Inexpensive Website for new Wedding Photographer

[swoop_ds]

Hello,

I just found this site during my hunt to find a site that I can use to start my online website. I've only done one wedding and a handful of family/engagement/maternity photos.

This summer I'm doing three more weddings. Sooner or later I want to start a website dedicated to my wedding photography.

I'm doing it more as a part time thing and I really don't want to spend much more than 15-20$ a month. I'd be okay with spending a larger amount upfront for a "template" if people feel that templates are worth the money.

What are some good sites for my needs?

Thanks a lot!
-Dave

P.S. if possible I'd like the site to have blogging capabilities.

 

[MSnowy]

I have build a few simple/basic websites. I first went godaddy.com and registered a domain name($10.95) then built and hosted it at freeservers .com ($6.95 a month) my site is http://nenewsimages.com

 

[swoop_ds]

I'll have to look into godaddy.com anyone else have any other ideas?

 

[FrankLamont]

SmugMug.

 

[Big Mike]

A great hosting service for a good price is Hostgator.com.

As for the actual site, you could certainly go with a template, it's probably the easiest way to get a good site. Although, you could build one yourself but it's totally up to your skills and creativity as to how good it will be.

 

[swoop_ds]

With these various options, do you have to know a lot about web design in order to use them? I get the impression that with smugmug it's a lot of just filling in the blanks. Is that correst?

 

[Big Mike]

There are a lot of very user friendly ways to create a website.

I think you are looking at two different things here. Smugmug is basically an image hosting site but with a lot of options. For example, you could set up a gallery and customize it, but the address would be something like smugmug/your name.com. Which isn't really the most professional way to present yourself. It's much better if you have your own domain like [your name]photography.com (.ca).
You might be able to use your own domain and link it to a smugmug page, but I'm not sure.
Smugmug also has business features like allowing people to order prints, taking payments etc. Which might be something you want.

On the other side of the coin, is just a regular website. You would get a domain name, get a hosting plan and then get a website. The website could be self made or a purchased template etc.

There are pros & cons to either way, so it's up to you to decide.

 

[benhasajeep]

Yahoo has a hosting package for $13 a month I believe. For a beginner they have their own software for free to use. They have premade templates and also allow you to upload if you do happen to have your own software. Cant remember their limits but they allow a pretty big site.

 

[MGreager]

I have used Photobiz.com for a while, and they are great. It's actually primarily used for portrait/wedding photographery sites. Their prices are very reasonable, and the support is AMAZING. It's very user friendly, as well.

 

[swoop_ds]

Does anyone on here have a smugmug site that has fullscreen images? Is this possible? I like galleries that have fullscreen pictures because I feel that they blow people away compared to partial screen pictures.

 

[thomas.corbett]

I made my own and host it on web hosting pad.

If you are going to post the images from the weddings on there i would make a, release and get the ok to use them in your portfolio.

 

[NateWagner]

One other thing to consider is whether you want a website, or a blog as your website. One of the huge advantages of a blog is that often they are much better at SEO, and get recognized better. In addition, they are relatively easy to update, which allows people to see your most recent work.

A blog would be quite inexpensive, one option there is to use hosting and your own domain (varies in cost, probably less than 100 a year) and then you could use a free wordpress theme such as tofurious which is geared towards photographers.

Another great wordpress option is prophoto. That costs about 180 or so, but it is extremely customizable and doing so is quite easy as well.

 

[swoop_ds]

I noticed that photobiz.com templates generally have music. How does this work if you want to use copyrighted music? Isn't that illegal?

One of the templates had a Dido(sp?) song, maybe they have it licensed, I dono.

-Dave

 

[MGreager]

I noticed that photobiz.com templates generally have music. How does this work if you want to use copyrighted music? Isn't that illegal?

One of the templates had a Dido(sp?) song, maybe they have it licensed, I dono.

-Dave

You can choose to have music or not, and which song you want...it's totally up to you. Honestly, I don't know how to answer your copyrighted music question. I don't know much about that, but I would guess there has to be a post on here somewhere about that.

Good Luck!

 

[ACrossley]

Looked through the replies quickly and did not see my pick ... I went with Bludomain. They have templates starting at $100 and annual hosting for either $100 or $150 ... can't recall at the time. I have been very pleased with their customer service, template is very user friendly and allows for many custom elements (splash page insertion, logo insertion + many other design elements). Many templates allow shopping cart connected to Paypal, and private galleries to host individual client's images.

Hope this helps! I have many friends who use this service as well.