Why Artists Need an Artist Website
The following article is part of an interview I did with the Pastel
Society of Southeast Texas. You can read the full interview here
.
There are three main reasons that you need your own artist website:
1. to ensure that your art is taken seriously
2. to project a professional image
3. to control your own marketing assets.
Ensure Your Art is Taken Seriously
Most businesses need a great website to be taken seriously. When an
artist makes the decision to market and sell her artworks, she is
making the decision to start a business. That might not be obvious in
the moment, but that's exactly the decision that is being made. And,
since every serious business needs a modern, professional website that
serves as its online hub, it follows that artists, to be taken
seriously, also need great websites. Think about your own experiences:
Surely you've had an occasion where you were interested in a business
that you'd heard about, only to be disappointed when you couldn't find
a website where you could learn more, contact the company, or make
purchases. Or, perhaps worse, you found an old, ignored Facebook page,
which was of no help and likely presented woefully out of date
information. Don't do that to your potential customers! Make sure you
have a modern, professional, up-to-date website so people can find you.
Doing so will instill your prospects with the confidence that you are a
serious artist.
Project a Professional Image
The second reason you need a website, and it flows directly from the
first reason, is to project a professional image. Most artists are
extremely discerning about the design and the type of frames that they
will utilize around their paintings. Most artist are also concerned,
when exhibiting, with the quality of the other artworks that hang near
their own pieces. They worry that poor frames, or poor exhibits will
reflect poorly on their own works and, conversely, know that great
frames and great exhibits will reflect positively on their own
artworks. Understandably, artists are concerned with safeguarding their
hard-earned professional reputation. Many artists work for years, even
decades, to perfect their artworks, so it makes sense to protect that
professional image with great frames and great exhibits. This same idea
extends to your website. When you don't have a website, or, perhaps
even worse, when you have a poor website, it can greatly harm the
perception of your artwork by association. And, of course, a great
website, by association, will elevate the perception of professionalism
about your art. FASO takes this idea even a step further and has built
a reputation, similar to a great art gallery, of being "the" place for
great artists. So when collectors see that red fleur-di-lis logo at the
bottom of your site, they know you are in good company.
For example, just take a look at the beautiful, professional artist
website we built for (and in collaboration) Jeremy Lipking
:
Image Caption Goes Here
Your site can look that professional! In fact, we recently release a
template inspired by the work we did with Jeremy called, creatively,
the "Jeremy" template. And if you are a FASO member, or you join FASO,
your site can look similar to his today.
Control Your Own Marketing Assets
The third reason you need your own website is to control your own
marketing assets. There is a huge problem with relying on third party
services such as Facebook, Instagram, Etsy, etc for your primary online
presence. And that is this: you have no control over the presentation
of your artwork, no control over changes that the third party site may
make to the look of your listing, and no control over who is advertised
on your page. For example, Facebook will gladly advertise your
competitors' ads on your Facebook page. This makes you a "digital
sharecropper", where you are working to build someone else's platform.
Think about this: there has never been a great online tech company
built solely on another online tech company's platform. But the history
of tech is littered with failed companies that tried. I can think of
two that you might have heard of: Zynga built games on top of Facebook,
and eHow built content sites that relied on high Google rankings. Both
were high flyers in their day, and both are struggling today because
Facebook and Google pulled the rug out from under their business
models. Don't let that happen to you. Sure, utilize third-party
platforms for marketing purposes, but make sure that you have your own
website with your own domain name that can serve as a place that is
always and forever under your control.
While these three reasons are the primary reasons artists need a
professional website, they are not, of course, the only reasons. What
motivations and goals do you have for your artist website?
Sincerely,
Clint Watson
FASO Founder, Software Craftsman, Art Fanatic
PS - At FASO, we've been devoted for more than a decade with building a
platform focused exclusively on professional artist websites and that's
why we've become the leader in the space. FASO is the easiest way to
build and maintain a professional artist website. If you'd like to take
your website to the next level, we encourage you to give FASO a try
.
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