walkpau873

Hi

Could any body advise on how to build a nice simple website.

I have taken up photography and would like to have a website to display my portfolio and pictures for custmers to purchase.

I do need this to be quite simple, yet not cheap looking and really need it in dummies language as im not that hot on computers, but feel that i have enough skills that once i get my head around it i should be able to maintain it.

Thanks in advance for any help that you can offer!

Regards

Paul Walker

rmn

You can use Front-page.

walkpau873

Hi

Is Frontpage easy to use? and does it explain how to go live, i really dont know what im talking about!

Paul

andrewdelvard

Make sure you purchase your own domain name. Don't let anyone offer to do it for you.Very important

walkpau873

Hi

Yes ive just purchased my domain name a few minutes ago, quite excited now, but where do i go from here?

Regards

Paul

rmn

Start makeing the web site.

KiwiGTI

Steer clear of Frontpage though, it's probably not good enough for what you want. You need to do some proper research, not just rely on advice from sites like this. If you are going to be selling through your web site it's a lot more complex than just setting up a normal static site.

KeithRS

Get yourself a copy of Dreamweaver MX from Macromedia. I think they are still letting you download it for a 30 day trial. This has built in features that will also allow you to upload saved web pages to your ftp account on the server. You will have to find a good hosting company who will provide all ftp login details, then when your web site is as you like it on your local hard disk, you then just transfer it over to the server.

Im with ix web hosting who offer a large amount of storage and site traffic for very little. Just do the $ to £ conversion and see if its within your budget.

Just give yourself time and be patient with your site. If your new to web design, then it can be a little off putting when things don't go right first time. Try and create a basic concept and layout, and take it from there. Have a look at other sites of the same nature and see what they offer, without making a carbon copy of it. Your main aim is to attract people to it, so give them plenty of things to look at, read and watch while their there. A good idea would be to see if theres anyone else on here with a website and maybe you could exchange links to each others sites thus increasing your target audience.

pm me if you need any assistance with your site.

RichB

From your description of yourself, can I suggest you get a webdesigner to do it for you.
You can then concentrate on taking pictures where presumably you will make money as you are good at it where as arsing around trying build something in Frontpage if you don't really know what you are doing (no offence) it will a) look ****e and b) probably wont work.

Stick to what you are good at.

wwp8

i used to run a website and sold a few things a few years ago and used a program i dont remember the name of the program/company but it begins with M
basically its a build a web shop for thickos like me
not cheap though



anyway how about this

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...168959081&rd=1

walkpau873

Hi

Thanks for all the responses and after careful thought im giving the job to somebody who knows what they are talking about.

Manythanks in helping me come up with the right decision!

Paul

MartinM

If it's not too late.....

I'm a contributing photographer to www.tonylarge.net - and I've just noticed he's finally put my name on the home page

His site is run by http://www.everybodysmile.net/ and it works very well for him....
- he uploads the photos remotely
- they take care of all the fulfillment - taking orders, printing, packing and posting
- they pay Tony what's left from the order value after taking their cut
-...and Tony passes a (very!) small amount to me

I'm not sure how he got the layout he has, but he says everybodysmile are pretty helpful, so I'm sure it's not a problem

So, beyond uploading the photos, Tony does nothing. Which is the way it should be - you don't want to get involved in the fulfillment as it's a real PITA to handle the payments, get prints done, package them up and post them.

HTH, Martin

EDIT: just looked at their prices - not dirt cheap, but you are getting a lot of functionality. All depends on how much order value you are expecting.

Of course there's always the Premium Account at http://www.fotopic.net/gallery/premium/

I certainly wouldn't build a site from scratch (either you, or someone lese) since there are all sorts of problems to overcome that these sort of people have got well-sorted

EDIT 2: The proofs on www.tonylarge.net are way below the quality of the actual prints (which I think puts some people off), but I'm sure they could be changed

walkpau873

Martin


Many thanks for the reply, it certainly looks interesting, i will be giving it some thought.

Cheers

Paul