How to Make a Photography Website
Photographers around the world! Do you need to get more constant exposure for your photos online? How do you get noticed and attract more attention than you ever imagined possible? The answer: You need a professional looking photography website.
Two Common Ways to Make a Photography Website
You have 2 options when it comes to photo hosting. You can either get a solution-as-a-service photo hosting, or you can create your own photography website self-hosted on a reliable web hosting service. With the later, you have better control of your profit, but need to be more adventurous with your setting up of the whole thing.
Method 1:
If you do not want delve with your own web development, then all-in-one service such as Zenfolio is what you want.
+1 on Zenfolio. Zenfolio is very easy, very managable, much faster than smugmug. Heck I do not even like looking at smugmug galleries because they are too slow.
Their free 14-day Trial subscription provides access to all the Premium features including uploading full size photos, printing and selling. No credit card required. Click here to get your free premium account.
Why Zenfolio? What I like most is full range of professional features including selling for profit, custom watermarks, and coupons.
A common question about photo hosting:
“My friend said he was smugMugged! I am looking for the best alternative for my photo storage and printing needs. I was wondering what is the best cost-effective alternative so far.
I absolutely need the hosting to have: reasonable cost, because my sales are not nearly high enough to justify even the old annual price of SmugMugPro, let alone the new price.
In short, this photo hosting will be the only account a photographer like me needs to run their business online.”
This particular method of making a website will save hours of education that it takes to become a web developer, while still allowing you an impressive degree of freedom and customization on an ongoing basis. If you are just looking for a simple way to share photos online with your potential customers after a shoot, and allow them to purchase photos online, go for this option. If you are just a part-time shutterbug who just want a basic website to send potential customers to, then this is definitely your best solution.
Method 2:
This is the option where you first get a hosting account from a website hosting company such as Hostgator. Then you install a content-management system such as WordPress. Lastly, you configure your website which includes installing a professional photography theme.
This method may sound complex but actually it is quite straightforward. Only a bare minimum of programming knowledge is needed to get started and if you get stuck help is available from either the WordPress forums or the web hosting live chat (HG). It is useful (but not essential) to know HTML and CSS to be able to modify the layout.
There are a wide choices of website hosting companies in the world today but you want the best hosting provider at an affordable price. We have used Hostgator for almost 9 years and we have been amazed with their responsive customer support and unbelievable uptime. We have tried some other 12 hosting services but HG is simply extraordinary. If you are unsure if this option can meet your requirements, or you have specific question, try the Live Chat at HG. They are available for sales, billing or even technical support for 24/7 at no extra charge. You can also try Hostgator for a penny.
With a WP photography theme like Tripod, you can easily create professional looking site and enable the “Like” feature to let users easily access faved posts and raise their ratingAt a low cost, you can have a photography website that looks like this.
What are the real advantages of having your website self-hosted on your own hosting account, you may ask?. Here are 3 important reasons why:
- You keep all the money from your sales, because you pay no fees from your sale (as oppose to the first option above)
- Unlimited storage space not only for your photos, but for everything you want to put on your website (including PDFs, presentations, videos, raw images, designs, digital products)
- You can host more domain names when you want to expand your business
- The hosting service from the first option above can increase the fees (just like what Smugmug did), but with your own hosting your cost is stable which is the web hosting which is only about $10/month.
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