Webpage Design Tools

<p>Hi All,<br>

I've decided that I would like to take my photography one step further and venture into the business of selling my services for financial gain. I've for quite a few years now been reluctant as I am very critical of my own work and sometimes feel a little out of my depth especially when I look at sites such as PN and 500px. However, I have been solicited on many occasions recently for my work and so I realise now that many people like my style of photography and are willing to pay for it. My goal is not only to make money but to make people happy. To make people feel good about themselves and immortilise moments which they will look at in years to come. I love photography and I've invested alot of money in it. Because of these (90% the former!) I've been slowly edging myself into the industry, first with a little toe-dipping but now the toe-dipping period is over and I want to jump in.</p>

<p>Now, if youve got this far through my musings the I'm already greatful! ;-) My question is this:<br>

I've been looking at website design and have been using Dreamweaver CS3 to design my page. However, I am not proficient in HTML or CSS code and thus I am struggling to get this site constructed! I would like to ask you all if you could tell me how you got your sites up and running and what did you use to construct it? I have looked at word press but I cant figure out how to construct a page!</p>

<p>Any help would be very greatfully appreciated.<br>

Best Wishes<br>

James</p>

<p>WordPress with a commercially designed template that I branded. It's not hard.</p>

<p>Do a Google search for "wordpress theme" and pursue the thousand of options.</p>

<p>James, I had the luxury of learning to code Web pages from scratch starting in 1994 (yes, when all this began in earnest with Mosaic and text editors) so while my Website isn't fancy, it's what I've done because I own the domain name, have a local Website host where I can design and build all the Web pages and manage everything directly, using a variety of applications, eg. CS3-5.x, BBEdit, Coda, etc.</p>

<p>That said, there are plenty of wysiwyg applications, including Dreamweaver and a number of templates (eg. Wordpress as mentioned). The key to remember is that before you start the hands on work to build it, you should first design it, including developing an overall plan of what you want in it now and may in the future, developing an organization and structure, and then determing the content you want in the first iteration, eg. galleries, blog, contact, biography, etc. Then buidling it becomes the matter of developing or finding a design you like and fits your needs, and just doing the work.</p>

<p>Remember, though, a Website also take routine maintenance, updates and upgrades, so plan the work into any work or business plans. You need to give visitors and customers reasons to return, otherwise all you're trying to be is just another photographer's Website, and like any eye candy, it's easy to become, another "been there, seen it" Website. Good luck.</p>

<p>I build a lot of sites for people using Wordpress, as well. I don't do this for my benefit, but for the benefit of the customer, who can easily update their content without knowing HTML or CSS. When I build a more full featured site, and one that needs quick updates by someone not fearful of using a software package, I like NetObjects Fusion. And I build a lot of sites with Dreamweaver as well, though I think it takes a bit more knowledge to customize a template.</p>

<p>We have two sites hosted with Bluehost and both are using ProPhoto blogs.<br>

First site is for <a href="http://www.goodsmithstudio.com/">Denver Wedding Photography</a> and is, shocker, dedicated to fine art wedding photography. It is also linked to a smugmug account that can be used to sell images to clients.<br>

The other site is <a href="http://www.goodsmithstudio.com/">all things photography</a> and we recently put a post up regarding both Bluehost and ProPhoto blogs. You can see it here: <a href="http://www.goodsmithstudio.com/">http://bit.ly/JPzDlR</a><br>

Both sites have completely different domain names but both are hosted on the same accounts - with Bluehost and ProPhoto at no additional charge. <br>

Check out the post for more info. We're very happy with both BH and PPG.</p>

<p>I hope this is helpful.</p>

<p>-MS</p>