A few people have been asking how I went about making this website. So here is a short rundown of the process I went through.
I’ve already got some experience of websites, so this made the process a little easier, but I still had to put in quite a lot of legwork.
Choosing a domain
The first stage for a good website is a good domain. This can be tricky, as not all of them are available, but once you’ve got some ideas, there are some good tools out there to help you decide what’s available.
I used the domain name checker and registration from 123-reg because I already have a domain registered with them for something else. In retrospect I think I would probably use the same domain registrar as the hosting package I decide to use, to keep everything together. The process is simple. Once you have your domain name, select how long you want to register it for, and dodge the upselling before paying the bill.
If this is your first website then maybe just register the domain for a year. There are good deals to be had for one year. Watch out for the auto-renewal though as the price will go up.
Choosing hosting
This, again, is quite a personal choice. After research I knew I wanted to have a WordPress site because of the ease of customisation and the extensions for various eCommerce solutions such as WooCommerce. I also knew I wanted to not be restricted in bandwidth and storage, or any of the other things hosts will do to try and get more money from you. I also wanted to have the servers located in the UK as I suspect that’s where most of my visitors will be.
In the end I went with Unlimited Web Hosting. I’ve used them in the past and they’ve been very good, and their tech support is excellent too.
Like I said before, I should have registered the domain with them too, but that’s one for the lessons learnt pile.
I used their basic WordPress hosting. You can go for their boosted option if you like, but I think for a simple website that’s overkill.
Initial setup
Once the payment had gone through I received a very helpful email with details on how to access the management pages and how to change my nameservers on the domain to point in the right place. This done, it was a very easy job to log in and get that configured. If I remember correctly, the site came with a WordPress instance already in place, but creating one is a click of a few buttons.
Next it was time to choose a theme. There is a plethora of themes out there. You pick what you like. I made sure I picked one that was aimed at photography and had the extensions for WooCommerce so I can sell products later.
Tailoring everything was definitely a matter of clicking around and seeing what things did. There are probably a lot of tutorials out there if that’s of interest. But once I had that I could start adding content.
Galleries
I wanted to be able to easily upload new content to the site without having to log in to WordPress and change pages every time. That’s where the WP/LR Sync tool comes in handy. There is a plugin for WordPress that is free from the plugin store, but you also need the plugin for Lightroom. That is a premium service from Meow Apps but is reasonably priced.
With it I can group the photos into collection in Lightroom and publish them straight to WordPress. All I have to do is to add the galleries themselves to my page and then I never have to touch the page again. There are all sorts of options, including using EXIF data to title and describe your images which is really helpful.
As the plugin uses the Lightroom publishing services, you can resize and watermark your images automatically without having to worry about all of that side of things.
Security
This is a harder area to describe, but one thing you will definitely want to add is SSL certificates for your page. Thankfully the control panel from Unlimited Web Hosting comes with a simple way of doing this for free. The process is a little tricky, but worst case scenario you can contact their support for assistance.It’s really important though, as a lot of browsers are starting restricting access to unsecured sites.
Publishing
Once all the configuration is done, it’s time to upload the first content and configure things like menus etc. And there you go, your first website.
I’m sure it’s possible to do this more easily and with lower costs, but this is the process I went through. I hope it’s of use to you.