Designing a Blog Site

<p>Hey everyone,<br>

I'm really liking the idea of having a blog for my website. The only problem is, I have no clue where to go to get this started. I have done extensive research on this, and have come up pretty much empty handed, unless I want to pay $2,000 dollars to have someone design it for me, which I don't. I have designed all of my past websites by myself so I am very familiar with how everything works.<br>

I currently have a website and a blog, and my blog is really where everything happens. The only problem is that when I tell clients about the "sneak peak" photos I will have on my blog, they look at me clueless. And I'm noticing my blog is not getting very many hits from my website.<br>

Basically, I want to find a place where I can create a cool blog site, like this one <a href="http://www.jessicaclaire.net/">http://www.jessicaclaire.net/</a><br>

I need to have the links at the top of the page, like the pricing page, contact page, etc.<br>

I currently use Blogger and have signed up with WordPress in hopes that I could do something a little more with my blog, but neither of them seem to offer what I'm looking for.<br>

Any suggestions would be helpful! Thanks in advance.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I am still working on getting a blog site up and running on Wordpress, but there are some really great themes for sale for the self-hosted wordpress option at reasonable prices (less than $200), ProPhoto by netrivet seems really popular with photographers, and the thesis theme by Chris Pearson looks good. If you do some googling and searching through websites you might find something you can customize to your own use.</p>

<p>Hi Erika, You didn't say exactly what you need your new blog to do. I use Word Press to run the dynamic part of my website, like monthly print specials and a journal where a lot of designer friends follow me. I like WP because it is easily customized, and there are great add ons to automatically publish my posts to my facebook page and twitter (on which I'm starting to get some people following me). I use a couple dozen add ons (all free), including a PayPal shopping cart, and SEO.</p>

<p>The service I use has a ton of tools for image displaying, blogs, forums, designer stuff, and free email account (unlimited, I think), for between $4 and $5 a month. I spent probably a week researching new hosts, after my old one started playing games with increasing prices, trying to charge for services they previously included, and that sort of thing. These people have been first rate. <a href="http://www.powweb.com/join/index.bml?AffID=607423">This is my hosting service.</a></p>

<p>I find that having a blog is really, really useful in keeping in front of my customers. I don't spam them, but they appreciate knowing what I've been doing, learning how to display art and photographs, archival practices, etc. We stay in touch far more than we ever used to. I'm just now starting to get some traction. For awhile, I was blogging every 1 to 3 days, but I found that was a little much. Instead, I blog about once or twice a week at most, and they seem to look forward to it. In fact, I missed one week, and some people actually wrote me that I missed a post. It is really nice that the service lets me post to Twitter. I don't have much use for it myself, but I guess some people hang on every word that comes across their cell phone.</p>

<p>Let me know if you have any specific questions I can help with. It's a very exciting new way to market my business, and it's just starting to pay off for me.</p>

<p>Michael,<br>

Huge help, thank you! I will definitely look into the hosting service you use.<br>

I guess I'm just confused with WordPress....I've used Blogger for so long that I'm use to their "plain" designs and themes, etc. I'm not exactly sure where to start with wordpress.<br>

What I am looking for is my website to go directly to my blog when people go to my website....like it would be my homepage. But I don't want a skinny or small blog like most of the themes they provide. I want a large blog, where large pictures can be posted (which I can do now with blogger, I just use photobucket to make larger pics on my blog). The problem is I don't want my blogger blog to be my homepage because it's pretty plain and boring.<br>

The example I posted abpve for that photographer is what I am looking for. Blog as the main page, but with tabs running across the top that people can click.....like "about me" "packages and prices" etc.<br>

Does your hosting provider allow for this? Or do I need to look into Wordpress more? I guess a little more detail about your provider would help.</p>

<p>Thanks again!</p>

<p>Try this link <a href="http://www.prophotoblogs.com/">http://www.prophotoblogs.com/</a> or <a href="http://diythemes.com/thesis/">http://diythemes.com/thesis/</a> or <a href="http://www.woothemes.com/themes/portfolio/">http://www.woothemes.com/themes/portfolio/</a></p>

<p>Check out the examples of how people have customized their sites. Lots of options. I am hosting with godaddy and haven't had any problems uploading wordpress themes. Good luck.</p>

<p>You can do that. With the web host I gave, you just tell it that your blog starts in the directory where you main website is, then your whole system is run on Word Press. My company set up one just like that for a salon. It isn't live yet, but it's all Word Press so they can manage it themselves. (see http://naturallinksalon.com/wp). Their control panel is really easy to use. I did look at a lot of sites designed just for photographers, but it seemed to me they were just trying to take advantage of photographers.</p>

<p>Pro Photo Blog is very popular, another option is Portfoliositez's Andy Blogsite (portfoliositez.com) or a custom one from Into the Darkroom (<a href="http://www.intothedarkroom.com/#home-itdr-7a1e6">http://www.intothedarkroom.com/#home-itdr-7a1e6</a>)</p>