The best free websites for photographers

I'm moving forward on my photography as a career, but as of this moment I'm very reluctant to start spending money on a website until I am making some. People have told me to look at some free websites for photographers, but I figured I would ask fellow photographers first. At this moment I am looking over www.clickbooq.com (they have a free trial I think) but not too sure if it is serious or professional. I have corel paintshop due to issues with CS4 (I think something with the contract), I'll have to use it til I make enough to go back to either CS4 or Elements 8 (me and my husband are in a very big pickle, but I'm sure others aren't doing to well either with the economy). Anyways, if you have any information or advice about free websites or even ones that are free trial for a month or whatever, something like that will work too. Thanks

I was struggling with this question for awhile as well, but ultimately realized I don't have enough material for a full blown website - so I made a photoblog instead. This not only gets your work "out there" but you can do sales through it and its really simple. You can make one through WordPress of Google (blogspot) among others - check mine out to see for yourself.

- Luke

Another option to consider would be a photo hosting site such as smugmug. I pay around $60/year and have been able to customize my site and am happy with what I've come up with. The forums at smugmug offer a lot of free help and advice as to customizing - many things you can do simply require you to cut & paste code into your page - and you can set it up to sell prints directly from your site. I also have a blog (free from WordPress) which has links back to my web site, and vice versa. At this point in my photography "career," this has been the best option for me. Click on the links in my signature block to see both.

Another option, which I use and have found really good is at 1and1.com. You can sign up for a cheap and basic site (various levels depending on needs) with a range of templates - its pretty intuitive, you can add images and text with easy links. A step further and you can add paypal buttons if you would like to sell direct from site. Have a look at my site to get an idea

Very nice James Campbell, I like it very much, very nice all 3 of you. My husband and I spent the morning thinking up a name for my "business" or future website, and then he went and bought me a domain, it is www.FreeSoulPhotography.com, not yet worked on, I plan on doing that tonight or getting started with it. it was only $28.95 for a year (he bought all other possible org., net. whatever could have FreeSoulPhotography with it). So I have a year to get down and get to work on making something of this site and myself. I do plan on getting very aggressive and making sure I don't let this wonderful chance and gift my husband has given me pass me by. However, I do want to thank you all for your advice and information.

Hey Andrea, I use (pbase.com) works great, and only cost $23.00 a year.
www.TinyLandscapes.com

Have you joined NAPP?

NAPP
National Association of Photoshop Professionals
315 Douglas Road East
Oldsmar, FL - 34677-2922
http://www.photoshopuser.com

If you use a mac, Apple has mobileme which gives a place to host your website. You can have your own domain name etc. Mine is www.katahdinbound.com
It costs $99 a year but there are other benefits as well, such as a backup capacity of 20 gig

No, I don't think I have joined NAPP. And unfortunately no I don't have a mac though I have used one bofore and they are quite nice. Right now we are trying to get my website up and going, we use GoDaddy for all our websites including www.chaosus.com, and a few others besides my www.FreeSoulPhotography.com which is in the making right now.

I ditto taking a good look at Smugmug. You can get a free account and get started. then, when you're ready, you can buy a higher up plan up to the professional package. Once you have the higher price plan, you can then use your own url instead of Smugmugs. It is really easy to use.

I also recommend that if you are not doing it now, then START filling in the EXIF, IPTC, etc. data inside the hidden data for your photos. This includes the keywords you want associated with each image. It also lets you tag your photos with your name and contact info (protects you from orphan-image free usage). Without you filling in this data, no one is going to find your images once they are online when doing searches. Smugmug has a method of letting you do some of this after you have uploaded your images. If you have the data already in your image, Smugmug reads and uses it. You need ot have it in your own image though. That way where ever you send your images, the data is already there either to help searchers, protect you, and give people a chance to find you.

I recommend getting a website now, before you are "selling". I think most of us find out that your website gets you more exposure than sales, unless you are very professional and are spending big bucks promoting yourself. These days, if you do not have a website, you are hurting your image. It gives you a place to send people to see what kind of work you do. THEN, you may get folks asking you to do photography for them "like" what they have seen. Guess alot of this depends on what kind of photography you do and your future plans. This advice does not cover all situations, so no one get mad at me! Also, the advice is free and you know what that is worth!!!!

oh yeah, we're working my site now, I'm getting into doing people photos too, not just portraits but other things, I'm probably going to have portfolios with "People", "Places", "Nature", "Wildlife", "Landscapes" and I'm not sure whether to use Domestic Animals like dogs for starters, because I'm interested in doing portraits of owners and their dogs but also wanting to move into things like horseshows or something like that (my head is scattered at the moment). Once spring rolls around, or maybe sooner, I actually think I might try and go to some football games, start on Sports photography. I've got so much in mind right now, I have those portfolios on my facebook now, along with "Dogs", because having my own dogs and taking them to the dog park, I'm always getting the opportunity for some doggie shots.