?

EMA747

EMA747

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Andy
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Right, I have decided that it's not the best idea to keep sending (what little) interest I am getting in my photography to my flickr page. It's about time I got myself a small website. The only problem - I am at a TOTAL loss as to which way to go. There is so much on offer these days.

First up some info on what I want/need

1) Have reasonable storage - i tend to post more rather than less
2) MUST be able to have vimeo video clips displayed
3) I don't have a big budget - I don't get paid for my photography at present so I can't justify a massively expensive site/hosting.
4) I know NOTHING really about websites/design/hosting etc

I have come across www.livebooks.com and quite like their pre-designed websites. I like the style of this one http://sites.livebooks.com/site-chooser/details/322/industrial-vimeo-enabled/medium At $399 a year it's more than I really wanted to spend right now.

How easy is that kind of look to get using Dreamweaver or similar?

How much would hosting it be if I made my own site? I would want quite a bit of space and bandwidth.

Any other providers of custom made website that you can recommend?

Andy S
 
Reading a few other posts here I get the impression a lot of people use Wordpress websites.
I came across these pre-designed themes. http://themeforest.net/category/wordpress/creative/photography

I quite like this one http://themeforest.net/item/kin-minimalist-photography-wordpress-template/full_screen_preview/123713 What do you guys think of it?
At $30 it seems like it's better to buy a theme than have the hassle of making one myself when I don't really know what I am doing.


If I get some hosting how much storage space and bandwidth would I need to host photos and videos (linked from vimeo)?
 
If your videos are hosted on vimeo and simply embedded in your webpage it won't use up any of your bandwidth.

Photos, however, will. How much depends what size you embed with, and what sort of traffic you're expecting to get.

Realistically, if you use thumbnails/lower res images in a gallery, with options to see larger (and maybe original size? maybe not) then you shouldn't use too much bandwidth.
If you can't predict how much bandwidth, just get whatever hosting is most reasonably priced, with a way of tracking how much bandwidth you're using. If it turns out you need more you can upgrade...
 
I'm currently building a wordpress based site, total cost so far is £0 plus my domain (which I already had @ £3 a year iirc).

I am using 000Webhost.com for hosting as it's free, stableish and has reasonable limits on resources.

I am using a self host version of wordpress, a theme that was free from wordpress.org modified to remove a few bits I don't want and add a few other bits. I also have a selection of plugins to do things like a random header, create a slideshow for the home page and create a spam reducing contact form.

My current test version is here: photography.cpearson.me.uk and so far has no more than a few hours in it most of which was me learning how the software works and trying out different plugins etc.
 
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maninsuitcase said:
I'm currently building a wordpress based site, total cost so far is £0 plus my domain (which I already had @ £3 a year iirc).

I am using 000Webhost.com for hosting as it's free, stableish and has reasonable limits on resources.

I am using a self host version of wordpress, a theme that was free from wordpress.org modified to remove a few bits I don't want and add a few other bits. I also have a selection of plugins to do things like a random header, create a slideshow for the home page and create a spam reducing contact form.

My current test version is here: photography.cpearson.me.uk and so far has no more than a few hours in it most of which was me learning how the software works and trying out different plugins etc.
Click to expand...

Good effort but I noticed a couple typos on the "About" page.
 
What is the going rate for a half decent website? I really like the livebooks.com sites and think they look very professional and sleek. See David Duchemin's as an example: http://gallery.davidduchemin.com/#a=0&at=0&mi=1&pt=0&pi=1&s=0&p=-1

They cost about £250 a year which seems a lot but is maybe not that much compared to having someone else build one for me.
 
markyboy.1967 said:
Arent allot using Clikpic for a cheap way to have a sight.
Click to expand...
Clickpic can't have videos as well if I remember correctly.

I do photography and video so I need to be able to display both on the same site.
 
Check out Moonfruit - Does quite a lot although not sure about Vimeo but you can add video....
 
mattyh said:
£250 is cheap, assuming it's not a yearly charge of course.

Maininsuitcase.... Is there any reason four images on your site are nearly 1mb in size overall - Took a while to load on my comp (slowish broadband)
Click to expand...
They really shouldn't be, they are all under 300KB looking at the FTP...or do you mean 1MB between them? I think I need to down the quality then as its at 100 atm.

Will fix those typos too.

edit: also thinking about it the host is sometimes a bit slow, but then it is free.
second edit: dropped the quality to 80 which puts them down to 53,53, 82 and 119KB, so they are at least half the size.
 
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1mb between them - Quality of 60/70 should be fine, at 72dpi (& using photoshop "save for web") - 119kb is getting there though :D

As you say, it's a free host so you can't really complain, but in the longer term, Google do look at page loading speed as one of their (200) factors of PageRank, so a slow loading site might hurt you in the rankings...
 
I looked at most of the good photo specific sites that people recommend, and one thing that a lot of them had in common was poor, or no, support for video, even embedded from Youtube or Vimeo. Hence both my sites now being hosting with a CMS added in.

As for hosting I've been really impressed with EUKHost. Their tech support is really great.

For CMSs I've got Wordpress for the blog and Concrete5 for my business website.
 
ding76uk said:
http://blog.photoshelter.com/2010/06/10-new-things-to-do-with-your-photoshelter-website.html Number 5 on here.

Most people I know using photo shelter are very happy with it, and have only good things to say. I used to use wordpress, but have got a beta testing on a new project that is in a similar style to photo shelter which is looking amazing, but obv. not out for a while otherwise I would recommend a look at them.
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That makes it a lot more tempting. :)

I like this guys site: http://carlpendle.photoshelter.com/

The thing I'm not sure about is if I would need a basic or standard account. The standard is actually more than double the basic though and then becomes quite expensive.
 
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