Website set up

[Cocoajam]

Hi guys,

I was just looking into setting up a website and had a few questions about personal experiences with different web hosts and pages. I have been recommended by a web developer to look at WordPress as a starting point as it is easy to set up myself and can be viewed on all devices and mobiles as well.

I am not looking for a full professional site. At the moment it is really to be able to share some shots with family and friends overseas, but also to have a web presence for the future foray into small jobs like portraits and so on.

So, just wondering if there is any advice out there for setting up something like this where there is private "client" areas accessed only by password, and does this require hosting with more than 1 website?

Any help would be useful.

[Puzz1e]

I just went through this process myself. I opted for ventraIP as my host. You have to decide if you want your host to be AU based or not. AU based will be more expensive but faster if most your viewers are from here.

WordPress is pretty good. There are plenty of free plugins and themes available for it. I am sure there would be a way to have separate password protected client access using WordPress. Check some of the plugins.

I don't see any reason why this would require a second hosting account?

[Kym]

Start here: http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?73305-Becoming-a-Professional-Photographer&p=739330&viewfull=1#post739330

[Cocoajam]

Thanks Kym for the link. I did try to find some old posts but obviously didn't find one.

[Bc Photo]

I recently got my website up, I went with crazy domains. http://www.crazydomains.com.au/ . I used http://www.weebly.com/ to create the site. It offers restricted galleries with theyre upgraded service. Or you can do as I did and use "JavaScript slideshow maker" http://www.magichtml.com/javascriptslideshow/index.html to create galleries and use the crazydomains console to password protect which ever directory you place the slideshow in on the server.

[Wayne]

Smugmug. If not selling, it is cheap, highly customisable and super fast with a friendly interface for basic setup.

[ricktas]

If you want to buy the hosting and 'build it yourself' Serif WebPlus is a great WYSIWYG editor for creating websites and they have some photography templates that make dragging and dropping your photos into the pages very easy.

But if you want to go with a packaged solution, then photomerchant, redbubble, blog hosting, smugmug, etc might be the go.

[Warus]

I built one just to play with and show stuff to friends and use VentraIP has my host and Zenphoto as the gallery. Nothing fancy but it works well for what I want. I found Wordpress more blog orientated.

[Triz]

I would also recommend VentraIP and Wordpress. It's what I use for my website (http://www.tristanbrazier.com)

If you are looking to use it for future business endeavors and have the time to do it yourself, It would be the best way to go.

There are many plugins/themes available for Wordpress that make customization easy, including password protected areas.

[Adam Rainer]

1. Find a cheap web host with a server in your city.
2. Look for examples of websites they host (including their own website) and see how quick they load in your browser.
3. Most of these companies offer 1 click Wordpress installation. Find a free template or better yet buy one. They come with instructions for quick installation. It shouldn't cost much for them to install it for you.
4. Join the Google webmaster forum and learn learn learn.

[PhotoPaul]

My work uses Crucial Paradigm for hosting and they've been nothing short of fantastic to deal with and the service has been excellent.

I am unsure of the costs though.

[Mundy]

*please read the site rules, in particular rules 3-7*

[CapnBloodbeard]

I'm with VentraIP - was hard to find a suitable name as apparently I'm not the only photographer with my name....

Yet to set the website up yet; need to process my images properly first (and can't do that when my goddamn i1 has died....)

[johndom]

I have a Pixelpost blog but am slowly replicating onto wordpress as Pixelpost is not supported by a user /developer community anymore.
There are some great wordpress templates for photographers, but to get a really good one you may have to pay for it.
I use hostcolour $110/ year good support and i have multiple domains and no space limitations.
Zenphoto is my gallery, i used Gallery for quite a few years but cusomizing it was so complex. Zenphoto was as easy as wordpress to set up and simple to customize. Including secure login.

[Rattus79]

I'm going through all this at work at the moment, We're looking at Big Commerce (google it) but that's for a commercial site for selling goods/services.

For delivering files, I recommend using Dropbox. 2 gig is free and it allows you to share a folder with your client that you can live update at any time.
I use it for synching my images between my phone, work PC and home PC as well as linking files here to Ausphotography too via the public folder.