Back to Work - Website Advice Needed!!!!!

[Reality4711]

I am being dragged kicking and screaming back to part-time (joke) work.

Budget 0£ - repeat - 0£

Simple/Clean website (FREE) needed to exhibit and sell securely images.

I run on MACs so do not want to get involved in 'how it works' just that it does.

So, not asking much really.

Oh, I suppose accepting payment via PayPal will be the way as the better 3/4s is a whizzzz at that sort of stuff on eBay..

Obviously UK based and time is as short as my ability with this stuff

Thank you. Regards. Sharkey

 

[kenoh]

squarespace seems to be popular

 

[Foogoofish]

I went with eHost.

Don't go with eHost.

I will second squarespace. I would have a guess though that any sort of payment acceptance is going to need you to pay them a bit too, quite possibly on one of their paid tiers.

 

[Moakesy]

Built a website on Weebly in about 5 hours.....drag and drop, so easy enough.

There is a free option, but if you can stretch to £5/month it would be worth it.

 

[Apple fanboy]

I am being dragged kicking and screaming back to part-time (joke) work.

Budget 0£ - repeat - 0£

Simple/Clean website (FREE) needed to exhibit and sell securely images.

I run on MACs so do not want to get involved in 'how it works' just that it does.

So, not asking much really.

Oh, I suppose accepting payment via PayPal will be the way as the better 3/4s is a whizzzz at that sort of stuff on eBay..

Obviously UK based and time is as short as my ability with this stuff

Thank you. Regards. Sharkey

Would posting stock photos for sale on someone else's website not work?

 

[Reality4711]

Would posting stock photos for sale on someone else's website not work?

Not stock as such.

I will be an attending 'official' at shows of various types for a magazine. My site will be linked to theirs so that attendees can purchase prints/downloads of the images used by the magazine/or not used.

Financially it will every necessary.

As usual though investment of cash is prohibited until income is produced (as is life).

So free to start with the option to get out or upgrade later. Personally I do not mind which, just getting out and about is enough for me.

Already risking a small investment in kit (flash and tele) so cannot make any more purchases for a few months at least. Feel naked as it is; not having backup camera etc.. Bit of a gamble but I suppose my wife iPhone and canon bridge could save the day.

Regards. Sharkey

 

[TheDrift-]

I went with eHost.

Don't go with eHost.

I will second squarespace. I would have a guess though that any sort of payment acceptance is going to need you to pay them a bit too, quite possibly on one of their paid tiers.

I will third square space, free it ain't tho.

I would think if you want to host a lot of pictures and have a payment option you are going to have to pay at least something? And if it isn't up front it's likely to be a big commission % on each sale.

If you wanted to avoid the fuss and set up of a payment option you could always go with a blog type site and have an email address to contact the author and buy a picture and do it all manually?

 

[kenoh]

Also smugmug is ok... not amazing

 

[Apple fanboy]

Not stock as such.

I will be an attending 'official' at shows of various types for a magazine. My site will be linked to theirs so that attendees can purchase prints/downloads of the images used by the magazine/or not used.

Financially it will every necessary.

As usual though investment of cash is prohibited until income is produced (as is life).

So free to start with the option to get out or upgrade later. Personally I do not mind which, just getting out and about is enough for me.

Already risking a small investment in kit (flash and tele) so cannot make any more purchases for a few months at least. Feel naked as it is; not having backup camera etc.. Bit of a gamble but I suppose my wife iPhone and canon bridge could save the day.

Regards. Sharkey

Go with Square space for free for 14 days and see if you like it.

10% off here (FroKnows Photo).

However lots of other people run this same offer.

 

[Reality4711]

OK. I give in. Again!

My choice seems to be between innumerable site providers with wysiwyg building as standard or nothing for less than £70 for software to build my own on webspace provided free from 3rd party.

iWeb cost nothing; are all the so-called replacements this expensive? I have no idea whether or not a single sale will occur once I have started to publish my efforts. 14day free trial-not long enough and too restricted, free stuff- no use to anyone wishing to sell whilst protecting image rights.

Is there really no free/cheap software out there to build a decent selling website on a Mac to publish to the space I already have? Really!

Regards. Sharkey

ps:- can I run iWeb somehow??

 

[Foogoofish]

Do you have a web server to host it on?

I don't want to tell you things you already know, but even if you build it on iWeb you still have to publish it somewhere - and to me with my website that's where I see the value being of the paid amount. 100% uptime with decent loading times are just not realistic from a home server. The wysiwyg drag and drop builder is just a bonus on top to help speed things up in my book.

 

[Reality4711]

OK. Mostly solved.

To just get started I am being given my own space on the Home Pages of the website the work is being done for and they are building that internally.
I still have to sort out the commerce bit and print supply but a start is made.

Thank you all for the info.. If all goes well and some income does evolve I have decided to go down the paid for fully serviced website just for photographers. Basic ones seem to be in the £10-20 per month bracket but with no maintenance needed from me for any of the services provided, and built in print delivery (bonus for someone as isolated as me up here).

Thanks again. Regards. Sharkey

 

[Apple fanboy]

OK. Mostly solved.

To just get started I am being given my own space on the Home Pages of the website the work is being done for and they are building that internally.
I still have to sort out the commerce bit and print supply but a start is made.

Thank you all for the info.. If all goes well and some income does evolve I have decided to go down the paid for fully serviced website just for photographers. Basic ones seem to be in the £10-20 per month bracket but with no maintenance needed from me for any of the services provided, and built in print delivery (bonus for someone as isolated as me up here).

Thanks again. Regards. Sharkey

Don't forget to post a link when it's up and running.

 

[kristeva]

I'm starting a side line in photography and decided to build my own website with html, sometimes I wish I'd just gone with something like squarespace. A friend of mine uses them but he's paying a fair mount of dosh for the privilege.

 

[0970373]

I'm starting a side line in photography and decided to build my own website with html, sometimes I wish I'd just gone with something like squarespace. A friend of mine uses them but he's paying a fair mount of dosh for the privilege.

I tried getting away with a low cost/cheap solution previously and it just didn't become worth the "savings" in the end. Especially as I consider getting more serious about selling prints and looking professional. Tumblr wasn't a bad option TBH but I did pay for a better template but also required a fair amount of upkeep. I tried a few options during a free trial and ended up with Format. Lots of great customized templates and easy syncing w/ Lightroom. Now I just need to get the store up and running . Portfolio portion and galleries look really nice though.

 

[kristeva]

I tried getting away with a low cost/cheap solution previously and it just didn't become worth the "savings" in the end. Especially as I consider getting more serious about selling prints and looking professional. Tumblr wasn't a bad option TBH but I did pay for a better template but also required a fair amount of upkeep. I tried a few options during a free trial and ended up with Format. Lots of great customized templates and easy syncing w/ Lightroom. Now I just need to get the store up and running . Portfolio portion and galleries look really nice though.

Have you got a link to your website? I'd like to check it out.

My reasoning behind building my own with HTML was just an issue of having full control, I wanted a minimal design because all the architectural photographers that I'd been working for had very plain, modern looking websites. Getting it to look professional is an issue though, and I've found it's worth keeping an eye on the latest website designs that aren't necessarily associated with professional creatives. I made a rod for my own back really, it's still not finished but my hosting fees are minimal compared to my mates squarespace deal.

Incidentally do you understand anything about Instagram? Another friend of mine who's a professional photographer has it linked to his latest website, he only has a few images on his site and they're all linked to his instagram account. His wife used to work in social media so he uses that kind of stuff to promote himself, like twitter, etc.

 

[0970373]

Have you got a link to your website? I'd like to check it out.

My reasoning behind building my own with HTML was just an issue of having full control, I wanted a minimal design because all the architectural photographers that I'd been working for had very plain, modern looking websites. Getting it to look professional is an issue though, and I've found it's worth keeping an eye on the latest website designs that aren't necessarily associated with professional creatives. I made a rod for my own back really, it's still not finished but my hosting fees are minimal compared to my mates squarespace deal.

Incidentally do you understand anything about Instagram? Another friend of mine who's a professional photographer has it linked to his latest website, he only has a few images on his site and they're all linked to his instagram account. His wife used to work in social media so he uses that kind of stuff to promote himself, like twitter, etc.

Sure: http://www.e3nasees.com. I still have work to do on that site but I like the look of it a lot and I have gotten good feedback on it.

It isn't "cheap" but for the ease of use and level customization (you can edit the HTML directly but I don't find the need to use that), it is worth it for me. I started out on a Personal plan and very quickly saw I needed a Pro plan due to the image limit and I don't regret it at all. The iOS app is pretty great too so you can edit and add photos to galleries from mobile with relative ease.

And again, that Lightroom sync is such a time saver. If I make changes to a photo, I don't need to export/reupload. I just sync the changes with a right click. I love it. I'm sure other services have a similar feature. I liked Format's edit interface best out of the various services I tried, including Squarespace though.

There are links to my instagram on the site.

The old way I used to do it was on Tumblr and just share/publish the Instagram posts to the Tumblr site, for which you can get a custom domain so it isn't xyz.tumblr.com. But it wasn't professional looking enough and I wanted a storefront, etc. But it can work relatively well if you put time into customizing the site and pay for a better template.

 

[kenoh]

OK. Mostly solved.

To just get started I am being given my own space on the Home Pages of the website the work is being done for and they are building that internally.
I still have to sort out the commerce bit and print supply but a start is made.

Thank you all for the info.. If all goes well and some income does evolve I have decided to go down the paid for fully serviced website just for photographers. Basic ones seem to be in the £10-20 per month bracket but with no maintenance needed from me for any of the services provided, and built in print delivery (bonus for someone as isolated as me up here).

Thanks again. Regards. Sharkey

Hmm, i would rethink that because the commerce bit is where the work will be. Not getting the server in the first instance.

Consider something like Shopify. It is a doddle to setup the ecommerce bit as that is what they excel at - the payment engines and all the crap that goes with it. This is not easy to build from scratch and trust me, you dont want to have to become an expert in that bit. It is a right royal PITA.

I think that the likes of Shopify etc can be had for little initial outlay, as in the price of a few Lattes a month... set it up properly as it will save your sanity in the long run! ha ha ha...

obviously this is assuming the host website doesnt already have the engine built in... if it has... then winner winner...

 

[akash.nu]

As a guy with a hardcore software engineering background, I'll advise to spend a bit for a good infrastructure to begin with rather than going for the cheapest option available. If not much into technology and how things work then best to rely on services like Square Space or Wix. The templates they provide are well formed and I believe they also provide readymade e-commerce integration as well, which should be secure and follow standard protocols. I feel that should be the easiest option for most of you.

 

[Reality4711]

Again thank you all.

The site does indeed have its own commerce setup and should not prove that much of a problem (for me).

I have just seen another option but it is too childish to discuss; but I will investigate with the site builder just in case.

Thank you again, again.

 

[steveash]

You should be able to set up a site on Wordpress dot com and then add paypal 'buy now' buttons. More work than Square Space but more of the money should go to you.