Best Way to Make a Flash-Based Website?

<p>I want to make a new website that looks sleek and professional, but I don't currently have the money to spend on hiring a programmer. A lot of people have told me to check out Livebooks, but $3,200!? Can anyone point me in the direction of something more affordable? Any suggestions?</p>

<p>try checking out bigfolio, flashpalette, portfoliositez, or winklettemplates.</p>

<p>good luck! :-)</p>

<p>Most Web design applications and some photo editors, like CS3/4 suite, produce flash Web designs. You can produce one on your computer, so why do you need a Website or programmer? Just a thought.</p>

<p>Livebooks has the basic website at $800 and the next level up at $1700. Hosting, IMO, is cheap at $90 yearly.</p>

<p>Check out <a href="http://www.nway.org">Nway.org</a> </p>

<p>Software, Image Vue</p>

<p>Hi Ann, <br>

I'm not much of a web designer, I can do enough for my own needs. If you are some what in tune with this sort of technologies and have a week or 2 free, I'd suggest checking out learnflash.com, they have tutorial vids especially designed to building websites, think there about €40. I don't work for them, just found it very helpful! <br>

After that google flash galleries or free flash galleries, there's lots out there, that you'll be able to pop in to your own site.<br>

Just a suggestion. <br>

I've gone through quiet a few blog type things and always ended up wanting something I could customize to what I want so went this way. <br>

This still looks somewhat amateurish, and is on the long list to be re done but have a look. <br>

www.brendanryanphotography.com<br>

all the best <br>

B</p>

<p>Ann,<br>

It seems that Flash is the standard for photography. Having said that, there can be virtually no search engine optimization for flash websites. In other words, once you've created it-that's it. So, be cautious if you commit.<br>

With people who are known/famous that is a different story, as the name is already known. Conversely, you can optimize a flash website with external actions like Press Releases and E-Articles, but that's it. Bear that in mind when coughing over $3200.00 ...<br>

Getting back to finding a web designer...One thing, have it locally done, so that you can see the website being created. It'll give you more influence to the final product. Craigslist is a start...locally though. Coffee houses boards, College/University bulletin boards. Younger people seem to be in touch with that "stuff" and they won't change you a premium as their overhead will be lower. In other words, you may get it for half the price!<br>

Cheers</p>

<p>Ann,<br>

I think Lawrence is spot on here... flash is the standard for photographers but unless you are a photog rockstar you also will need good SEO which flash fails at miserably. I recently went through a complete redesign of my real estate photography web site which is a niche section of my Los Angeles photography business. The original site used a lot of flash which looked nice but never ranked very high in google - even when searching for: real estate photography los angeles. I felt this was a problem since I am one of the more busy architectural photographers in Los Angeles who actively shoots real estate. By changing the site name and reworking the site as a "long form" site I was able to put myself on the front page of google searches and that happened within 2 weeks of taking the site live. I kept the flash slideshow of my work on almost every page but incorporated numerous smaller images and descriptive text that helped the viewer understand what I do and also helped search engines find and rank me more accurately. I don't have a cached version of the old site for comparison but the new site is: <a href="http://www.propertylistingspro.com">http://www.propertylistingspro.com</a> and you can see how the flash and long form work together to highlight the photography without relegating the site to obscurity in the "cloud".<a href="http://www.propertylistingspro.com"><br /> </a><br>

As far as affordability, Flash CS4 and a couple of weeks of tutorials and you'll be up and running for under a grand with complete control over content, updates and aesthetics. Even if you do end up paying someone else to do it please understand that the published version of a flash site is in the .swf file format, where the source file is .fla which means you likely will not be able to access the source should you decide to move on in the future. (You would not own the code, just the result of the code).<br>

Good luck!<br>

Erik</p>

<p>In my opinion, some type of programming experience is vital for working in Flash. But $3200 is robbery. I don't understand why photographers fund that kind of extortion.<br>

Check this freebee out: <a href="http://www.bananalbum.com/">http://www.bananalbum.com/</a></p>

<p> </p>

<p>...or close to freebee. I think a license is $39.</p>

<p>Bananalbum is one of many "skins" on <a href="http://jalbum.net">Jalbum.net</a>. I use the "Cameleon" skin on my website. Its Javascript - not Flash but looks professional. Free unless you upload tons of pics to their site. Then the will ask to sign up as a member of a fee basis.</p>

<p>Thanks for all the feedback! Some of the freebies look alright.. but I really want something more professional looking. Definitely no ads, and something flash-based. I have used the Photoshop webpage making tool in the past, which actually doesn't look too bad. But so many people are using it that the template feels too recognizable to me. <br>

While I'd like to learn how to code in flash myself, I know that it would probably take months or years to figure out how to create a site that looks as slick as Livebooks. My friend keeps insisting that I try APhotoFolio.com or Qufoto. Is anyone here familiar with either service? I do a lot of photojournalism, so something that could host multimedia presentations would be all the better. Thanks!</p>

<p>If you are desiring a professional looking website that is Flash based, and you have a copy or are in the market to buy a copy of Flash, I would suggest that you take the time to learn how to build and design your own site. With proper instruction and research you can have a gallery based portfolio website in about two months. You are then only limited by your design ability, which if you are not confident in there are always designers hanging out on Craigslist.org that will handle the design aspect of the process for a small fee. A great resource, and one that I learned a lot from, is lynda.com. Although it's not free, $25 a month or so, it is a huge wealth of knowledge and the screen casting is great. Check out Chris Orwig's stuff on Flash, he is great and a blast to learn from.<br>

As far as Flash not being great for SEO, that is a little misleading. The reason people say that is that Googlebot cannot search ALT tags (images) or text in the .SWF, which is true, or that there are not a lot of pages that link back to the index page, which is also true. However you must realize that if you have a blog, or a photo.net profile, that links back to your website that Google finds that is far more relavent to your Pagerank rather then ALT tags. A Flash page is very searchable to Googlebot, you just have to be vigilant in your supporting profiles to your website. Do you have a Linkedin, a blog that you post to regularly, do you post regularly here, other profiles online? Make sure they link to your portfolio site. Also sign up for, and implement, Google Analytics. This will let you track who comes to your site and how they got there, plus you will be more relevent to Google.<br>

You also have to consider how people are going to find you on Google. Do you think you will get a lot of business from people searching for "photography" or from "<em>your city</em> photography" or do you think they will more then likely have gotten your business card, or heard from you somewhere else and do a search for you name or your business name? Do a search for your name and see where you fall in the Google rank. That is much more important then the broader search queries are for driving clients to your site. Check out what google has to say about <a href="http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=70897">Pagerank </a><br>

Hope this helps</p>

 

<p>Ann, have you considered Lightroom to build flash site? It's a little short on design options, but if you want something simple&sleek, easy to build, it might be worth a look.</p>

<p>Ann,<br>

Check into neonsky.com, thats what I use, or showitfast.com. They both are awesome! Neon Sky is really easy to use, and content can be changed from any computer. Show it Fast seems to be the new hot thing.<br>

Take care,<br>

Mic</p>

<p>I'm using Wix. It's really the best thing out there. Check it out www.wix.com Free flash, easy, online hosting, no brains required. Enjoy!</p>

<p>I'm in the midst of building a portfolio gallery page for <a href="http://www.beijingcp.com">Beijing Center of Photography</a> and we are deciding between using Flash or just simple php gallery software like photopost etc.<br>

I found a pretty affordable solution for flash using solutions provided by slideshowpro.net<br /> it costs just between US$29 - 30+ dollars <br /> before i plunge into that solution, i have just a couple of questions.<br>

(1) why is Flash the standard for photography portfolio online?<br /> (a) is it because it gives the option of full-screen display?<br /> (b) harder for thieves to steal images online? (it is still possible via screencapture)<br /> © just because it look sleek and smooth?<br>

(2) i'm also exploring AJAX and other php options for portfolio display. does anyone has any relevant experience in this?<br>

cheers, Lance | <a href="http://www.asiaphoto.com/forum.php">ASIAPHOTO.COM</a></p>