O/T - any web designers about?

Unless you want an all singing all dancing website how about using Mr Site? My own website was done for me by a friend using Wordpress and I can easily update it so whilst my website isn't the best out there by any imagination I can make changes to it every day which was the most important thing for me.

There are loads of different sites you can build yourself for a lot cheaper than a web designer. Maybe Spring cos she is really good at all that stuff and I think she has web designer contacts if you wanted to go down that route. x

If you are looking to set up a photography website, these may be of interest.

Websites:

Big Folio - http://www.bigfolio.com
BluDomain - http://www.bludomain.com
FloSites - http://www.flosites.com
Darkroom - http://www.intothedarkroom.com
Flash Palette - http://www.flashpalette.com
LiveBooks - http://www.livebooks.com
Photoidentities - http://www.photoidentities.com
Tafota - http://tafota.com
Winklet - http://www.winkletwebdesign.com
Creative Motion Design - http://www.creativemotiondesign.com/
PhotoBiz - http://www.photobiz.com

Blogs:

Prophoto blog

I'm afraid I have strong views where web designing is concerned. 5 years ago I was in the same position as you. So I went with a large company that stung me to the tune of £2,000.....and the site was awful! I now have 3 sites that rank high and have brilliant feedback....and they are all homemade by myself and my OH. In fairness, my OH sat with a book for months and learnt coding etc. I did a lot of reading and attending seminars on internet marketing....which all helped.

One option is to do it yourself. There are quite a few companied that enable you to do a website from a template and manage it yourself. Vistaprint offer a good deal, and I know a number of people who have created their own website through them....and they're not half bad....although they are very easy to do they are limiting.

If you do go to a company, beware of charges for managing and updating your site. To get your site high in search engines you have to constantly update it and keep it fresh. If it's managed you could end up paying charges on a monthly basis for things as simple as changing a photograph or adding another sentence to a page.

If you go down the 'do it yourself ' route, you may find this article useful. I wrote it with DJs in mind, but it has relevant stuff that can be applied to any website. https://www.mobiledj.info/dj_newsletter_issue_8.html

Hope that helps.

I'm a complete muppet when it comes to computers so can't help you myself. I can thoroughly recommend the chaps who set up the website for my company though - they're called Nebulo Strata and I love them! They also did our business cards and a photo shoot for our profile photos for the website.

Sorry....I was typing at the same time as PG was posting so repeated a lot of what was said.

Here's two examples of the Vistaprint site https://www.djterryjlewis.com/ and http://www.andrewsautographs.com/

I think Mr Site works in the same way as Vistaprint......both well worth a look.

Wow, thanks all for your replies. I had to go out, so am overwhelmed by all the links and advice - cheers guys.

Will look them all over and then come back and reply. Thanks again!

Meant to say my website is totally free apart from the hosting and server cost.

I got my website domain name from 123.reg and my server is with laughing squid (seriously that's the name) and monthly it's buttons for both.

I couldn't have set it up myself because I don't know the coding to use in Wordpress but I think with Mr Site and similar sites you don't need to learn the code because it's all user friendly.

Right, Purrfectgems, your way seems that it'll work the most for me - I haven't got a fortune to spend as it's just to make some money whilst I'm still studying and then I'm hoping to upgrade and become "professional" within the next few years.

Would you suggest my first move to be registering my domain name? Which is better - .co.uk or .com? Wahh, it's all so confusing!

I've done my own through www.one.com. It was free for the first year so I just paid for my domain. You are able to design everything really easily online and import pics etc. I've just renewed for a third year, and it still costs less than £20 per year all in.

Ideally its best to get both .co.uk and .com. Have your site on .co.uk and have the .com pointing to it so that if someone puts .com by mistake they still get through to your .co.uk site. All my domains (and we're talking of over 20 here) were done through 123 reg. I've never gone anywhere else so can't comment.

For host you can search for comparison surveys as there are a lot of hosts out there. Its not only the price that differs greatly but also the service, limitations, ease of uploading, reliability etc.

I've only got a .co.uk but want to get the .com when I have time to get round to it.

My web guy sourced my hosting company for me and he liked what laughing squid offered and if I have any problems I email them and they get back really quickly. I've never have any problems in the 3 years with them.

Right - have to go for a bit, as I've just been reminded that the degree results come out today, so I need to go check and then ring around the various family and friends....will be back later

I would say learn to make one yourself then you 100% in control, If you can get a program like dreamweaver, and with youtube and a few other sites you can make anything. Its all very simple it just looks complicated at first.

OOO and always .co.uk as .com's tend to get filtered out in this country by certain search engines when people do local searches - they are technically americas name ending.

Hmmm i might know something about computers ..... I have just been made redundant from my job as software designer at t-mobile :-)

I recommended doing it yourself .... unless you want to be able to take credit card payments or anything equally complicated. But if you want help, just ask, i'm pretty bored inbetween applying for jobs, LOL

Ooh horsefan, blimey girl, how horrid. thanks for your kind offer...I may have to shout you as it's giving me a headache! lol

I used www.gbbo.co.uk for mine. Its FREE for 2 years and basically you do your own website. Its a company working to get british businesses online.

www.rubycheeksandpeachylips.co.uk < this is mine and i did it all myself and its FREE for two years. Definately worth a look i think!

I use Microsoft publisher as it has templates and also blank websites. You then have total control, if you are creative iot is addictive. I bought my domain through UK2 and also use them for hosting. Good luck

Been having a nightmare with mine. I hate dreamweaver and coding with a passion - it's an alien way of thinking to print design software but it was the only way I could get exactly what I wanted. Out of frustration I did try Mr Site at one point, and I can see that it has advantages and was fairly straightforward to use but I kept wanting to overide it's settings and templates to achieve what I wanted. So with big help from OH we went back to Dreamweaver again and I finally relaunched the site last week.

My advice for Mr Site is to use the plainest, most basic page template as your blank canvas - from there you can upload your own designed headers etc without it clashing with its own imposed styles and colours.

But if you want complete control over the layouts, the look and hosting then dreamweaver is probably the way to go. You can download a full version of Dreamweaver for a free trial period of 30 days from Adobe.

Thanks both

right - I have registered my domain and then I purchased Mr Site...but then I found I had iweb and have set it all up exactly how I want the site, but I don't really know what to do now!?! Have I wasted my money with Mr site? Can I publish my iweb site on something other than mobileme (so I don't have to pay the subscription?)