I'd rather go shooting.

Do you really need it?

Do you really need a web site by yourself and would that help in selling image licenses? You might want to show off your portfolio of course, but is that worth the time and the money?

A buyer stumbling upon a photographer's blog or gallery by chance and then making a purchase is not a real scenario, in view of the gazillions of galleries and blogs online. So you first need to decide what purpose your blog or site will serve.

Is it to raise your own profile amongst your peers (which are also your competitors)? Is it to showcase your tutorials (to your competitors), share stories and images with other artists? You might consider a large image-sharing site like Flickr then, where you can piggyback on extremely high traffic and catch some buyers in the process.

Now this might all be socially rewarding or make you feel good but it won't bring you sales. Only if your images belong to a niche subject will they generate targeted traffic to your site through searches. That is, when your content is unique and exclusive enough to attract a sufficient number of buyers.

On the other hand, targeting peers via your site might not be such a bad idea if you can monetize that kind of traffic with ads and referral links. Whatever, you need to think at least about some kind of strategy to get revenue from your personal web efforts unless proud aunties and moms are satisfying enough for you.

If you don't have the skill or the time to set-up and maintain your own website yourself, you can always rely on the services of a photo-hoster. With their PRO plans, it can even look like your own site on your own domain.
There is a price attached to it, though. If you want to sell images directly too from your own site, this is probably the best way to go since you won't have to deal with security issues and vulnerabilities concerning online payments. Check Your cuckoo site under for Photographers in the For you Menu at your left.

Don't sin Flashing

So you decided to do your own web site, blog or gallery after all. Fine, but then, do it properly.

• In the Goldmine links in the Main Menu under Web presence you can find some site-building tools or Content Management System (CMS) frameworks.
• You should also read Dan Heller's Chapter on a Web-based Photography Business.
• Check this article on APhotoEditor: Portfolio Website Design and don't forget the comments there.

And then, don't commit the mortal sin of making a fully Flash-based site, and certainly don't make your landing page entirely in Flash. Flash is cool and artsy but search engine robot crawlers can't see it. They only can read text.
As a consequence, your site info won't enter the databases of the search engines. Unless special techniques are used to present a text version next to the Flash version, your light will just stay happily under the bushel.

Moreover, Flash takes a lot of bandwidth. Web surfers are impatient and will move on if there is nothing to see than a loading bar after 3 to 5 seconds. Buyers won't probably live in the jungle using an analogue phone modem, but consider mobile surfers on cell phones or tablets that usually have to pay for their bandwidth.
Since Flash is used a lot for animated advertisements, Net-literate people also tend to block Flash in their browser. Another reason why you might miss traffic with a Flash-only site, at least on the landing page.

You know what I hate?
Those prissy little Flash websites where you have to guess how to use the navigation to get inside.
It's like "Hey I'm so cool that you, you mere plebeians who dare surf across my great site, you must struggle and strain to work out how to get to my great images".
We all know APE and his colleagues have little time to spend doing some sort of Tomb Raider puzzle to get to your contact details.
So fellow photographers:
Let your images do the talking. Not your website designer.

(A comment on APhotoEditor)

All this doesn't mean Flash should be banned totally. As a smaller part of an otherwise HTML page or embedded in it, it can be quite eye-catching. An example of this practice is the layout of Youtube where the video is in a limited Flash window, but all other factual info is in text to suit the web crawlers.

Simple dos and don'ts

There are many good tutorials online about how to design a web site. May the force of Google be with you. As a rule, photography sites should be very simple and preferably in high key. Usability studies have shown that dark or black designs of image sites are more tiring to the eyes than white or light-grey designs.

Any element on a page that distracts from the images, either by screaming colors or by complicated or worse, animated graphics, should be avoided. The medium is not the message here, but the images are.

In the same league, self-starting music on a landing page is a big fat don't. Neighbours or your housemates won't appreciate the sudden noise when you browse in the middle of the night. Apart from that, people tend to have different musical tastes and you yourself might find Metallica great but some site visitors won't.

Pay attention to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). A light under a bushel serves no purpose. There are some links about SEO in the Goldmine links in the Main Menu under Web presence. There is also a separate article on SEO for photographers' sites in this section.

If it turns out after a while that all these site gimmicks and Abracadabras take too much time away from your creative imagery work, it's probably time to ask a professional.

Why don't you make my website for free? Think of all the exposure you'll get!

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