I'm looking to finally break from my current Pbase solution and have my own website.

I'm an amateur photographer that sells a print here or there but by no means do I live from photography, so I need a fairly cost-effective solution.

This said, I of course want something easy to create and update with attractive templates and possibly down the road, if interest picks up, the option to allow people to purchase prints online. This latter point is the least important but something to consider.

Something a notch above www.Clikpic.com in terms of attractive templates would be great.

I've come across the following options but am curious to know if you could recommend any other companies that offer something more competitive.

www.layersites.com
www.theimagefile.com
www.fasthosts.co.uk

Many thanks for your advice.

Mark

livebooks and clickbooq might be of interest to you.

Livebooks does seem to be becoming the standard. If you're using a Mac iWeb works pretty well and you can get hosting through .mac or mobile me or whatever they call that ridiculous service these days

Hi Mark,

I have built over 10 sites with www.photobiz.com and they have some great traditional as well as full screen templates that are super easy to use and very attractive and customizable. Very affordable too.

Best Regards,

Ron

Check out bludomain. I got a great website template for $100 and it is $110/yr for hosting. Some folks will tell you they have bad customer service, but their service to me has been excellent. Only problem was it took 2 more days than they promised to get me online, but it was not a crisis.

Thanks everyone for the feedback

On the road but will check all this out Wednesday when back

Mark

Checkout websites by HeatherLynn:

http://www.heatherlynn.com/

Ty

www.tyholland.com

Thanks !

Mark

You may be interested in this article: Photography website templates: Feature and cost comparison: http://www.joereifer.com/words/?p=1187

Great, thank you

Check out Printroom. I've been using them for my sports website for over a year & love it. It's easy to set up & my customers don't have any problems navigating it. Customer support is excellent & their print quality is great, too.

Good luck!

Take a look at Photo Cart, www.picturespro.com. You can set it up the way you want, its very customizable. And it does NOT take a percentage of your sales.

Thanks everyone.

I'm looking for something that is fairly simple with the ability to change fonts, have a large image on the homepage and then have flash for navigation within galleries.

What I want to avoid is the Pbase style which once inside a gallery, you have the 20 thumbnails all at once.

Bludomain looks pretty good, even the $100 websites.

From what I gather they are in Flash and you can customize fonts, colors and a bit of layout.

Any alternatives to Bludomain offering better value for money?

Mark

To answer my own question, Viewbook just launched a web génération and hosting service this week.

http://www.viewbook.com

Worth looking at

Comments most appreciated

Mark

OP:

There are 3 things you should know about web design:

A) Simplicity is key. Overly-complex websites can be frustrating, difficult to navigate and dissuade people from coming back. Make links clear and easy to understand. Make the content easily accessible.
B) Balance the color of the website so that it doesn't hurt the eyes. Lighter is better than darker. Don't use clashing colors.
C) Your site should be content first. The look of your website should be considered initially, but after the look is settled upon, you should focus on the content of your site.

I must emphasize that no matter how much work is put into the design of the website, few people will visit unless you have good content. The corollary is that you must also update your site from time to time to persuade people to come back.

Very sound advice

Keep it simple !

After all the research, went with Bludomain.

You can see my new site :

http://www.fotomark.fr

Comments most appreciated.

Thanks again everyone for your help.

Mark

If you are working in Apple's OS X environment also check out iWeb, it has several templates built in and they are easily customized. Best of all, if you have bought a Mac recently it is included in the iLife bundle that came with your Mac. Hosting you'll still have to solve. I like http://www.fatcow.com and have had nearly 10 years of trouble free hosting through them. My current portfolio site was created and hosted by http://www.livebooks.com but I am starting to work on a stock photo site to be hosted at http://www.fatcow.com

In the meantime I also suggest that whether you are strictly amateur, a part time or full time pro, check out http://photometadata.org for some important information about what you need to do to and what you need to look out for when prepping and posting images so that others can find them and find you.

Bludomain rocks!

For a custom portfolio for commercial photography purposes, in my case mostly advertising work, I've been happy with what Smugmug delivers. Lot's a customization at a good price. There's a few things I'd like to change, but can't complain for $150/year. Here: http://www.kevinwinzeler.com
The custom print ordering back-end works well too.