Wordpress for photogrpahy site?

[jsy]

Hello, I have delved into the world of wordpress and wanted a jumpstart if someone would be so kind..

I keep hearing TP peeps advising the use of wordpress for a photographer website. After initially setting up an account and a basic page www.kirwanphotography.com, I would love to hear some tips on how to change it from a blog page/site to a photography site with nice galleries.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Matt-P]

A bit of a play with Wordpress to understand it's site structure, pages, posts, widgets etc will help familiarise yourself with the terms used and how these building blocks fit together.

To quickly change the look and feel of your site you can download themes, either free or paid for. Each will have their quirks but will get you a site more quickly (in the short term) than learning how to code. The Appearance menu let's you switch between all the ones you have installed.

You will find plugins available to make the display of your pictures simpler to implement, I use NextGen Gallery on mine, free and effective for what it does.

To make the site effective commercially for SEO is something I've never considered but hopefully someone else can advise on that

Good luck and enjoy the experimenting

 

[jamesb84]

A bit of a play with Wordpress to understand it's site structure, pages, posts, widgets etc will help familiarise yourself with the terms used and how these building blocks fit together.

To quickly change the look and feel of your site you can download themes, either free or paid for. Each will have their quirks but will get you a site more quickly (in the short term) than learning how to code. The Appearance menu let's you switch between all the ones you have installed.

You will find plugins available to make the display of your pictures simpler to implement, I use NextGen Gallery on mine, free and effective for what it does.

To make the site effective commercially for SEO is something I've never considered but hopefully someone else can advise on that

Good luck and enjoy the experimenting

What theme is that on your site?

I downloaded NextGen a few weeks back but couldn't find a theme that I thought went well with it.

I'd be interested to know, so I can see if I can find similar.

 

[Matt-P]

I used a theme called Dandelion from Themeforest. It took a bit of trial and error to get it how I liked but I'm happy with the current look

 

[jsy]

What theme is that on your site?

I downloaded NextGen a few weeks back but couldn't find a theme that I thought went well with it.

I'd be interested to know, so I can see if I can find similar.

This is the 'new' standard template Twenty Ten. Good luck!

 

[eos1]

Wordpress does take a bit of time to find your way around and get the hang of how things work.

I would suggest you to go to Themes, (WP-control panel-appearance-themes-install) then click on "photoblogging" and search for a photo ready theme. Autofocus is a decent theme to play around with.

Themes can dramatically alter the look of your site with just a few clicks.

As well as Themes you could use plugins to create gallerys.

Just keep playing around and you will soon learn.

 

[TP740]

If you know how to code, buy the CSS upgrade. I'm using Ambiru but I've edited it so much it looks like a completely different theme.
If you're self hosting, you can add all types of plugins and galleries for your site. If not, you can use the stock gallery function to make you own fairly competent portfolio section. Hope that helps

 

[Forbiddenbiker]

This idea might help you ...a traditional approach to using word press as a website/photographic gallery would be to utilise the tool 'new page' to build your website pages.

So I suggest you publish some test pages ...like three or four with the usual, contact, about, gallery, etc.

Then search for a theme that you like that also shows those pages in a traditional website way.

 

[whitey]

takes alittle getting used to but after a while its easy to use

that coupled with some CSS gets you going nicely