Although there are many ways for people to showcase their photo albums, more and more people choose to create their own photo gallery websites for this purpose. There are many advantages of creating a photo gallery website. Here are several:

  1. Creating your own photo gallery website gives you total control over which photos can be used by other people
  2. People who have their own photo gallery websites can make money out of these sites.
  3. Anyone on the web can view your photo gallery website. You don’t have to be a member of any specific network.
  4. Creating a photo gallery website is affordable. The costs may range – from free to only a few dollars per month.

How to Make a Photo Album

Making an online photo album is a simple process that does not cost much. In fact, the only thing you have to pay for is the camera you’ll use to take digital photos (if you don’t already have one). Flickr or Google’s Picasa are the most popular sites for publishing images online and sharing them with other people. These two sites are considered the best on the web, but there are other sites you can use. Shutterfly.com and photobucket.com are some of them.

The process of creating a photo album is quite simple. Upload your images using the site’s dashboard.  The images will be automatically resized, but that won’t affect the quality.

How to Create a Photo Gallery Website

One of the easiest ways to create a photo gallery website is to use photo gallery software. Another way is to use some of photo gallery templates.

Use Simple Software to Create a Photo Gallery Website

Perhaps the easiest way to create a photo gallery website is to use special software. Some of the top rated products include Jalbum, CoffeeCup and SiteCube. You just have to visit the website, download the software and start using it to create your own photo gallery website. If you don’t think you will be able to do this by yourself, you can hire a professional to do it for you.

Most people choose to purchase their own domain name (e.g. www.mydomain.com). You can purchase your own domain from a domain registry service and then purchase web hosting services. This is inexpensive and it will cost you a few dollars per month.

Creating a blog is another easy way to make your own photo gallery.  Blogs can be free, like in Google’s Blogger.com, or they may require a hosting fee (like in Typepad – about $5 per month).

The last option is to develop a site on a free hosting service. However, this option has several disadvantages, mostly related to control issues and storage limits.

Using Photo Gallery Templates

If you want to have maximum control over your photo gallery website, you will probably want to develop your own domain and then use a photo gallery template to design your site. There are many photo gallery templates, both free and paid. This option requires certain knowledge.

Some of the sites where you can find photo gallery templates include:

FolioLink
IFP3
Perfectory

Once you have your template set up, you can easily upload your photos and create a photo gallery website.