Self-build photography websites

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Donki

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Just wondering what everyones opinions were on the self build photrography websites are? To restrictive? Does it give a bad impression?

I have seen a few members with them and have signed up for the free trial on ClickPic, looks good if a little limiting. I am doing a parttime webdesign course starting in September (hopefully build my own) but thought I would have a go with the self build ones till then.
 
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I use clikpic :-) Have a look, I'm happy with them, easy to use, simple to navigate. I personally find a lot of photographers websites way to complex but that's just my personal opinion.
 
I've recently tried Clickpic and found it a bit of a nightmare. Poorly set out and not user friendly at all as far as I'm concerned.:thumbsdown: I gave up in the end!:bonk:
 
anniephoto said:
I use clikpic :-) Have a look, I'm happy with them, easy to use, simple to navigate. I personally find a lot of photographers websites way to complex but that's just my personal opinion.
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In my opinion thats a nice clean professional lookign website and not 100 miles in style away from the one I am putting together, just wish I had the weddign and portraits you do :). Mines all landscapes at the minute lol. May I ask if you get much trade from it?

Wippers I thought that till I read the manual, it could still be more user friendly though.
 
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Thing is if you know smeone get them to do it.

When I look at other togs sites... yes looks great! nice screens and the work is wonderful. But all I see is 20 togs with the same design/template just with a different colour scheme.

Just doesnt do it for me Im afraid. And home made.........

All depends on your budget I guess. Even so, This is the biggest add you will have. It is really your Shop window.
 
I'm in the process of creating mine.....nothing special or professional, i just wanted a minimal looking site to display my work.

Its still a work in progress and i've only spent a few hours working on it - maybe 3-4hours, but thats from scratch and not knowing anything about wordpress and thats including buying the domains and hosting in that time!

www.vabimages.co.uk
 
Daryl said:
Thing is if you know smeone get them to do it.

When I look at other togs sites... yes looks great! nice screens and the work is wonderful. But all I see is 20 togs with the same design/template just with a different colour scheme.

Just doesnt do it for me Im afraid. And home made.........

All depends on your budget I guess. Even so, This is the biggest add you will have. It is really your Shop window.
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I would really like to learn the skills and build my own, I know it aint easy but its the kind of thing i enjoy.

The question is, as a customer who is simply looking for a photographer for a job would you really know that a website is a geniric one tweeked, sure some would but I am guessing the majority wouldn't.

Yes price is a huge factor a few hundred pounds or a few thousand, I guess it all depends on income.
 
If you don't mind shelling out for this programme its fantastic. Must point out that to attach forms other than Email it can be hard work.
You can make iPhone apps and loads of other things with 'NO' coding what so ever.

http://tv.adobe.com/product/flash-catalyst/
 
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I created my own.

I think if you have the money, pay somebody rather than try learning -

html, css, jscript, jquery, asp, sql etc etc :)
 
Donki said:
Just wondering what everyones opinions were on the self build photrography websites are? To restrictive? Does it give a bad impression?

I have seen a few members with them and have signed up for the free trial on ClickPic, looks good if a little limiting. I am doing a parttime webdesign course starting in September (hopefully build my own) but thought I would have a go with the self build ones till then.
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it all depends how you show it

there is some good websites out there but dont give the info they should

it all depends how you show your website to potential clients , i personally will not use the companies that have the templates and you build type i would rather build it from scratch atleast i will not be limited to what i want to do
 
Agree - especially for a professional photographer. Fair enough, you can't expect everyone to know how to build websites but a pro should be willing to spend a little to have a site built which reflects their style etc.
 
Donki said:
In my opinion thats a nice clean professional lookign website and not 100 miles in style away from the one I am putting together, just wish I had the weddign and portraits you do :). Mines all landscapes at the minute lol. May I ask if you get much trade from it?

Wippers I thought that till I read the manual, it could still be more user friendly though.
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Thanks :) I get some trade from it but I'm officially still on maternity leave so not filled it with the appropriate tags yet to drive it forward but those that have seen it like it :)

I have built my own sites from scratch before using flash, html, ps templates and just spent way to much time faffing about with code when I should have been out taking photos... clikpic lets me do that!
 
Iam also intrested in this topic...does anyone have anymore examples of sites made in wordpress?
 
As photographers our websites are a very important investment, definitely just as important as gear so unless your a professional web designer it really does pay to have someone else design it for you, even if your marketing yourselves outside of the internet the majority of clients will eventually end up at your website to view your work.

I think clikpic sites are cheap, but I don't think they are particularly good quality, they market a lot to new photographers and so you see a lot of people with them but that's another reason top steer clear of them imo, you need your website to be memorable and almost all clickpic websites I see aren't.

Wordpress is a decent basis for a blog or blogsite and potentially a straight forward website if you tweak it plenty. If your going to use wordpress though I think its best to buy a decent theme for it (Prophoto 3 is very good imo) or find someone who offers a customized prophoto theme if you want a more unique look.
 
I loved my clickpic site until loads of other people I know used EXACTLY the same one, have since played about with colours etc but will be going with a different site completely when this year is up
 
I don't like Clikpic. If you're going to go down that route though, definitely try Photium.
 
The trouble with zenfolio, clikpic etc as I see it is they look like template sites, and thats cool if its a personal photography site, but for a business site thats a different matter
 
boyfalldown said:
The trouble with zenfolio, clikpic etc as I see it is they look like template site
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Not to Joe Public they don't. If it's customised well, is easy to navigate and more importantly, if the content is really good, then I don't think anyone who knows nothing about website design would be put off if looking for a pro tog.
 
Personally I prefer template sites with high quality images on than fancy flash sites being used to disguise mediocre images. For someone trying to get going surely the images are what joe public look at and thats where the priority should be.
I agree though that if you've been in business a while a bespoke website makes sense
 
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paul_g said:
Personally I prefer template sites with high quality images on than fancy flash sites being used to disguise mediocre images. For someone trying to get going surely the images are what joe public look at and thats where the priority should be.
I agree though that if you've been in business a while a bespoke website makes sense
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Absolutely agree... it's the content that matters... I've seen way to many high-tech flash sites which (as well as taking time to load even with fast broadband!) disguise not so great photography. Of course when I'm raking it in I will pay someone else to do something a little more individual but for now I am more than happy with my "template" site!
 
Dman said:
Not to Joe Public they don't. If it's customised well, is easy to navigate and more importantly, if the content is really good, then I don't think anyone who knows nothing about website design would be put off if looking for a pro tog.
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I 'd agree with you about customisation, but there is a lot that aren't. I'm not so sure that people aren't put off by a whole bunch of samey looking websites
 
Joe bloggs doesn't care about samey looking sites, that's like saying people are put off using different forums just because they have a similar layout... it is the CONTENT that matters.
 
anniephoto said:
Joe bloggs doesn't care about samey looking sites, that's like saying people are put off using different forums just because they have a similar layout... it is the CONTENT that matters.
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so you don't want something that differentiates you from the competetion then? and the ones I speak to do
 
Maybe an option would be to use a service like Elance where you can specify exactly what you want, give an idea of your budget, and web designers will compete with each other for your business.
This way you get a unique look professionally designed to your specification. It'd be important though to be specific about who maintains the site.

just a thought..
 
Dman said:
Not to Joe Public they don't. If it's customised well, is easy to navigate and more importantly, if the content is really good, then I don't think anyone who knows nothing about website design would be put off if looking for a pro tog.
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That's exactly my way of thinking, the websites are there for customers to look at, not togs, and 99.9% of potential customers will have never even heard of a template website, or clikpic, or photium, or blah blah blah, and most of those will know even less about photography, they just know what looks nice and what doesn't (which is of course open to their individual opinion).

Too many people care what other togs think and forget about the more important people (the people that bring money through the door), if a site's clean and easy to navigate and has content that holds the interest of the viewer then it does its job, be it a £50 site or a £1000 site.
 
What do you want the website for? Just to show pics, have a shopping cart, attract new customers etc... Start there and work backwards. If you mainly want it to find new customers, the most important is SEO (or spending money on adwords, leaflet drops etc...) as having a great website is pointless if no-one can find it.

I use iweb which is pants for SEO but easy to use and I like my site, happy to promote in other ways. Photium is well regarded and Wordpress is also well liked, although needs a bit of knowhow.
 
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