I have never been happy with the way my photography website looked. My options were limited on the 3rd party Photography Website front as well, either the services were too expensive or too constraining. I also did not have the budget to pay a kid to design a gee whiz website. On top of that I found pretty much all photography websites had the same flash heavy layout with annoying music. It has gotten to the point that I have my speakers on mute before I venture out on the web.
I wanted a website that was different and one that I could maintain without much of a hassle all while costing me nothing but an annual hosting fees. I looked at WordPress as an option on a shared hosting service. I did not have the skills to pull it off. I finally decided on a combination that has worked well so far. I used iWeb from Apple to design my website and Slideshow Pro for Lightroom for Slideshows and Slideshow Pro Director as my Image Management Solution. The whole process took me about a day and a half to setup and go live. I admit that I do have some rudimentary knowledge of servers and such so your best solution might still be to go with one of the services. I am still not sure how well my website is doing on search engines, and that is one reason why continue to use WordPress for my Blog. I do however lack some of the nice features that come with other services such as SEO and Shopping Carts, Client Portfolios etc. But I will cross that bridge when I get there.
