Starting a website

[John Andreae]

Hi folks,

I'm just starting up a small business having ben an amateur framer for a few years and am looking inot setting up a website. I know there are 'ready made' formats for websites out there- I used one for our allotmant website, but wondered if anyone has used one that they feel has a good format for a framing business. Or has anyone had one designed for them and any recomendations for this.

thanks a lot

Johnmac

[Bagpuss]

Hi John,
I thought I'd point you to this posting I made this time last year when I was doing exactly the same thing;
http://theframersforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4404

I plumbed for Joomla as suggested by Grahame Case, if you're happy doing your own artwork and prepared to spend a bit of time playing around with it then go for it, I need to update mine now but there's loads of plug-ins you can get for free or buy very reasonably.
I got a local guy who had quoted me for an all singing, all dancing website to just set me up with the Joomla environment and I was able to do the rest, it was useful for me to refer to him when I got a bit stuck as well, it saved me a packet doing it myself.
I chose a simple template to start with and then started loading up all the graphics I had done in Photoshop/ Illustrator.

I hope that helps, Good luck, any questions drop me a line

Adam/Bagpuss
http://www.adamthepictureframer.co.uk

[JohnMcafee]

Mr Site is highly regarded.

I've seen some pretty impressive websites that have been created with this tool by raw beginners.

Well worth considering.

[CanvasChris]

If you want a custom website where you get to choose what you want rather than fitting yourself into a template then PM me.... my son is a website designer. He has a large portfolio of sites and he is very reasonable.

See both my sites below for example. You don't need to spend a fortune either.

[David]

I did mine on moonfruit which I found quite easy, what took the time and effort was all the prep for the photos and the wording, the rest of it is drag and drop. You can play with templates for free, you'll need to register but I just tried some options then deleted it.

Good luck.

www.eaglegallery.co.uk

[John Andreae]

Many thanks for the useful replies. ..and Canvas Chris I may well get onto your son!

Thanks again

Johnmac

[mikeallen]

Adam - nice looking site.
One thing I would look at is making sure you have put tags on your images. Search Engines dont know what the image contains - so there is atag you can use to help them - it's an alt tag. If you use Joomla or any website software - it should show you these.