Here are the tools I use in my website. Most of them are free unless otherwise specified cause I like freebies. It is true sometimes that the best things in life are free.
DOMAIN NAME
I bought my domain name from Yahoo! Domains for $1.99 a year and I chose the domain name SilvasPhoto.com . My other domain name BoudoirSC.com is from Netfirms and cost $5.95 a year. For some reason, I couldn’t find the sale price of $1.99 anymore so I just chose a reputable domain name seller.
I think a good domain name is the most important thing if you want a professional website because that is what you put in your business cards, in your email and it is what you submit to web directories. It just sounds more business-like and it costs $5.95 a year.
WEB HOSTING
My hosting used to be free from X10hosting.com . I like x10hosting cause they’re free, they have PHP and mySQL databases, and they give you a huge space. The thing I don’t like about them is that I have to post on their forum once every 2 weeks so my account does not get suspended. Their server was also down for a number of times because they were upgrading or something and everytime I checked my website it was down so I was very upset cause I lose business and potential clients if the site is down. Another thing I don’t like is they don’t have custom 404 pages wherein if a person goes to a page that’s no longer there, instead of redirecting them to my website, it redirects to x10hosting and their annoying ads which loses me my customers as well.
So I finally switched to Mabuhayhosting.com/ where I got a 1 GB space for 1 year for only $14 because I got it during their Christmas sale. Their regular price is only $1.99/month for the package that I have which is really not bad. They also have other packages like their Lite plan is $5.99 a YEAR. Their server is in Dallas, Texas, United States and so far I haven’t had any problems with them yet.
PHOTO GALLERIES
Photo Galleries are done with JAlbum.net software. Jalbum is a FREE software that you can use to create slideshows and photo galleries. They have many different skins available.
Skins I used are Chameleon, Autoviewer and Simpleviewer.
I like Chameleon for http://silvasphoto.com/album/ because it allows me to not only display my photos but also to sell them. This is really cool cause that’s what I’m in the business of anyway. I just connect the album to paypal for them to handle the credit card transaction so I reduce my costs and therefore I can pass on more value to my customers.
If you find it hard to install JAlbum, you can also try http://backprint.com . It’s really easy, you just upload your photos and they handle everything else including credit card processing, printing the photos and delivering to your clients. They do charge 15% per transaction but it’s worth it cause they do all the other work for you. You don’t pay a monthly fee so if you don’t sell anything, you don’t really pay anything. It saves you time and gas cause you don’t have to run around going to the lab, going to the post office, etc.
CREDIT CARD PAYMENT
Credit card and other Payment options are by Paypal at http://paypal.com . I want to switch to Google Checkout soon but since I have everything setup to paypal, right now it’s just more convenient for me.
WEBSITE STATISTICS
My web counter is by Google Analytics at http://analytics.google.com . Awesome stats and easy to install too. I just put a tiny javascript code on my footer file and I include my footer file in all my files.
I check analytics religiously everyday and I monitor all the time all the referring websites and all the keywords that people use to come to my website. I also check the most popular pages of my website.
ADVERTISING
I do a pay-per-click advertising by Google Adwords at http://adwords.google.com . Basically, when people search for a word or phrase in google, there appears some sponsored listings at the top or the side. That’s where my ads appear. The good thing is that I don’t have to pay them if the link doesn’t get clicked so I don’t lose money if people don’t go to my website.
MESSAGE BOARD
Message Board is a phpBB script.
BLOG
My blogs are by wordpress. I like them cause they allow me to put HUGE photos which are essential in a photographer’s blog. Please view my other blog more catered to my clients at http://silvasphoto.wordpress.com
I used to be a web programmer so if anybody needs help with their website, you can hire me. Here is my web programming portfolio. http://silvasphoto.com/web.php
waao! the hosting company you have sounds very cheap. havn’t seen a good reputable hosting company being so cheap. how are the service so far. if they are a good host, then i might be willing to review them on my site and provide my visitors with a cheap host option
Answer: Yup, so far, so good. Of course, I got the price during a promotion so I got a pretty good discount but even without a discount, it’s still pretty good. I’m actually thinking of upgrading to a higher package because I’ve been using up so much bandwidth and web space. The package I have includes unlimited domains so I can host different websites on the same package. They also have a reseller package which isn’t that expensive.
Comment by Best Web hosting Reviews — January 12, 2008 @ 5:32 pm