# So I Have a Business Name... Now for a Website.. Where to Host?!



## D-B-J (May 4, 2014)

So I've settled on a business name; Red Skies Photography.  It's free, no domain found.  What's a good website for making a website?  I want to make my own to hold photo's, business info, etc.  What do you use?  What have you found successful?

Cheers!
Jake


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## Raj_55555 (May 4, 2014)

I've heard very good things about squarespace.com. You may look into it!
What I love about it is that you can change the templates any time you want, and the customer service is outstanding from what I've read. Also I think squarespace has better templates than most of it's competitors and is more photographer friendly.


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## D-B-J (May 4, 2014)

Raj_55555 said:


> I've heard very good things about squarespace.com. You may look into it!
> What I love about it is that you can change the templates any time you want, and the customer service is outstanding from what I've read. Also I think squarespace has better templates than most of it's competitors and is more photographer friendly.



Seems pretty awesome, I'll have to look into it and do the free trial. 

Cheers!
Jake


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## Raj_55555 (May 4, 2014)

And the best part is you won't even have to share your card details for the trials like it is with most premium trials.


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## CdTSnap (May 4, 2014)

Use Wordpress, and host on GoDaddy if your in the states, very cheap and you can build a great website. I can give you some help if you need it.


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## jsecordphoto (May 4, 2014)

I use smugmug, work's well for me. $20/mo and $10/yr for the domain name


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## Light Guru (May 4, 2014)

Squarespace all the way.  I do a couple of websites through them. There are discount codes off the first year given out on lots of photography podcasts. 

There templates look really good, and there customer service is top notch. 

The only thing I don't like is that they won't let you get one of the new .photo or .photography domain names as the free domain name they offer. But those are easy enough to get elsewhere and link to your squarespace account.


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## danielklaer (May 4, 2014)

As CdTSnap said wordpress is probably the easiest content management system (CMS) to get your head around. I knew nothing when I started with my website but was able to understand wordpress pretty easily. You can see it in my sig if you want but it is still a work in progress.

I originally hosted with Go daddy but had nothing but issues. My site was down often and the speed was reaaaaally slow. I did a reverse IP look up and was on a server with ALOT of other sites (I can't quite remember but it was in the high hundreds or low thousands). That isn't necissarily a bad thing but coupled with how slow the site was loading (I was also testing load speeds) I decided to move on.

I have been with hostgator since then and the site has run much faster with no down time that I have noticed. With hosting you get what you pay for, but if you want to pay peanuts I can say that hostgator has been much better than go daddy. Speed is still not fast, but it is acceptable.


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## BrickHouse (May 4, 2014)

Like the name! Badass.


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## D-B-J (May 4, 2014)

BrickHouse said:


> Like the name! Badass.



Thanks! It took a while to find one, but my sister and I were chatting today and this just kinda appeared, and we both loved it. It connects my love for marine things "red sky at night is a sailors delight," and I love to shoot sunsets/sunrises. It just works! 

Cheers!
Jake 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## jayohphotography (May 6, 2014)

D-B-J said:


> So I've settled on a business name; Red Skies Photography. It's free, no domain found. What's a good website for making a website? I want to make my own to hold photo's, business info, etc. What do you use? What have you found successful?
> 
> Cheers!
> Jake



what i did, Go Daddy for the domain- 99 cents
Weebly super easy to make your own site, you can do free, or $3 a month so you can use your own URL
down the road, if you want to host your own proofs for your clients, AND you can also sell prints from there
shootProof... first 100 photos are free....
i got a sweet deal on black friday something like 1500 photos for $60 a year... AND they dont take commision out of your sells =)

I just finished my website last week, well its not finished but its up =)


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## runnah (May 6, 2014)

runnah inc. has space available. 

for serious


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## SnappingShark (May 6, 2014)

Go Daddy.

GoDaddy.

GO! DADDY.


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## runnah (May 6, 2014)

godaddy has THE WORST ui ever in the history of the man. I know my **** and I still get turned around.


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## D-B-J (May 6, 2014)

Well I went with squarespace. So we'll see how it goes!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Big Mike (May 6, 2014)

I've been using Hostgator for many years and it's been smooth and hassle free.

I made my site with CoffeeCup software, but it's nothing special.  Unless building a site is something that you really want to do, I'd suggest looking for a template (there are many, many sites selling them).  It may not be 100% original, but it will get you a nice looking site much faster.  

Do you want it to be an information site where you refer people so they can see what you do and contact you?  Or do you want to generate organic business (people finding your site on Google and becoming customers)?  The first part is very easy, the second part is much harder and/or more expensive.


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## Darkershadesofbrown (May 7, 2014)

Use wordpress host with godaddy. I would be more concerned with how you build your website than who you host with.


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