Photography Website

Covey

Thinking of finally joining the "Website Generation".

Most important question before I start at all is the name.

Have maybe three choices as I see it.

1. My name
2 My userrname here + photography
3 Catchy name unrelated to either of the above.

Does anyone find any pros or cons related to any of the above?

What do people generally think of hyphens i.e. firstname-secondname.ie ?

.ie or .com or both ?

Any comments greatly appreciated.

T.

sasar

I would say it depends on your name. I would never use firstname-secondname.xxx as it's simply too hard to spell it.:D

Paulw

Oh I went through that whole debate too. It can be actually very hard to find a vacant site name to use.

I went through so many combinations, and because my name is actually quite common, it was hard to get an address.

I eventually went with a .net address. The .com was taken, and I think the .ie is just a bit too expensive.

It really depends on what you want to use it for. The .ie is nice if you plan to do business and want to be found in Ireland. The .com/.net are more worldwide.

Best of luck with your decision.

Covey

The .ie is grand now €21 or thereabouts.

Also my name is unusual enough that most combinations are still available.

The idea is non-commercial at first, hopefully leading to a businness site down the road. Would prefer to keep the name throughout the whole process.

So the questions are based I suppose on operating a commercial site.

T.

Creamy Goodness

hyphens depend on your name ie how long it is and what letters are at the join.

to use a good example: alhigginsphotography.com, the l in al and the h in higgins don't clash.

to use a bad example (not a real example): lyleemmerich.com - where does the first name finish and where does it end.

i personally don't like hyphens in any urls purely for the reasons that

1. it's a pain in the tits explaining your url to someone, especially english illiterate people who've never heard of a hyphen or call it a dash or whatever.

2. also it's annoying having to move away from the main set of keys on a keyboard to get to the hyphen, also in the times of mobile browsing with the iphone and smartphones hyphens are usually tucked away in a sub-menu and take an age to find for someone on the go.

elven

If you can think of something non cheesy as a completely new name, I think that's more original than 'joe bloggs photography' which everyone seems to have. Unfortunately it's very tricky since every connotation of every word to do with every kind of photography seems to be already taken

I don't think there's a big difference between .ie and .com in the customer/client's mind really. .com may be easier to remember.

Must finish off my site before pp this year too, you just reminded me...

sunny2004

Cremo wrote: »

i personally don't like hyphens in any urls purely for the reasons that

1. it's a pain in the tits explaining your url to someone, especially english illiterate people who've never heard of a hyphen or call it a dash or whatever.

.

totally-agree

+1

City-Exile

I was thinking about this & wanted to have something which would appear to be a Business Name, so that I had the potential to grow the brand.

My own initials are POS, so I thought POSe would work, since I'm always asking people to strike a pose.
pose.ie is nice & simple, so everyone remembers it.
I have registered the Business Name, so I have potential to bring other photographers in under my brand.

It would have cost me the same if I had gone with something like peadarosullivanphotography.ie

That's just my opinion anyway.

Covey

Thanks for all the replies, all very insightful indeed.

City-Exile wrote: »

I was thinking about this & wanted to have something which would appear to be a Business Name, so that I had the potential to grow the brand.

Exactly my thoughts, though I wasn't thinking about growing a brand. though now that you mention it ....

elven wrote: »

If you can think of something non cheesy as a completely new name, I think that's more original than 'joe bloggs photography' which everyone seems to have.

I'm leaning towards this at the moment I think.

Cabaal

I used first name + lastname, but then again I did have the domain in question reged since 1998

This may change in time however for reasons stated by other posters

City-Exile

Cabaal wrote: »

I used first name + lastname, but then again I did have the domain in question reged since 1998

I have peadar.net registered for years too, but I just redirected it to my new site.

grainne.obrien

City-Exile wrote: »

I was thinking about this & wanted to have something which would appear to be a Business Name, so that I had the potential to grow the brand.

My own initials are POS, so I thought POSe would work, since I'm always asking people to strike a pose.
pose.ie is nice & simple, so everyone remembers it.
I have registered the Business Name, so I have potential to bring other photographers in under my brand.

It would have cost me the same if I had gone with something like peadarosullivanphotography.ie

That's just my opinion anyway.

I really like that idea.

I was in the same boat recently, wanted to pop up my web site but found grainne obrien photography too boring. So we came up with PicsByGra seen as everyone calls me Gra anyway. Luckily I got the .com, if you can go for the .com and if not then go for .ie

http://www.picsbygra.com - still being created by the way. Which brings me to the question of galleries, I know this has been dicussed before and it seems lightbox is the way to go. I'd like something that displays the images as thumb nails alongside a slide show. Willing to pay for it, but would rather avois having advertising at the bottom of the page, or powered by. Any ideas?

City-Exile

grainne.obrien wrote: »

Willing to pay for it, but would rather avois having advertising at the bottom of the page, or powered by. Any ideas?

If you're referring to my site, I chose to have the advertising at the bottom.
Siteground give you free hosting, if you refer new customers to them.
It's a personal choice.

RoryW

I think read somewhere that having a hypen in the web address makes searches harder to find you


www.covey.com is taken from what I could see

I think the key is to keep the address short.

and web addresses are so cheap that you could have a few and redirect from one to the other if you wish. A domain hosting service will allow you to host many domains for no extra cost

This is what we use in work for our website, domains etc
http://www.vodahostdomains.com/
http://www.vodahost.com/
Free Website Design software linked to above http://www.bluevoda.com/

Deliverance XXV

If you want to register a personal name in .ie format you'll have to have proof that you are who you say you are. A passport or Driving License photocopy would do.

I have recently purchased my name as a .ie domain.
It is €21 average. You will be restricted as to what you can register as a personal name.
For example, if your name is joejohnbloggs, you can register;

www.jbloggs.ie
www.johnbloggs.ie
www.joejohnbloggs.ie
www.joebloggs.ie

A few more along the same vein.

EDIT: You can find all the examples you can use and some other great info here at this page. http://www.domainregistry.ie/RegistrationPolicy.php

I say def go for the .ie domain.

Fionn

hmmm...
i've been putting off doing anything about a website now for over a year, so eventually took the plunge last week - i went for a hyphen and i used the cheesy naming convention of - the name of my town in irish - photo
so that worked out http://www.cluainmeala-photo.com/ which after i had registered didn't really appeal to me that much. But i'm sorta stuck with it for the moment
still haven't anything uploaded yet, the design phase is taking longer than i expected!!!

deegs

Fionn wrote: »

hmmm...
i've been putting off doing anything about a website now for over a year, so eventually took the plunge last week - i went for a hyphen and i used the cheesy naming convention of - the name of my town in irish - photo
so that worked out http://www.cluainmeala-photo.com/ which after i had registered didn't really appeal to me that much. But i'm sorta stuck with it for the moment
still haven't anything uploaded yet, the design phase is taking longer than i expected!!!

Excellent choice, firstly search engines prefer hyphenated URL's and secondly you have tapped into a local niche market by putting your town's name in the URL.

Very good name.

Ricky91t

City-Exile wrote: »

I was thinking about this & wanted to have something which would appear to be a Business Name, so that I had the potential to grow the brand.

My own initials are POS, so I thought POSe would work, since I'm always asking people to strike a pose.
pose.ie is nice & simple, so everyone remembers it.
I have registered the Business Name, so I have potential to bring other photographers in under my brand.

It would have cost me the same if I had gone with something like peadarosullivanphotography.ie

That's just my opinion anyway.

Peader just looking at your site there by any chance did you use the free website builder to make it with your domain package?

Im just sick of making mine total scratch cause i dislike lightroom templates

PixelTrawler

I'm putting a site together at the moment and like Covey I couldnt decide on whether to go for myname or Username (as I use it on forums, flickr, redbubble etc)

In the end I bought both, and setup domain redirection from username.com to myname.ie. The url people will see is the myname one as the domain redirect is a full redirect - it doesnt mask the other domain name.

Also on the site I have bought titles.

Also just as a by the way, theres a host of very useful features from google for site owners. You can have google handle your mail accounts which gives you a nicer interface then I had through H-Sphere (and also much larger mail boxes then my hosting provider gives).

You can get your own login url gmail.site.com plus calendars (calendar.site.com), site builders, custom search page, document management (docs.site.com) etc

Fionn wrote: »

hmmm...
so that worked out http://www.cluainmeala-photo.com/ which after i had registered didn't really appeal to me that much. But i'm sorta stuck with it for the moment

Not at all, you can have as many domains as you like point to a site - just purchase a new one and set it to point at this url (or move the site to a new domain and point the old one to the new). Esp seeing as the sites still under construction, its not established yet so now is the time do it it... and agree with posts above - ditch the hyphen

Fionn

Solyad wrote: »

Not at all, you can have as many domains as you like point to a site - just purchase a new one and set it to point at this url (or move the site to a new domain and point the old one to the new). Esp seeing as the sites still under construction, its not established yet so now is the time do it it... and agree with posts above - ditch the hyphen

Oh crap - I just uploaded my content have to put in links and clean up a few things but everything seems to work. It's not just doing the web work there's also the writing stuff etc. i'm jaded from it now!! hyphen or not lol :rolleyes:

the name aint that bad is it?
Cluainmeala-Photo

maybe it is - i dunno nor care at this stage!!!
might look at it when i get back from the hols.

Fionn

deegs wrote: »

Excellent choice, firstly search engines prefer hyphenated URL's and secondly you have tapped into a local niche market by putting your town's name in the URL.

Very good name.

so you think it's a good idea?

another thing - i'm not a huge fan of flash so i think down the line i'm going to try my hand at a html site, I presume i can have both to load from the index page, i've seen it on other sites. Just have to figure out html and css and all the other stuff and give up on photography for a while :rolleyes:

deegs

Fionn wrote: »

so you think it's a good idea?

another thing - i'm not a huge fan of flash so i think down the line i'm going to try my hand at a html site, I presume i can have both to load from the index page, i've seen it on other sites. Just have to figure out html and css and all the other stuff and give up on photography for a while :rolleyes:

Yes I do, but stay as far away from flash as possible.... Search engines cannot decode it.

sheesh

definitely no dashes its so last century

you say you name is unusual so your name might still be available in the .ie domain which would be perfect (mine was taken by a bloody politician:mad:).

covey
cobhie
cobhy

Covey

My name is still available, for Ireland and all other Domains, but I've gone for something different. Just one, hopefully catchy word

Thanks for all the advice.

T.