Every artist needs a website – it’s the ideal tool to increase widespread awareness of your work. Follow this guide to seamlessly create an artist website.
As an artist, you want to spend your time creating art, not a website. However, an artist website is the biggest piece of marketing collateral for your art business.
A website showcases your artwork, makes it possible for people to discover it, and provides a means to that patrons from all over the world contact you and buy your works.
Creating an artist website for yourself is possible for even the least technically savvy individual. This guide shows you how.
How to Create an Artist Website
To create an artist website, use a DIY website service called a content management system ( CMS). A CMS allows you to create and customize a website without any technical knowledge.
An easy-to-use CMS is a low-cost alternative to hiring someone to build the site for you, and some, like Bolt CMS, allow you to set up a free website.
Combine a portfolio-friendly CMS with the following steps, and you can build an artist website the way you want, regardless of your skills or experience.
Step 1: Identify Your Goals
To get started, determine your goals for creating an artist website. Do you simply want to use the site as a digital portfolio of your work? Do you want to sell art online? Is the site also for marketing purposes, such as advertising a gallery showing where users can see your art in person?
Your goals will determine what kind of website functionality is required. This allows you to search for the CMS that best suits your needs.
Tips for Targeting
You may immediately know part of what you want, such as another means through the which can show their works, but other objectives can be shady. Here are some suggestions to help.
- Do your research: Research other art websites, such as those owned by Gerhard Richter, Wim Delvoye, or other popular artists on the Internet. his field. . This can spark ideas for your own website and helps you identify the qualities that make an artist site attractive.
- Create a list of features: Think of a list of features and content you want on your website. Then prioritize the top three features that are most important to start with. This exercise will help you narrow your focus so that you can launch an initial version of your website in a timely manner.
- Start small: When you’re starting out, it’s best to start with a simpler and more limited website. A simple artist website allows you to get something up and running faster, even if it’s not your ideal. Then, once your site is live, you can slowly evolve it to where you want, rather than trying to make it perfect from scratch.
Step 2: Choose a CMS
Now that you’ve identified your goals, it’s time to find a CMS. An important consideration is your budget. Determine how much you can afford in website costs each month. That will determine the type of CMS you can buy and what capabilities are included.
Based on your goals and budget, look for CMS platforms that meet your requirements. Some CMS options that work well for artists are highlighted at the end of this article.
Tips for Choosing a CMS
The right CMS is essential for building your artist website . These tips can help you narrow down your selection.
- Determine a budget: To determine your budget, consider costs for initial setup, any marketing you want to do, and hosting of websites, which is the monthly fee paid to a service provider to make your site accessible to the world. Initial setup fees include the cost of purchasing and registering a domain name, which will be the URL of your website.
- Use templates: Best Content Management Systems They offer templates to get you started. Look for a template with a clean and simple design that puts your art front and center. For example, a template with a carousel allows site visitors to easily browse your creations.
- Decide if you want to sell online: If you want to sell your art online, find a CMS that supports eCommerce functionality. This includes virtual shopping cart functionality and the ability to accept multiple forms of payment.
- Prioritize marketing options: You probably want a CMS that supports marketing capabilities. email marketing and newsletters. Ideally, the CMS you choose will have marketing analytics built in, but many require the use of a third-party application, so don’t let that be a deal breaker.
Step 3: Collect content Website Content
The next step is to assemble the content that you will use on your website. One key action is to take digital photos of your art to upload to the CMS.
Also, consider the sections of the website you’ll need to create based on your goals.For example, if you want to attract people to an exhibition, you might want to have a separate events page to list places where people can see your art in person.
Also, think about using your content and its presentation to convey who you are as an artist. For example, you might want to inject a sense of humor through your site’s text, or even in subtle ways, such as the fonts and graphic elements you choose.
A website is malleable and endlessly creative. medium, so play to your strengths.
Tips for Creating Website Content
Building an artist website involves some nuances in the process of assembling content. Check out these tips to learn more.
- Define your brand: The website represents your brand and how you present your work to the world. The content, purpose of your site, and the style you use should all work together to convey your work and who you are as an artist. This is called brand positioning. Use an About Us page to share basic information about yourself, such as your artistic philosophy or artist statement.
- Be aware of CMS limits: When you take digital photos of your art, make sure these photos are in a format that your CMS accepts. The file size of the photo must also meet the CMS requirements. You want high-resolution images to show off your creations in detail, but if the files are too large, you won’t be able to upload them. Large files can also take time to load on the page, giving your visitors a bad experience.
Step 4: Create the website
Creating the website The company’s actual website is straightforward. . The CMS you choose will guide you through the process. Follow the steps, upload your content, and then activate the site. That’s it!
There are additional details to consider depending on the functionality you want and the CMS you are using. For example, you’ll want your website to incorporate search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to make it more visible in online searches.
SEO is the technical ability of search engines, such as Google, to find and offer your website to people looking for artist sites. Since most websites are discovered through search engines, SEO is important. Fortunately, many CMS platforms include some SEO features as part of the package.
In addition, some CMS platforms, such as Magnolia CMS, offer a set of third-party integrations that add functionality to your website. These options can help you achieve your functionality goals, but they may also require you to take additional steps to integrate that functionality into your site.
Website Building Tips
When you think about how to build a website can seem overwhelming at first. However, with a practical approach, anyone can do it. These tips can help you focus on what’s important.
- Use the preview feature: Your CMS should offer a preview feature so you can see your website before it is published. This allows you to see your site as others will, so you can make corrections before it goes public.
- Make sure it’s mobile-friendly: Many people today use their mobile phones to perform tasks online, so your website must be mobile friendly. Use your CMS’s preview mode to view your site in your mobile browser so you have a clear idea of how most people will find your website. This allows you to make adjustments to optimize the site experience for mobile devices.
- Capture visitor information: To help with marketing efforts later, you may want to offer Give visitors the ability to sign up for your email list or newsletter through your website. Most CMS platforms provide this capability directly or through a third-party integration.
Step 5: Get Started and Learn
Once your website is ready and live, your job is not done. Regular website management is crucial, such as updating the site with new artwork as well as information about your latest or upcoming events.
Also, take some time to figure out how to evolve and grow the website. website. . Your initial implementation is a starting point. After launch, site visitors may have difficulty figuring out how to purchase your art or find exhibition information.
To learn where your site may be failing to meet its goals, collect and review statistics about your website. This data analytics capability is available through your CMS or through third-party tools such as Google Analytics.
Tips for launching and learning
These are recommendations for how to you can keep improving your website. .
- Use analytics tools: Use Google Analytics or other data tools to find out how long visitors stay on your site. If they are viewing your site for several minutes, it is an indication that the content on your site is engaging. However, if they stay for only a few seconds on average, it’s a sign that something might be wrong with your site.Maybe it loads too slowly on a mobile Internet connection, or the first page they see, usually your home page, doesn’t interest them. Test various changes to see how they affect your site visit time, and use the same approach for other metrics important to you, such as the number of purchases or email signups.
- Employ marketing : It is recommended that you do some level of website marketing to publicize your work. Send regular emails or newsletter to people who signed up through your website. Also consider using inbound marketing to attract visitors, and examine the other marketing options available through your CMS.
Best Artist Website Builders
We have the skinny on the best web platforms for artists. Each of the following CMS software options offers features and functions ideal for artistic websites.
1. Wix
Wix offers a good mix of features, ease of use, and affordability. In fact, the platform offers a no-cost option, which means you can create an artist website for free.
The Wix Website Builder is intuitive and guides you through through the steps to create your site. Image Source: Author
To get up and running quickly, choose from Wix’s many website templates. From there, you can customize the site by changing colors, adding pages, and including animation.
For those who want to spend minimal time building a site, the Wix ADI option will automatically create your website after you respond. a few questions.
Wix also provides excellent technical support and hundreds of third-party plugins to extend functionality, as well as marketing and eCommerce options. It even handles hosting for your site, allowing you to sign up for a domain name within the software. Wix is a complete one-stop-shop for an artist’s website needs.
2. Squarespace
Squarespace is one of the best portfolio website building tools. It offers a range of beautiful templates designed to highlight your work. It also provides a suite of eCommerce capabilities, making Squarespace a good solution for artists looking to sell their art online.
The templates offered through Squarespace incorporate principles good design with striking aesthetics. Image Source: Author
This CMS integrates website analytics, SEO, marketing options such as newsletter creation, and third-party applications. It includes design functionality that allows you to control your fonts and colors to fine-tune the aesthetics of your artist site.
Squarespace also provides web hosting and domain name services. The platform offers many of the main features an artist needs to get a website up and running.
3. WordPress
Wondering if there are free websites for artists? Because WordPress is an open source platform, which means its software is available for anyone to use, it’s always free. This free option turns out to be very solid, though you’ll have to pay a fee if you want WordPress to host your site for you.
The thousands of third-party options in WordPress mean you can add many features to your website from your artist. Image Source: Author
WordPress is perfect for artists with unique needs for website functionality because the platform provides access to thousands of third-party integrations. If you have a very specific requirement for your site, chances are you can find the capability through a third-party application in WordPress.
As a result, WordPress offers a lot of flexibility. This makes it a popular choice and it is used by thousands of websites. However, that flexibility also means that it usually takes some extra work to customize your site the way you want.
Because WordPress has been around for years, it handles the basics of website building well. Uploading content to WordPress is easy, and it integrates SEO into its templates.
It’s a little more complex than other CMS software given the amount of customization you can play with, but it’s still a reasonably easy CMS to use. con.
Final Words on Creating an Artist Website
Your website acts as your artist portfolio, business card, and marketing centerpiece rolled into one. So it pays to create a beautiful site to showcase your work.
To that end, grow your audience by implementing landing pages, which are special website pages built to achieve a specific marketing goal. , such as collect email. inscriptionsCheck out these sample landing pages to get an idea of how they can help customers engage with your business.
A combination of a well-built website and engaging marketing efforts will allow you to make your audience grow and publicize your works. So it is well worth the time and energy to create a website that best showcases you and your art.
.