Web hosting sites

[melbarnes]

Hi,

I'm toying with the idea of building a website to display some of my photos. I have seen a few hosting sites on the internet that seem reasonably cheap. Can anyone recommend any, based on their own experience? Reliability and speed would be at least two of the attributes required. Cheers, Mel

[Tracey McGovern]

Hi Mel

I use Weebly which is free and easy to use. They have hundreds of templates and you can design your website to suite your needs. http://www.traceymcgovernphotography.com/

Good luck and I shall look forward to seeing your website.

Tracey x

[melbarnes]

Thanks Tracey,

I think your website looks very professional, so don't expect mine to look as good! )

But I'll get there eventually, 'cos when I I get the bit between my teeth I'm like a dog with a bone!

I'll have a look at the hosting site that you recommend, and make a decision when we get back from Goa.

In the meantime we are having fun photographing wild life here, and we've seen lots - it's a shame that I couldn't bring my 6D and the long lens, but it would have been too heavy for the hand luggage, and there's no way I was putting in the hold.

See you all when we get back.

Mel and Gwen

[Paul Jones]

Hi Mel

As you know, my site is built with WordPress. Really easy to update. http://www.pauljones.org

Best wishes
Paul

[PhilipHowe]

I think mine is with Portfoliobox, the advantage being that it looks slick on mobiles. I'm still on the free plan, but plan on using the paid option in the new year http://philip.howe@micros.com.Co.uk I'd use WordPress for any blogs, as their seo search engine optimization is second to none (I even know one of the inventors).

[Mrs Sales]

If you have a Creative Cloud subscription you also have free hosting on Business Catalyst and a choice of 2 Adobe programs - Muse and Dreamweaver
ours is on there, we bought the domain for £1

http://www.borollans.info/index.html

Goa eh, you lucky blighters

[melbarnes]

Thanks Paul, Philip and Mrs Sales,

I'll have a look at these sites when I get back to Blighty. I have been playing with Wordpress whilst we are away, but an iPad is very limiting and the internet here is slow and intermittent. I enjoying programming too and have been learning a bit of HTML, but I guess the higher level systems like Wordpress, Dreamweaver, etc, are much quicker and easier to implement, so I'm going to go down that route. Thanks for all your advice, much appreciated! We'll see you All on 9 Jan. Have a great Christmas and New Year! Mel (and Gwen).

[Mike]

For sites like photo galleries and if you have minimal web experience I would suggest 'Wordpress'. Lots of templates to give you a choice of style and 'what you see what you get' (WYSWYG) editing and installation. You can get 'pre-hosted' managed versions or you could install on your own host. 1&1 (our current provider for the gallery & forum) are reliable and easy to use, IX Webhosting used to host our sites but security & updates to core software were a problem. IX were 'much' cheaper though.

Hope that helps.

M

Ps you usually get 1 domain free with webhosting providers.

[Mike]

For sites like photo galleries and if you have minimal web experience I would suggest 'Wordpress'. Lots of templates to give you a choice of style and 'what you see what you get' (WYSWYG) editing and installation. You can get 'pre-hosted' managed versions or you could install on your own host. 1&1 (our current provider for the gallery & forum) are reliable and easy to use, IX Webhosting used to host our sites but security & updates to core software were a problem. IX were 'much' cheaper though.

Hope that helps.

M

Ps you usually get 1 domain free with webhosting providers.

[melbarnes]

Hi Mike,

Many thanks for the advice. Paul Jones also recommended Wordpress, and I've been looking at it on my iPad. It's not as easy to manipulate on the iPad, so I'll wait until I get back off holiday before giving it a good go on my desktop PC. It looks to be one of the favourites though at this stage. I'll also have a look at IXWebhosting.

Thanks again, it's great to get advice off members who have had experience - it saves a lot of potential pitfalls!

Cheers, Mel.

[Mike]

I have been hearing some good things about http://www.squarespace.com/ recently. They let you build a website using their online tools and then buy the design. Might be worth a look if you have the time.

M

[Paul Jones]

Mel's website is live and linked to on the ADAPS website LINKS page.

http://www.adaps.org.uk/links.htm

[PhilipHowe]

Mel, some nice photos on there and a good range of photos as well. The one on the last page puts me off slightly though, on the Contacts page, yeeewww, only joking!!!

[melbarnes]

Thanks Phil - can't agree with you more about the photo on the last page - that guy should be jailed if ever caught - he'd frighten a police horse!!

Cheers

Mel

[melbarnes]

Hi Mike

Thanks for the advice - but I've now built my website using Weebly (following the advice from Tracey) - it was easy, and I managed to get the name that I wanted for the site for $60 for two years. Now I need to take some decent photos to populate it with - I've just thrown everything at it for now, but I will replace the poorer ones as I get better ones.

Cheers

Mel