Website design software for a dummy?

A mate was going to design a website for me but he has become too busy to do it, so I'm going to have a go at designing my own website - but as Mike V can testify I'm a complete nuffy when it comes to anything to do with computers.

Can anyone suggest a software program that is suitable for my level of ineptitude? A local shop suggested a program called Mr Site Takeaway Website, but the program looked pretty dated.

I think it has a lot to do with your level of ambition what product you should select.

I'v had a look at google sites, it looks nice to make web pages very easy. But I was unable to make the page look very nice, they got a lot of features but no the cool look.

http://www.google.com/sites/overview.html

iWeb on my Mac (came with it, and might be available for pc I do not know) makes pages very easy and they look much better than google sites.

I've been down this road so here's my 0.2 USD.

Front Page =

I started by using FrontPage which is the windows default web builder and while the software wasn't to bad I found the web hosting very poor and front page not well supported.

Dreamweaver =

This is one of the industry standards, but sorry to hard for me.

Yahoo =

For a WEB SITE I now use and love Yahoo with thier own application "Sitebuilder" it's not that high tech but enough for me.

You can have your own domain, own emails, also embed blogs as well as a store (if so inclined).

I pay about 25USD per quater which I'm happy with.

Have a look at the results if you want :-

http://www.images-underwater.net/

However another option is a blog, simpler that a "web site" with many of the same advantages.

I have acutally added in a blog to my site to add in "diary" type content from various projects and trips.

I'd recomend wordpress for this although blogspot is also very good and both offer free hosting.

Here is my blog :-

http://www.images-underwater.net/blog1/

I know there are lots of "photographer" specific web hosts and software packages but none that seemed that flexible, or cheap (some even charge per image) but what ever you do go with a big player. My original host went bankrupt along with my .com domain which I've only just got back.

Any questions etc please shout.

Cheers,

Richard B.

Hi,

Not really software per se, but maybe an alternative option!

I've been using Smugmug for a while-they allow lots of straight forward cut and paste customizing options, and are really easy to use.

I export my pictures straight out of Lightroom onto my site-very streamlines, no ftp etc necessary!

Hope that helps

Adam

Hi,

 

Not really software per se, but maybe an alternative option!

 

I've been using Smugmug for a while-they allow lots of straight forward cut and paste customizing options, and are really easy to use.

 

I export my pictures straight out of Lightroom onto my site-very streamlines, no ftp etc necessary!

 

Hope that helps

 

Adam

Hi Adam,

Is your entire site in Smugmug or just the gallery portion of it? Did you set up your domain name through Smugmug or did you have to do that seperatly and then link Smugmug across to it? It looks like it might be a simple way to do it and the site will take care of photo sales as well. It would be nice if you could put your own background theme into it but I don't think it allows that.

If you're using a mac, iWeb is very user friendly

If you're using a mac, iWeb is very user friendly

Nope still windows for this dummy

After going round and around for literally a couple of years on this, I finally settled on smugmug as well.

My site http://waterworldimages.smugmug.com/ was done in smugmug, and I engaged jerry roek ( http://www.jrphotosandwebdesign.com/ )

to help me integrate a Wordpress blog. The blog still needs some refinement but I have found that the overriding component is smugmug's galleries and ease of use in this regard. Smugmug pro account allows pretty extensive customization, so the overall look, landing page, the banner etc, I did myself. You can use your own url and steer it to smugmug. (Instructions on smugmug site) A blog also needs to be separately hosted.

Another vote for Smugmug here. I was able to pull together the Fin Foundation site in a couple of weekends and the last time I had to write any code it was on a stack of punch cards. I like the fact that it's a family run outfit too.

Steve

Nope still windows for this dummy

In that case I would use smugmug, or if you just wanted something very easy and effective just to get your images on a gallery, Jalbum.net is very good

here are some online site creators that can get the job done and some of them very well.

If you want to get into it Dreamweaver is the way forward for you computer IMO .. but it is best to start with something that makes more visual sense.

http://www.weebly.com/

http://www.wix.com/

http://www.jimdo.com/

Hi again Kent,

My whole site bar the blog is smugmug! The blog is from blogger-and was simple to integrate. Smugmug have great support forum here and it was just a matter of copying and pasting. I gather that to integrate wordpress is more complicated though

If you own the domain, and take a pro or power account (I think) with Smugmug you can use that! I use godaddy for domains. You do not need any hosting-just to register the name and then give that to smug!

You can indeed use images for background, as well as a ton of other stuff! Some of this may be dependent on your level of membership though

Adam

Hi Adam,

 

Is your entire site in Smugmug or just the gallery portion of it? Did you set up your domain name through Smugmug or did you have to do that seperatly and then link Smugmug across to it? It looks like it might be a simple way to do it and the site will take care of photo sales as well. It would be nice if you could put your own background theme into it but I don't think it allows that.

For a PC web gallery drag and drop type of website builder look at http://www.shozam.com/

I have used it just for kicks http://www.bcliffe.com/Galleries/Photography/

Cheers

BC

I like smugmug as well. Look at the 2 example sites posted in this thread, they look pretty nice and are basically stock smugmug. I use smugmug slightly differently. My main site is Wordpress, and I integrated smugmug as a gallery-only section.

http://uwimages.smugmug.com/

While the subjects up, is there anyone who's tried iWeb but prefers another one, and why?

I REALLY like what Cor has done (expect a clone soon Cor!)

If you go down the smugmug route-be sure to ask one of us smuggies (he says smuggly!) for a referal link-it'll save you a few bucks!

Adam

It's a bit of a mess right now though Adam. The galleries link in the menu points to my old galleries. I'll get around to fixing it soon

Oh, that was easier than I thought. 1 line fix in wordpress and 1 line fix in smugmug I love content management systems!

Im using some custom JS in smugmug to move content blocks around. I dont like the normal smugmug layout, i think it's too crowded.

Many thanks for all of the replies! They help heaps! It certainly looks like Smugmug is the way to go - you guys have got some really nice sites on there.

Check out SIMPLEVIEWER too. its a real quick and easy flash plug in for showing photos. You get to select the thumbnail size and position, how it displays etc with simple but effective results.

Being Flash too, means that the images are protected. In standard displays, images are drag and dropable from ur site, so you have copyright and theft issues. You would need to watermark them which in most cases can be cropped out, or write across the whole image, which is pointless to display ur images. Flash embeds them so they are not accessible to users.

The plug in works in most if not all web design pages, inc iWeb, dreamweaver etc.

I know a few pro photographers from different backgrounds who use it on there sites.

Olly

Check out SIMPLEVIEWER too. its a real quick and easy flash plug in for showing photos. You get to select the thumbnail size and position, how it displays etc with simple but effective results.

Being Flash too, means that the images are protected. In standard displays, images are drag and dropable from ur site, so you have copyright and theft issues. You would need to watermark them which in most cases can be cropped out, or write across the whole image, which is pointless to display ur images. Flash embeds them so they are not accessible to users.

The plug in works in most if not all web design pages, inc iWeb, dreamweaver etc. and if you use Lightroom it will load direct into the WEB or publish section of the workflow, and just be under new themes (well it does on a mac, not sure about Windows)

I know a few pro photographers from different backgrounds who use it on there sites.

Olly