18 replies to this topic

[Hans van der Maarel]

Also the costs of a website and maintaining it runs into hundreds of dollars a month.

Not really. A .com domain will cost you something like $12 or $15 for a year, hosting can be anywhere between $4 and $10 per month, depending on your ISP. Setting up a website can be pricy if you want to get it done professionally, but a simple portfolio website shouldn't be all that expensive and after it's been set up you can pretty much manage the content yourself.

[CHART]

I agree with Hans.

My web site costs 9.95 (CAD) per month for 800megs of storage, 10 emails and I forget the data transfer limit (but it is in the giga bytes). The domain name cost per year is in the 25 (CAD) range for a .ca .

The real cost is in the time required to build AND maintain a professional looking site. As most cartographers have design and technical abilities I suggest coding and designing your on web site... but only do it off hours (when there is less real work from real clients to be done).

As for paying to be atop web searches. My opinion is to stick with titles and meta name tags.

[frax]

Then there are the free options, which might something to start with: geocities, google pages. If you want to go with a more blog-like format, you can use sites like blogger.

[Hans van der Maarel]

Then there are the free options, which might something to start with: geocities, google pages. If you want to go with a more blog-like format, you can use sites like blogger.

Oh yeah, even a simple free blog can be a great way to set up a portfolio. It also allows you to focus on content rather than the technical stuff around it.