Website - webhosting?

[StaceyG]

Hi,
I am finally getting serious about getting my website up. Can anyone recommend an inexpensive and good web hosting company?

Thanks

[travisraybold]

i use icdsoft.com, never had a problem, and its $50/year :)

--travis

[Christyn Mattson]

I'm going into my 2nd year of website hosting w/godaddy.com. They've been excellent and are only $7.95 a month, plus your domain name can be registered for $9.95 a month. They've been great. You also have access to all your website stats and you can see over the course of a day, week,month or year where you're at with hits. Check it out.
Christyn

[Starpath]

Hi there!

I have used http://www.doteasy.com for 3 years- It's FREE - you pay for your domain - ie "www.----glass.com" and build your site!" it has email accounts (free) all sorts of goodies-
I now have the next level in hosting cause my web site got really big - but check out the freebie part - I think you will be surprised.

Good luck

Debra

[Lori Love]

I have read all the various comments and links about website development and web hosts, but what I have not seen [or at least not yet found] is any discussion of the pluses/minuses of having one's own website versus using a sevice like GlassArtist.org - which I noted that several members of the BB use (including Jackie Beckman and Doug Randall).

Any comments for the totally confused?

Thanks!

lori

[dee]

I have read all the various comments and links about website development and web hosts, but what I have not seen [or at least not yet found] is any discussion of the pluses/minuses of having one's own website versus using a sevice like GlassArtist.org - which I noted that several members of the BB use (including Jackie Beckman and Doug Randall).

Any comments for the totally confused?

Thanks!

lori

it depends on what you want to do with your site and looking for either a portfolio type site like marty kremer or a sales oriented site like sararuna.com? as for something like glassartists.org do you want to have the client be focused only on your work or are you comfortable with clients viewing the work of many artists at one time when they visit? be carefull of freebie or low cost hosting solutions, in this, like many things, you get what you pay for and the cheapest isn't always the best but you also don't need the highest price solution either. do you want to design it yourself with a small set of cookie cutter templates that some of these low cost/freebie hosts offer or have someone design it for you? are you comfortable enuf with html and creating digital images to be able to maintain a site designed by someone else? i do website design part time in addition to my glass work, if you have questions email me at dee@ucjewelry.com or private msg me....
D

[Jackie Beckman]

I have read all the various comments and links about website development and web hosts, but what I have not seen [or at least not yet found] is any discussion of the pluses/minuses of having one's own website versus using a sevice like GlassArtist.org - which I noted that several members of the BB use (including Jackie Beckman and Doug Randall).

Any comments for the totally confused?

Thanks!

lori

Hi Lori,

I think that Glassartists.org offers a nice place simply to view my snapshots and that's it, really. I had someone request to see multiple pictures and rather than email a whole bunch of images and resize them so they are easier to send, I just put them up there. I don't really consider it "my website" - if someone asks me if I have one, I just say no.

One (pathetic) reason I don't have a website is that I don't have very many professional shots of my work. If I did, I would far prefer a site like the one Marty has. It seems like I never have more than a couple pieces (at most) available at any one time - as soon as they're finished they go to their destination. A few weeks later or a month later, another piece is done. I'd have to stockpile all my work for a year to get a nice body of work shot at once.

So - that's the only reason I use that site. That said, I have no intention to ever sell work from any website, so other than a place to showcase new pieces or let a prospective gallery view my work, I haven't truly found the need for a better one yet.

Maybe when Phil Hoppes gets his way-cool photo set up done in his studio I'll have suitable enough pictures to reconsider.

[Phil Hoppes]

Go to spenix.com.

$7.95/month gets you 250MB of storage for your site and 15GB of downloads/month. They have great support tools for setting up and maintaining your website. They use Urchin for web stats. Works quite well. Don't have my site up just yet but should very soon once the photoshop is up and running. Need to finish my table and all will be done.

Bring up your glass Jackie, Welll have a photo BBQ party.

[Sara]

I have read all the various comments and links about website development and web hosts, but what I have not seen [or at least not yet found] is any discussion of the pluses/minuses of having one's own website versus using a sevice like GlassArtist.org - which I noted that several members of the BB use (including Jackie Beckman and Doug Randall).

Any comments for the totally confused?

Thanks!

lori

it depends on what you want to do with your site and looking for either a portfolio type site like marty kremer or a sales oriented site like sararuna.com? as for something like glassartists.org do you want to have the client be focused only on your work or are you comfortable with clients viewing the work of many artists at one time when they visit? be carefull of freebie or low cost hosting solutions, in this, like many things, you get what you pay for and the cheapest isn't always the best but you also don't need the highest price solution either. do you want to design it yourself with a small set of cookie cutter templates that some of these low cost/freebie hosts offer or have someone design it for you? are you comfortable enuf with html and creating digital images to be able to maintain a site designed by someone else? i do website design part time in addition to my glass work, if you have questions email me at dee@ucjewelry.com or private msg me....
D

Lori,

Dee summed it up in a nut . She does the backend on both my sites and I did the design (ha ha notice that's why I've got broken links right now, am in the middle of an update an posted some things too soon . . . much to Dee's and my dismay).

If you do want to use your site as a selling tool as well as a showcase be assured that you need to advertise and do lots of self promotion. My site does well, although I've had one version or another since 1995 and my customer database is quite large. Many of my wholesale galleries use this site also and over the years I've noticed that more and more galleries are 'shopping' this way. Dee helped me set up a wholesale password secure side. I worked at a newspaper for many years pre web doing computer graphics. Prior to that I was in marketing for CBS, I "sorta in today's world" understand the web marketing aspects and it is tough to keep ahead of the ever changing techniques. I love dabbling in both webwork and marketing, so it's my hobby away from glass

If you want to sell on-line you really need your website hosted with a secure server and be able to take credit cards on-line. About 95% of my sales are using the secure feature and if you don't have that you will lose sales, so this is really necessary, only if you want to sell on-line.

I have found that my galleries don't mind if I sell retail from my site as long as my prices are reflective of what they would charge. I am considering adding a third site for my bowls that would be more of a gallery showing site only. . . yet have been thinking about this for the past three years so who knows when I'll finally get it done. I'm behind on the referbs and orders on the two I've got now.

good luck with whatever direction you decide to take,

Sara

[Marc Demian]

Amazing! I'm just getting my site together and was wondering how to get it hosted. And here the question is at the top of the page! I love the WarmGlass board! Marc

[Lori Love]

Thanks everyone for all the advice - it certainly gives me much to think about!

While I consider myself "computer literate" - I, like many/most? of you, have a demanding fulltime job that has nothing to do with glass - squeezing any more time out of my calendar right now to deal with website design/maintenance now would be difficult [and much less enjoyable than creating glass], so I think that I need to go with simplier approaches for now, but need the ability to grow over time.

Again, thanks!

lori

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