# Websites done cheap!



## judson (Feb 20, 2008)

I need a website.  At the moment, my budget is VERY tight.  I need someone economical that does not look like @@$@$!

Anyone got suggestions for hosting and a webdesigner or something pre-canned that I can put up and run with?


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## THORHAMMER (Feb 20, 2008)

microsoft word


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## Richard (Feb 20, 2008)

When you say cheap do you mean under 100 dollars? What is your budget?


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## Dagwood56 (Feb 20, 2008)

You can find many nice inexpensive templates online. Do a search for free web site templates. There are some nice ones for around $35 each.  Ad far as web hosting, try "Tigertech" $75 a year.


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## Lyncca (Feb 20, 2008)

If you don't mind doing a little work yourself, then templatemonster.com is great for templates.


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## Rhys (Feb 20, 2008)

I used website Builder - I put it on my webspace and use it with a template that I modified very slightly. It's free. People here are likely to tell you whether it's good or whether it sucks. It costs nothing but time so try it.


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## brileyphotog (Feb 22, 2008)

I use freewebs and I think mine looks decent. You can upgrade to your own domain for not too much. Link is in my signature.


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## Chris of Arabia (Feb 22, 2008)

http://www.oswd.org/ is also good for free templates.

If you want to consider learning to do it yourself at all, I'd recommend "Build your own website the right way using HTML & CSS" published by Sitepoint. It's very easy to follow and won't take you long at all to get the basics down. What's more it doesn't require that you have some fancy piece of software to begin with.


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## crazy_dragonlady (Feb 24, 2008)

I noticed that not one person here offered their services to you... I don't know if you've found someone to do your website or not but I have created a few websites... nothing spectacular and I don't do any flash but if you want a clean looking professional website I'm sure I could come up with something.  As far as price... I am flexible depending on what you want done.  PM me and we can talk.

If you would like an example of what I can do you could check out our old company website... the company is no longer in service and therefore the company information pages are no longer accessible but you can check out the general design ... just go here: http://www.absolutehomecomfort.com/misc.htm ... just remember there will be broken links.

If this type of reply is not allowed on here then please accept my apologies.

ttfn
CDL.


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## derekclapham (Mar 5, 2008)

Judson,

I'm currently in the final stages of finishing an online service for photographers which might be of interest.

Basically it allows photographers to upload their images, arrange them into albums, set the pricing, create portfolios, set print sizes, paper types, options etc. It also allows the photographer to manage their customers and make certain photo albums public or private. There are also a number of color schemes and templates that will be available with many more to come.

Best of all, it allows you as a photographer to accept credit card from anywhere in the world securely.

Finally, *it's free*. The only charges are of course the Credit Card merchant fees that we get charged when your customers purchase from you, obviously we pass these fees on but they're automatically deducted from your customer income anyway.

I have a blog at http://photomerchant.net where I will be releasing more information as time goes on as well as posting tips for photographers trying to start or run a successful photography business. I've been working on this product / service for over a year now and it's just about ready to launch.

Anyhoo, feel free to keep the blog bookmarked or subscribe to the RSS feed. I'm posting about 3 times a week.

Derek
http://photomerchant.net


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## lthienes (Mar 6, 2008)

We used bludomain.com to create ours.  Outstanding flash websites and hosting for super cheap!


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## D-50 (Mar 6, 2008)

I was in a similar situation a couple months back. I taught myself Frontpage through web searches and asking questions on this and other forums.  I found none of the template based site were what I was looking for (too generic) take a loko at www.ryandiciccophotography.com If you have front page I could help you build your own site.  I had no prior experience in web design or anything close so if I can do it anyone can.  Im not saying my site is great by any means but I like it better than a template based site.


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## atp_design (Mar 13, 2008)

GDay Derek,
I want to create a website to sell photos online. I have had a few people respond with good intentions yet none have delivered. Infact they have dissapeared.

ISP's are quoting fixed IP charges and SSL certificates etc at additional costs.

I just want a site created and start the business. What can you do for me ?


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## derekclapham (Mar 13, 2008)

atp,

Doing it yourself can be expensive, especially once your factor in SSL certificates, merchant charges, bank fees etc.

PhotoMerchant is designed from the ground up for photographers. PhotoMerchant is a subscription based (there is a FREE subscription option) hosting, sales, presentation and marketing tool which allows photographers to get their website online quickly and start selling prints to their customers at their prices.

When you sign up you will be given a website which can be customized by you. You then upload the photos you want to sell. Choose the products you want to sell (print sizes, paper types, other options). You set pricing on these products as well as shipping and tax etc.

Your subscription also gives you complete credit card merchant facilities for Visa, Mastercard, Diners and Amex so your customers can pay instantly online.

At launch, you will be able to charge your customers in either USD, CAD, GBP or AUD which means on their credit card statement your customer doesn't see a conversion fee if their credit card is held in one of these currencies.

Down the track we're planning to add around another 4 currencies. However, the system supports around 170 currencies, however, a conversion will occur. This is done by the customer's bank, not us.

We're currently working like crazy to get the product finished (it's going through testing now) and we're planning to launch in the next few months.

Basically it allows you to be setup with your website with all the e-commerce features you need to customize it to your business.

I'll be starting to release more information on the blog at http://photomerchant.net over the coming weeks. At this stage we're planning 5 subscription levels. Free, Lite, Amateur, Professional and Enterprise. For most people we suggest you start out with the free subscription to see how you find the product and then upgrade if you outgrow it.

There's a huge list of features and functionality that would take me a much longer post to go into, but if you have any specific questions about what it will offer please feel free to ask me and I'll do my best to answer them.


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## atp_design (Mar 13, 2008)

Cheers heaps for the insight of what could be a massive breakthrough for people like me. I have read your site and i liked the detail and realistic approach you went about your blogs. Most people skip the little points, you dont and thats what i like.
I have hundreds of photos i want to post online. I have 2 ISPs with gigs of storage space and a profession in graphic design behind me so im not new to the field. 
Chat again soon.


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## derekclapham (Mar 13, 2008)

atp,

Storage is one of the biggest problems when trying to do things like this. From memory 3 of our subscription levels offer not only hosting for your images etc, but also an "archival" service.  This gives you some peace of mind. You can have your images in 1 or 2 places at home but also have them on our infrastructure, completely secured as well. At launch our archival service will place the images in the EU and the US on completely redundant storage arrays. All you have to do is turn on the feature and your photos will be "archived" to these locations.

I should mention that all photos remain the property of the photographer. We don't have any rights to them. They're yours.

As you said, we're really hoping this will be a breakthrough for photographers. Our feature roadmap extends out over 3 years at the moment. We've just got so much we want to do to enhance the product. So, what you see at launch is just the beginning.


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## atp_design (Mar 14, 2008)

On a different note, I registered on your blog site but it is not emailing me the password. The password retrieval feature is not working either.. (ATPimage)


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## derekclapham (Mar 14, 2008)

Ahh.

I'll fix that now, we had an incident today with the server. Hang on a sec.

Derek


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## crystal_lynn (Mar 14, 2008)

Do you have photoshop? If so you can turn the slide show feature into a web site. Here is an example http://www.doodlepie.com. Cheap hosting can be found many, many places...Lycos, Tripod, Fortunecity, Enom Central, etc.

HTH


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## atp_design (Mar 16, 2008)

Crystal, Adobe Lightroom does exactly the same thing. Heres my example: http://www.atpimage.com


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## Alex_B (Mar 16, 2008)

if it is just a website to present things (e.g. no sophisticated e-commerce features needed), then i recommend using an ASCII text editor. HTML is not complicated, nor is PHP.


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## crazy_dragonlady (Mar 16, 2008)

I use wordpad to edit and create my websites.. I don't use php but I do use css with html.  Easy stuff once you learn the coding.

ttfn
CDL.


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## Alex_B (Mar 17, 2008)

crazy_dragonlady said:


> I use wordpad to edit and create my websites.. I don't use php but I do use css with html.  Easy stuff once you learn the coding.
> 
> ttfn
> CDL.



I agree you do not really need PHP. but complex site designs are so much easier to do if you use PHP 
  At least IMHO.


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