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How Can I Afford a Website?
May 25, 2016
In my last blog I tried to convince you how important, even essential, it is to have a website for your art. But there are a lot of concerns, mostly about time, cost, and training. This blog will try to debunk the idea that a website costs a lot of money.
Won’t a Website Cost Me a Lot? No, Not at ALL—How about Free?
There are several sites that provide templates for websites that are FREE, or very little money. They have some limits, (mostly regarding services and how much you can upload—the memory space on the server), but they are a practical and relatively easy way to BEGIN. Some, like Wix and Weebly, offer plans for free; others, like Squarespace, Format, and OtherPeoplesPixels offer free trials, and then monthly plans for very little money. FASO (Fine Art Studio Online), DotEasy, and GoDaddy, have a wide range of prices and services. There are so many others.
My POINT is, you have choices.
Start small and increase as you go along. You can always upgrade.
K.I.S.S.—Keep It Simple, Silly
You do NOT need lots of pages, hundreds of images, thousands of links, thousands of emails—yet.
1) You DO need a HOME page: that page will be the first one that greets your visitors.
That might be enough, if you have work in a gallery, or a website like Crossroads or BuyRVA where people can see more of your work. Put two or three images, and a link to that website on your home page.
2) You might want to also have one or more GALLERY page(s) with some of your paintings.
Later, add
3) a STATEMENT page. People like to know about how and why you create your work.
Finally, people need to get in touch with you. Either at the bottom of each page, or on
4) a CONTACT page, provide your email. If you are a woman, I would not post a phone number, unless you have a business phone that is not your home, personal phone, or cell phone. Otherwise, put your email at the bottom of each page.
So, Home, Gallery, Contact, maybe Statement. That’s the basic design, created in that order. You can have any order on the menu bar. If you put your email at the bottom of each page, you don’t need a contact page right away.
1- Who you are (home), 2- what you do (gallery), 3- why you do it (statement), and 4- how people can reach you (contact).
To get inspired and get a vision for your site, look to other artists for simple, elegant web designs:
Lorelle Rau: www.lorellerau.com (done with Wix, but she purchased her domain name)
Alex Nyerges: www.alexnyerges.com (created with Format, looks great, I don’t know the price)
Oscar Arroyo: www.oscararroyo.com (his is Weebly)
To get some more ideas for helping promote your art, check out my ‘Business of Art’ class: www.lindahollett.net/workshops
Comments
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Linda Hollett-Bazouzi says (Jul 26, 2016):
Thank you for that support, Adele! I'm sorry it took me so long to respond. My program told me I had the comment, but I could not see or access it, until I changed my settings. So bizarre. The trials and tribulations of trying something new!