1. THE BUSINESS OF BEING AN ARTIST Artist Websites

2. What Makes a Good Artist Website? Clean Design  Artwork needs to be the FOCUS. Take good photographs—artists’ websites are only as good as the photos.  Design should not interfere with your work. Avoid hard-to-read fonts or complicated graphics/animations. Backgrounds should be a neutral color. Keep design style consistent with your work.  Professional presentation. Should contain portfolio, contact, CV or resume, and an artist statement. Limit personal information: approach your site like a job application.  It must have up-to-date information. Your site should have current artwork, artist statement, resume, events, links to social media, and news. Make yourself look good!

3. Getting Started Evaluate why you need a website and how you will use it.  How much time do you have? Research your options and run free trials.  Check your computer and internet provider for web-development and software hosting.  Experiment with templates. Choose an easy-to-remember domain name. Ask for advice from artists, designers, VAE staff, and non-artists. Organize your images!  Some options include organizing by year created, media, or series, and some by exhibition.  Create a file and folder naming system. Develop an inventory system so you can keep your titles and prices consistent.  Some portfolio services have this built into their services.

4. Get Visitors! Search Engine Optimization (SEO)  Make sure that there is text on your site and the text includes relevant information about you: Artist, Painter, College, Employer, Raleigh, NC.  When setting up your site, make sure to fill out any forms that help with SEO.  Register with Google: http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl.http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl Drive traffic to your site  Keep it up-to-date and fun to visit—post new images, links to press, and exhibitions.  Include a link in all of your e-mails. Send out a blast if you make a big change to your site.  Post it to social networking sites and ask your friends to do the same.  Link the site to other sites. This will help with SEO.  Set it as your homepage (which will remind you to update it). Keep track of who is visiting and where they are coming from  Google analytics: http://www.google.com/analytics/http://www.google.com/analytics/  Wordpress and some portfolio or CMS services include this.

5. Common and Useful Terms Explained CMS  Content Management System SEO  Search Engine Optimization HTML  HyperText Markup Language (the coding used to make websites) Web Analytics  Measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of traffic to a site URL  Uniform Resource Locator (the address of any page on the Internet) Domain Name  Identification label for a website.

6. Website Options Social Networking Tools:  Facebook  LinkedIn  MySpace Photo Sharing:  Flickr  Picasa  Photobucket  Bubble Share Online Communities:  Etsy  Artist directories/groups Blogs:  Blogger  Wordpress

7. Online Portfolio Services Folio Link — www.foliolink.comwww.foliolink.com  Cost: starting at $239/year + a one-time start-up fee Other People’s Pixels — http://otherpeoplespixels.com/http://otherpeoplespixels.com/  Cost: $16-26 per month, $160-260 per year Big Black Bag — www.bigblackbag.com/www.bigblackbag.com/  Cost: Pricing starts at $8.99 per month, or $49 per year iCompendium — www.icompendium.com/www.icompendium.com/  Cost: Plans start at $200 per year for 50Mb, no set-up fee. Carbonmade — http://carbonmade.com/http://carbonmade.com/  Cost: Free “meh” plan (35 images, use their url); “whoo” plan is $12/month and has 500 images, domain binding, support, etc. Cargo Collective — http://cargocollective.comhttp://cargocollective.com  Cost: Free basic service; upgraded membership for $66/year or $9/month. Big Cartel — http://bigcartel.com/http://bigcartel.com/  Cost: Free for a basic site; other packages range from $9.99 monthly

8. Content Management Systems Wordpress Open Source — http://wordpress.orghttp://wordpress.org  Cost: Free  Wordpress plugins for artists — http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tags/artists http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tags/artists Weebly — www.weebly.comwww.weebly.com  Cost: Free WIX — www.wix.com/www.wix.com/  Cost: Free, with upgrade plan for existing users. Webnode — www.webnode.com/personal-websiteswww.webnode.com/personal-websites  Cost: Free Homestead — http://www.homestead.com/http://www.homestead.com/  Cost: $4.99/month

9. Web Design Software iWeb — www.apple.com/ilife/iweb/www.apple.com/ilife/iweb/  Cost: $49 as part of iLife Suite. Mac only. Microsoft Expression Web — www.microsoft.com/expression/ www.microsoft.com/expression/  Cost: $50-100 Yahoo Site Builder Free — http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/index.php http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/index.php  Cost: Free with hosting or other business packages

10. More Resources http://www.artchain.com/effective- websites-for-artists/ http://www.artchain.com/effective- websites-for-artists/ http://www.thesitewizard.com/getting started/startwebsite.shtml http://www.thesitewizard.com/getting started/startwebsite.shtml http://www.websiteforartists.com/reso urces.html#articles http://www.websiteforartists.com/reso urces.html#articles http://www.sellingartworkonline.com/ http://www.theabundantartist.com/ http://creativewebbiz.com Google ranking tools: http://www.google.com/support/web masters/?hl=en http://www.google.com/support/web masters/?hl=en Art That Pays: The Emerging Artist's Guide to Making a Living  by Adele Slaugther and Jeff Kober (Paperback - Feb 2004) The Principles of Beautiful Web Design  by Jason Beaird (Paperback - Jan 31, 2007) –Illustrated Best Website: Simple Steps to Successful Websites  by Nelson Bates and Ms. Amber Massey (Paperback - Mar 25, 2008) Art Marketing 101, Third Edition: A Handbook for the Fine Artist  by Constance Smith (Paperback - April 1, 2007)

11. Wordpress Tutorials and Resources Set up a site:  http://www.viddler.com/explore/hungrydog/videos/2/ http://www.viddler.com/explore/hungrydog/videos/2/ Themes for artists:  http://creativewebbiz.com/2009/01/08/10-wordpress-themes- for-artists/ http://creativewebbiz.com/2009/01/08/10-wordpress-themes- for-artists/

12. This presentation is from Visual Art Exchange’s “Business of Being an Artist” educational series. For more information, visit www.visualartexchange.org.www.visualartexchange.org