hi,

i just wanted to make my own website, for my acting and art and photos and such, any suggestions? i am pretty experienced in frontpage, since i took a whole course on it in high school, and it's all i have on my computer, (plus its semi-idiot proof, which i love) but i never really know how something like that should be structured and what it should include, and all that i get when i google is people with plain layouts offering to charge me out the wazoo to make mine, i know there are some really gifted webmasters here, so any suggestions to books or info websites would be so very appreciated! thanks!

Just find a site you like and copy it. IMO simple is better. No crazy navigations. If I can't find what I want a few seconds after loading your site I'll leave.

>>> The following is only my opinion disclaimer. >  Be clear about the objective of your web site, and provide content that is consistent for that objective.  For example, if the objective is to provide a web presence for your modeling, then provide a little bio, some galleries of images, some info on what kind of modeling you want to do, the appropriate sizes & measurements, etc.  Do not provide poems you've written or your favorite recipe or anything other than stuff that potential photographers might want to know.  Stay focused.

>>>  Make it easy to navigate.  For example, Front Page can use shared borders to provide navigational links on the top of all pages.  No page should be more than two clicks away from your home page.

>>>  Don't put anything on the page that makes noise.

>>>  Avoid flash animation, unless your objective is to show people you know how to make high end, fancy, bandwidth sucking web sites.

>>>  Keep images of a reasonable size, and bonus points given if all the images are roughly the same size.  For example, on my site, vertical images are either 450 or 550 pixels tall, and horizontal images are 550 wide.  Also, use some image compression -- the images are going to be displayed on monitors & are not for printing, so reduce the size a bit to cut down on load times.

>>>  Developing a consistent style helps highlight the content.  Don't go crazy with a different style or theme for every page.

>>>  Keep it simple.  Little things, like busy backgrounds, can ruin a web page.  For me, I draft my pages, then I go back & delete half of the text I wrote (because I write too much -- as evidenced my this post).

>>>  Be sure to check out your draft pages carefully, and if possible using different computers, and with monitors with different resolutions.

>>>  Make sure things are easy to read.  I hate pages with dark letters on top of dark backgrounds.

>>>  Keep your site "fresh" -- commit to updating it at least monthly.


That'll keep you busy.

I gotta agree with the above: Frontpage? Bad. It produces nasty code that doesn't work in all browsers. You want your website to work in as many major web browser as possible, because you don't want to exclude any potential viewers!

Keeping it simple is always a good bet, but I think that's even more true for something like a photography or modeling portfolio. The main thing you want is for people to look at your photos and notice how great they are! Having a too-complicated website will just distract from the pictures.

If you have questions, I can help with that, too, because it's also my day job. I can also do a website for what's probably a good deal cheaper than most of the places you've looked, if you decide you want to let someone else do the work.

hire me to do it for you

Jeff Cohn
X-pose.net

Websites are like portfolios - great ones are very helpful and poor ones will hurt you.  Make sure that your web designer is competent and capable. 

1. Site design should be effective and simple (2 clicks to anything - probably less since this is just a portfolio site).
2. Flash has been done poorly and it has been done well - if you choose to go that route be concientous of your designers abilities.  Most commercial sites use Flash in some way, many high end fashion designers and photographer websites are done in Flash.  I would review some of them and see if you find something you like.


Best of luck!

would love to help you . just email me ok

Keep it simple and always remember: content is king.

With respect to copyright - don't steal someone's design, but there are ample examples out there that are labelled as free for the taking. Take http://www.csszengarden.com/ for example...

Also remember when you build a site (or have it built for you) consider maintenance. Building it yourself means you'll be able to maintain it. If you just hire it done you'll need to learn anyhow, eventually, or keep paying to have it updated.

mjr.

Some excellent advice from Looknsee.

The hardest part of making a site is its design, both of the individual page(s) and of the overall architecture. Turn off your computer, grab a handful of pencils, a sketch pad and find a comfy chair. Draw up some thumbnails of page layouts as a quick way to explore design ideas. You can move on to a larger and more detailed sketch of a generic page once you've found a layout you like. At the same time, draw up a few "maps" of your site, showing how the pages relate to each other. Be sure to allow some "growing room," for adding new sections and images. Once you have a look and layout, the actual coding becomes a trivial exercise. The more time you spend thinking about the design, the less time it should take to actually create it.

I used to used Adobe Pagemill waaaaay back in the day and then a program called Freeway but I didn't do much with it.  Now I use a program called iWeb (on my macbookpro) and it is insanely easy to build websites.  I can get it looking how I want.   Whatever it was I used, I got me an account at angelfire.com and from there if I wanted it to be banner free with a domain name and such, the simplest paid plan for having a domain name is 8.95 a month (and you can always upgrade or downgrade your plan whenever, they'll pro-rate it).  But yeah I used whatever program I chose, frontpage is fine, and I made my website on my computer, saving everything to the desktop, then when i was finished, i would upload everything to angelfire.   Works out great!    And the idea about copying a site you liked, thats a good one.  Maybe it will spur ideas of your own.

I use dreamweaver MX. You can get the 2002 edition on Ebay for $100. It lacks some of the latest greatest crud but it's very serviceable.

On the other hand, if you already know frontpage - stick with frontpage. Spend your time developing and designing your site, rather than learning web editors!

mjr.

Definitely hire a professional - consider it an investment in your business with income earning potential and go from there....

I did my first site with a friend who was also working for me as a studio assistant. It was nice; it put the work out there - but next to a professionaly designed and built site, it paled.

My new site, professionaly designed and built - will be up and live today. There are a couple of bugs to fix and once that's done, I'll make an announcement and post the link on my port -

Bill Ballard
Blue Water Photography
Savannah, GA

wow. thanks for all the replies, you guys suggested some stuff i had not even thought of, so thanks a lot. i will see how well i can do it by myself, and then, if nothing else, have a idea of what i want to show a professional designer!