Hi everyone,
Does anyone have any suggestions on tools for simple web design? I've already purchased a url and basic hosting. This is my first site and I need to build it myself. I'm quite computer savvy but can't write code or anything like that. You help is much appreciated.
Thanks,
Ana

Ana ... I built mine through: www.photobiz.com

Take a look at mine and let me know whatcha think? www.jflynnfoto.com

Good luck!

jase

Hey Jase, and anyone else looking to build/buy/create your own site. Something to remember:

Going forward many devices do not use/utilize flash. If your whole site is flash based without an html component/version, people can not see your site on their iphone/ipad/ipod. This is a HUGE market. They may never come back, especially if they are actively searching and came across someone else who's site they COULD access.

Food for thought

Ana - I'd be happy to talk to you about it and help you get going.

Jason - Frank brings up a good point, especially with regard to mobile browsing. More and more people are using phone and mobile devices to browse the web and the iPhone is at the top of the heap by percentage. Over 75% of mobile browsing is done on the iPhone and Apple is projecting selling 5 million units of the iPad year one. Combine that with the upcoming adoption of HTML 5, which performs many of the animation and interactivity tasks natively that Flash is used for and you can see the importance of having something other than a Flash only web presence. Then again, according to Adobe, the upcoming 10.1 release of the Flash player cuts CPU usage in half on Macintosh based systems, which has long been the Achilles heel to battery life, so perhaps Steve may reverse his position on Flash and iPod/iPhone/iPad...but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Frank has a point there.

Google devices like Motorola Droid and Google Nexus won't get flash until Adobe officially release flash 10.1. Not until later this year or next year.

As for building website. You have many options. Since you have a domain name and basic hosting, that options just got larger for you.

You can look into standard template engine such as WordPress. I have my domain hosted at godaddy.com and all hosting companies these day deliver standard template engine for you, you just need to provide the template.

I am using WordPress right now and the template was found off the internet that I modified via PHP for my need. My website is www.smilepak.com uses WordPress. My other website www.photographybykevin.net host with Zenfolio, they provide all of that, they are similar to PBASE and SMUGSMUG. I just have my URL redirect over there.

If you just want a simple page for picture gallery and as easy as easy can get, look at JALBUM (jalbum.net/). You can read the review here download.cnet.com/JAlbum/3000-10247_4-10074363.html . It is a desktop software you installed on your PC. It is template based so you have a lot of themes you can find on the internet, it generate all of the HTML pages for you (flash and non-flash version) and it publish it to your domain for you. I believe Jo Jo (www.urfotogenik.com/) uses it for her site.

If you want to get a little more savy and explore, Adobe Dreamweaver. It could be as complicated as you like or as simple as you like. But very robust. Homesite is another good tool to build from scratch if you want to do coding.

Jase,
Your site is lovely and your work is very beautiful. The best part about it is that the viewer gets a sense of what type of person you are (laid back and unpretentious is what comes across) and if that matches who they are looking for which is really important in choosing a photog. I like the sections on 'stuff I can do' and 'things I dig'. You come across as fun and who wouldn't want a fun photographer on their vacation (sweet gig - let me know if you need an assistant)
Question: do you get traffic/business from your site that becomes clients or do you send prospects there to see your work (just curious)
The comments on flash are true though and I imagine would not be able to see anything on an iPhone or iTouch and it seems like everyone has one of these now. And how does that rank on search engines?

Jeffrey ,
YES, please!

~Ana