Create a Website for your Photos
This guide by PhotoGalaxy.com will
tell you about creating a website for displaying your
photographs and the steps involved in getting it online.
Websites are made up of images, text
and html code. Html simply tells the web browser how
to display the content (ie the text and images) to
the web browser. Html is very easy to pickup and there
are a huge number of online guides and tutorials that
you can use to help you.
There are two options open to you when
you are creating your website; you can either build
it yourself using html or you can find countless pre-built
websites / templates online to serve your purpose.
Html will allow you to create a more original website
with a design that exactly fits your vision... but
it will take time and effort to learn. Alternatively,
programs such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver will generate
html for you and are a good option if you don't fancy
getting your hands dirty with the code. Using a pre-built
site offers much less flexibility but it does save
a lot of time. Whichever method you decide on is up
to you, to find out more search Google with terms
such as "html tutorials" or "website
templates".
Building your site is only half the
story, what comes next can be even more daunting!
You will need to do two things; register a domain
name and get a hosting account. Your domain name is
the address of your websites (eg www.photogalaxy.com).
There are plenty of domain name registrars out there
that you can use. Next you need to find a hosting
account, this is where your website will be stored.
When selecting a host, you need to consider how much
storage they allocate and their bandwidth limitations.
Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transferred
from your website, this relates to the number of photos
that people can look at. For a photo website, it is
important to make sure your hosting account has sufficient
storage and bandwidth allowances. PhotoGalaxy.com
offers a hosting package designed to meet the needs
of photographers.
Once you have a hosting account, you
will need to upload your website. You generally do
this using an FTP program. Your hosting company will
provide you with more instructions on how to do this.
Finally, you will need to link your
domain name to your hosting account so that your webpages
are displayed when someone types in your web address.
You do this by logging in to your registrar account
and setting your domain's nameservers; to the nameservers
specified by your hosting company. These changes will
typically take around 24 hours to propagate and then
your website will be live!
Once you have your website up and running,
you will need to promote it if you want to attract
visitors. A good place to start is by adding your
website to photography directories and exchanging
links with other photography websites.
PhotoGalaxy.com creates websites
for photographers. They will build your website,
registering your domain name and take care of hosting
all for one affordable annual fee.
