Hi lovely souls,

Thanks so much on all your feedback about business names...

This week I'd love to hear about the resources you use for your website and blog... such an important part of our businesses!

1. Did you design your website and blog yourself, or get someone else to? If so, who designed it for you?

2. What software did you use to design your website and blog if you did it yourself?

3. What platforms do you use to blog? (i.e. Wordpress)
I just had a look at the Pro Photo Wordpress template (http://www.professionalphotographertheme.com) which looks quite delicious.

4. What extra plugins do you use - i.e. slideshow creators on your website. I've had a look at Simple Viewer (www.airtightinteractive.com/simpleviewer/) and Flickr Slideshow Generator (http://fabiocavassini.com.ar/SlideShowGenerator.html)

5. Do you have your blog as your homepage on your website? If so, do you have a permanent post at the top of the page explaining the layout?

Looking forward to hearing your experiences... thanks so much

Wishing you a gorgeous day!
Leonie

All Word Press I can do anything I can with a normal site and more because of plugins. It's easier because I have more control and I can make my own theme that looks like a whole site. I had always wanted an all flash site, but I don't anymore. I can always add flash shows, but this is way better overall.

I use it on various sites. Here's a few implementations...
These three were actually designed from the same theme.

www.seimeffects.com
www.seimphotography.com
www.seimstudios.com
The blogs and sites are all in one. I like that integration. I use mainly ShowIt and embed them in for my galleries.

www.prophotoshow.net
Also all WP (except the forum) again simple and easy. Handles traffic well, and is easy to ad things to.

Here's a few reason I love using WP.

Design
You start by installing WP and adding a theme. Then modify the images and things to get the look you want. The colors n things are controlled by CSS. It's a single file that define colors, fonts, border, ect. You can edit this file and it effects the entire site. HINT... If you have a Mac get a program called CSS Edit. It allows you to edit CSS with a vusual interface. You can go crazy with CSS, without knowing a the code!

Backup is a snap.
I use a Database managing plugin. It backups the entire content of my site every day and sends it to an gmail address I have that's just for backups. It's all automatic!

Add On's
I have a load of plugins. Things that work with google analytics to track stats, manage information, give me a contact form ect. It's all in the plugins.

SEO
There's many things to getting a good google rank. The link exchange we have on PPS helps, but among other things google loves WP sites. Why give your precious rank to a google page?

Ease
I could go on all day about the cool things you can do with WP. It's not just function, it's ease too. Granted to really customize things you have to get someone who's a little geeky, but I can start with a theme, and build a good looking site in an afternoon. After that making changes is only a web browser away. So much easier than a traditional HTML site.

About Flash?
Photographers all want flash sites. They look cool and have music! I did do, but I'm coming to find that viewers don't always want to hear our music and google does not love flash. Also flash is complex which leads to not making clanged that often. Guess what? your site soon get's boring, and google looks even less because there's no change.

If I see a phrase I want changed on a page. I can literally log in and have it done in 60 seconds! Besides all this, photographers site are actually looking alike because their all doing flash. Non flash is actually being different these days!

Hi Gavin!

Thanks so much for your great reply... what an awesome amount of stuff you covered!


I've just started learning today about the wonders of WordPress, and it seems like it has a lot of fans!

Your websites look great, i'm very impressed with what you are doing

It's very interesting too about going non-flash... I am aiming to create a fairly low-download website as my target market is rural Australia that has the crappest internet connections known to man... many people are still on dial-up! So yes, that's definitely a factor that WP will work great for...

hope you are having a LOVELY day!


Leonie

I also use WP for my blog and have now moved that over to the whole site--no extra pages except what's in WP (and the galleries). I love it. There are tons of plugins and tweaks and you can really customize like crazy if you are so inclined.

Jared Henderson wrote a great theme for WP called ProPhoto (it's somewhere in this website thread) and I love it. He did a great job setting it up so that you can customize it thirty ways to Sunday and I love love love love it. It's set up to have BIG pictures in every post as you like (single column, no sidebar) which might be a little iffy for you if your people have dialup, but if you are good about shrinking your images down it is probably OK.

I use Lightroom with SlideshowPro to create online galleries with just pictures and PhotoCart for proofing. Very happy with everything.

hi robin!

thanks so much for all your words and thoughts... much appreciated hon!

your website looks absolutely gorgeous... you must be so happy with it! and your logo/design work is as cute as a button!

thanks for the tip about prophoto template... that looks totally awesome! will do some checking about the no sidebar/huge photos thang... thank you so much for your thoughts

wishing you a gorgeous day
Leonie

Hi Robin,

Your blog is really attractive. That you say you can tweak it is appealing but I wonder how much one has to learn regarding html and/or css to be able to do that.

I only started blogging with wordpress a month or so ago. Mine is nothing to speak of at this point and I know it needs a lot of help. I am wondering if any "hacking" can be done with the freebie or whether I have to actually get my own domain and host my own blog. It isn't totally clear to me from reading some other blogging how-to sites whether the hacking is related to the freebies or whether they are just "programming" the blog you have to self host, etc. I think I can copy and paste to do some easy intuitive things if it's simple.

I just don't know where to go from here. I initially tried Blogger but didn't like that at all.

I know it's important to make things a bit more custom and wonder how custom one can make of a blog using the ProPhoto template if I don't know that much about html/css etc.

I have many of the same questions running in my mind as Leonie.

I've Googled looking for "how to" resources but with so many to choose from, I wonder which book(s) are better and easy to understand. For photographer how-to stuff, we have our favorites such as Scott Kelby and so on but I know nothing of the better writers related to going about customizing a blog, etc.

Thanks for any other insight/answers you or others might have. I'm not anxious to spend money on a flash site yet if I don't need one and can customize a blog for my purposes instead. I'm trying to figure out if it's time to to bite the bullet, get my own domain name and learn how to manage my own blog etc. I think the answer is yes but just don't know.

Well, I know there is an entire thread going on debating flash v. showit v. blogs v. whatever.

I do not know anything about the free WP blogs and how much you can or cannot customize them... I am guessing not much... the plugins that Gavin touted, can they be installed on a free WP blog? I think a free blog can really only go so far due to the limitations that have to be set on them.

I think that having your own site is crazy cheap nowadays (registration and hosting, I mean) and I guess my thought would be that there is no good reason not to go ahead and get your own site, even if it's not a very big one. I think having your own domain name adds some legitimacy and credibility to your work, even if you are just starting out. My first site was really simple and basic, just a few pages, no flash, plus a blog. I've recently made the move over to a blog only setup because, having watched my traffic, I saw that my visitors were going straight there anyway, so for me it made sense to focus on that and incorporate my existing pages into the blog (which isn't done yet, been distracted).

One of the hugest advantages of having your own site, whatever it is, is having the ability to put up your own content, whatever it is. I put up private slideshows for my clients, which you can't do with a free blog. If I do a custom album for a client, I upload the proof and they can check it out. I have Photocart so they can shop on the site. The WP engine itself is solid on features, but short on bells and whistles, and that is where the plugins come in, to make life really exciting.

For documentation, I don't know. For me, figuring this out has been a lot of trial and error and figuring it out myself. I will say that Jared makes customizing his template incredibly easy--yes, you are modifying CSS and HTML, but Jared's explanations are incredibly clear and easy to follow even if you know very little about it. You learn a lot as you go along, and Jared is really holding your hand the whole way--his explanations are worth every penny of the price of the template.

hope that helps--

Thanks so much for taking the time to post your thoughts on this. I think it's what I needed to push me toward choosing to host my own blog.