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What You Need To Know Before Building A Website
Are you thinking about expanding your art business? Before you get started, here are what questions to ask before building a website.
An artist’s website is an online portfolio that provides a way to showcase an artist’s story and artwork worldwide.
Art collectors from across the country or even different countries can visit an artist’s website and scroll through their artwork.
A person can even purchase an original painting or fine art prints as long as the artist has their website set up for e-commerce.
Building a website for your art business can feel overwhelming if you are unfamiliar with the process.
Here are some common questions artists ask before they start building their online gallery.
Knowing what questions to ask before building a website will help the process of building your site.
- What You Need To Know Before Building A Website
- What Are Your Business Objectives
- Who Is Your Target Audience
- What Website Features Do You Like Most
- What Pages Do I Need For My Site
- What Should You Do After Your Web Development Is Completed
- What Marketing Strategies Should You Focus On
- Final Thoughts On What Question Ask Before Building A Website
What Are Your Business Objectives
- What are the objectives of building a website?
- Who is your target audience?
- What would you like to achieve with your website?
- Why are you making a website?
- Is your site a way to have an online portfolio to share with art galleries or plan to sell your original artwork online?
Knowing what your arty business goals are will help you decide your site’s look and feel.
If the main objective is to have a portfolio where people can see your work, you will want a site that supports a beautiful gallery.
If your goal is to sell products on your site, you will want to build a website with an e-commerce solution with a blog incorporated on the site.
If your goal is to teach online courses, your site needs to support memberships or an e-commerce solution.
Having a clear vision of your business objectives and defining your goal will help build a roadmap to making your perfect artist’s website.
Your goals will also help you to stay on track of your vision.
It is easy to get derailed building an online business. Your goals will keep you grounded with what is most important.
Click on the image below to download the How To Write Goals You Can Achieve Workbook.
Who Is Your Target Audience
- Who are you building your website for?
- Are you building a website for art consultants, grad school admission boards, or local galleries?
- Are you building a website so your art collectors can keep up-to-date with your local events?
- Are you building a website to sell your art to people online?
- Are you building a website to help artists learn how to paint or draw?
Knowing who your target audience is will help you decide how you want to design your website and the content the site needs for your specific audience.
Once you have a clear vision of who will be visiting your site, you will want to know why they would visit and what they expect to find.
If your target audience is potential art collectors, they would probably want to see your artwork, read about the painting, the process, and background.
They would also expect an easy way to make a purchase and fully understand your business policies.
If your audience is a school panel of gallery representative, they would be interested in seeing your portfolio and read your artist statement.
If your target audience is emerging artists, they would expect a way to learn different art techniques either by video or text and images.
Large companies invest in much money to identify their buyer persona.
Developing a buyer persona will make it easier to decide what your site needs to attract your target audience and regularly return.
A buyer persona is a detailed description of a business’s target audience.
A target audience is a group of people who are interested in a business’s products or services.
Answering these questions will help you to build your persona:
Demographics
- Gender
- Age
- Location
- Income
Background
- Family
- Carre path
- Job
- Yearly income
Identifiers
- Communication preference
- Demeanor
What Website Features Do You Like Most
You probably have a few websites that you regularly visit either for information, to purchase products of inspiration.
Your go-to sites provide you precisely what you need and are designed to make it easy for you to find what you are looking for.
Make a detailed spreadsheet list of what you like about your favorite sites and what you do not like about the sites.
- What was your first impression?
- What made you revisit the site?
- Was it easy for you to navigate?
- Was it easy to find all of the information you were searching for or have to dig for the data?
Answer these questions for as many sites as you can.
The more information you gather now, the easier it will be to design your target audience’s website.
There are two separate categories you will want to focus on when you are making your spreadsheet.
Functionality:
- Navigation
- Popups
- Page structure
- Content
- Site speed
- Buttons and links
Design:
- Graphic design elements
- Colors
- Gifs
- Videos
- Images
What Pages Do I Need For My Site
One of the most common questions to ask before building a website is what does a site need.
Your site’s content is anything that you upload to your, website including text, images, video, and audio.
The content you upload to your site will also explain to search engines like Google what your site has to offer so they can recommend it to the right people.
There are a few standard pages every successful artist should have, and they are:
About Page – Your target audience visiting your site will want to learn about you as an artist and a business person.
Your about page is a brief story about your artistic journey and puts a face behind the content and products they are interested in.
Contact Page – Every artist page should include an easy way to for a potential art collector to contact you.
There are going to be times when a potential buyer has a few questions that need to be answered before they make a purchase.
If if it is difficult for a buyer to find the information they are searching for, they will move on and not make a purchase.
Portfolio or Gallery – The primary purpose of an artist’s website is to showcase art.
Provide a place where viewers can easily see all of your artwork without clicking on multiply links.
Blog – An artist blog will be a way to share stories that relate to your artwork, art business, and services.
The blog posts that you publish will be the way that people discover you in Google’s search.
The more blog posts you publish, the easier it will be for your target audience to discover your website.
Should You Build A WordPress Website Or Use A Website Builder
By this point you have:
- Your business goals documented
- Know who your target audience is
- Know what features your site should have
- Know the color theme of your site
- Now what relevant pages your website should have
Now is the time to decide if you will build your website or use a website builder.
Read these two articles to learn what your options are to make a better decision for your art business goals.
Here is a brief outline of what each has to offer:
WordPress Site:
- You build the site or hire a person to create it for you
- Best content management system
- Most businesses and bloggers sites are built on WordPress
- Affordable, you only pay a small fee for hosting and domain name
- Hosting services like BlueHost make it easy to build a WordPress site with a One-Click WordPress builder
- You own it
- Thousands of temples and plugins for unique web design
- Social media share buttons
- Integrate Google Analytics to see how your site is performing
- Easy to brand and separate yourself from the competition
- Seo optimized
- Blog incorporated in the site
- e-Commerce solution
Website Builders:
- Easy to use
- Monthly fees
- Limited features and templates
- Terms and conditions
What Should You Do After Your Web Development Is Completed
Now that you know what questions to ask before building a website the next step is to market your website.
Just because you have a website does not mean people will discover your online gallery.
The truth is that nobody will know your site exists unless you make them aware that your website exists.
Marketing will be a project that you will be working on for your entire art career.
Schedule some time every week to learn about art marketing to develop a marketing plan that will help you achieve your business goals.
To learn more about digital marketing, visit Art Business- Art Marketing Resource. Here you will find over a thousand articles that will help you to build a thriving art business.
What Marketing Strategies Should You Focus On
There are many layers involved in online marketing.
The main areas you will want to invest your time on are:
- Blogging
- Email marketing
- SEO
- Keyword Research
- Social media marketing
- Pinterest marketing
I suggest that you should start learning SEO, keyword research, and blogging right from the start.
These strategies are what will bring in the most traffic to your artist website.
The other strategies will be to land a sale and increase your conversion rate.
To learn more about keyword research visit Get Your Keywords Together: How To Do Keyword Research With Only Free Tools.
Final Thoughts On What Question Ask Before Building A Website
There is a lot to think about when you are planning on building a new website.
Take the time to go through all of the questions highlighted above.
Doing so will help you to make the best desition for your business.
The last thing you will want is to have a day when you are unhappy with your current website and need to invest in a website redesign.
Think about what you lie most about your favorite business websites.
- How is the user experience?
- Is the site mobile friendly?
- How is the website design?
- Is the site fast or slow?
Think about how your client will view your website.
Would you like to learn how to build a blog that generated over $15,000 a month?
Debbie Gartner explains exactly how she created a blog that makes her six figures a year.
- Easy On-Page SEO (For Beginners)
- Easy Backlinks For SEO
- Google Analytics Easy As 1,2,3
- Blog Income Recovery
You Might Also Be Interested In:
- The Ultimate Roadmap to Gallery Representation for Emerging Artists
- How to Get Your Art in Front of Your Ideal Audience
- The Benefits Of Using Print-On-Demand For Your Art Business
- Show Your Love for Wildlife with a Fine Art Print of a Cardinal Pastel Painting
- How To Sell Your Art At Craft Fairs Like A Pro
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Popular Art Marketing And Sales Tutorials
Below are some of the most famous art marketing courses that will grow your online art business:
Most Popular – How to Make a Living Selling What You Make by Megan Auman
Most Popular – Build a Successful Creative Blog by April Bowles-Olin
How to Build a Business While Learning Your Craft by Megan Auman
Pinterest Marketing for Makers & Designers by Megan Auman
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