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As an artist, you want to spend your time creating art, not a website. Yet an artist website is the single biggest piece of marketing collateral for your artistic business.
A website showcases your artwork, makes it possible for people to discover you, and provides a means for patrons all over the world to 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.
To make an artist website, use a do-it-yourself website service called a content management system (CMS). A CMS allows you to create and customize a website without any technical knowledge.
A user-friendly CMS is a low-cost alternative to hiring someone to build the site for you, and some, such as Bolt CMS, let you 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.
To start, determine your objectives 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 intended for marketing purposes, too, such as announcing a gallery showing where patrons can view your art in person?
Your objectives will dictate what kind of website functionality is required. This allows you to look for the CMS that best fits your needs.
You may know immediately part of what you want -- such as another venue through which you can showcase your works -- but other objectives may be murky. Here are some suggestions to help.
Now that you’ve identified your objectives, it’s time to find a CMS. One important consideration is your budget. Determine how much you can afford on website costs each month. That will determine the type of CMS you can purchase and what capabilities are included.
Based on your objectives and budget, look at CMS platforms that meet your requirements. Some CMS options that work well for artists are highlighted at the end of this article.
The right CMS is essential for building your artist website. These tips can help you narrow your selection.
The next step is to assemble the content you’ll use on your website. One key action is to take digital pictures of your art to upload to the CMS.
In addition, consider the website sections you’ll need to create based on your objectives. For example, if you want to draw people to an exhibition, you may want to have a separate Events page to list the places where people can view your art in person.
Also, think about using your content and its presentation to convey who you are as an artist. For instance, you may want to inject a sense of humor through the text on the site, or even in subtle ways, like with the fonts and graphical elements you choose.
A website is a malleable and infinitely creative medium, so take advantage of its strengths.
Building an artist website involves some nuance in the content assembly process. Check out these tips to learn more.
Building the actual business website is straightforward. The CMS you choose will walk you through the process. Follow the steps, upload your content, then make the site live. That’s it!
There are additional details to consider depending on what functionality you desire and which CMS you’re 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 for search engines, such as Google, to find and serve up your website to people searching for artist sites. Since most websites are discovered through search engines, SEO is important. Fortunately, many CMS platforms include some SEO functionality as part of the package.
Also, some CMS platforms, such as Magnolia CMS, offer a suite 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 work that functionality into your site.
When you think about how to build a website, it can seem daunting at first. With a practical approach, though, anyone can do it. These tips can help you focus on what’s important.
Once your website is ready, and it’s live, your work is not done. Regular website management is crucial, such as updating the site with new works of art as well as information about your latest or upcoming events.
In addition, take some time to figure out how to evolve and grow the website. Your initial implementation is a starting point. After launching, you may find that site visitors have a hard time figuring out how to buy your art or find exhibition information.
To learn where your site may be failing to meet your objectives, collect and review statistics about your website. This data analytics capability is available through your CMS or via third-party tools such as Google Analytics.
Here are recommendations for how you can continue improving your website.
We’ve got the skinny on the best website platforms for artists. Each of the following CMS software options delivers ideal features and functions for artistic websites.
Wix offers a good blend of features, ease-of-use, and affordability. In fact, the platform offers a no-cost option, meaning you could create an artist website for free.
The Wix website builder is intuitive and walks you through the steps to create your site. Image source: Author
To get you 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 creating a site, the Wix ADI option will automatically create your website after you answer a few questions.
Wix also provides excellent technical support and hundreds of third-party add-ons to extend functionality as well as marketing and e-commerce options. It even handles hosting your site, allowing you to sign up for a domain name within the software. Wix is a well-rounded, one-stop shop for an artist’s website needs.
Squarespace is one of the best portfolio website creation tools. It offers a range of beautiful templates designed to highlight your work. It also provides a suite of e-commerce capabilities, making Squarespace a good solution for artists looking to sell their art online.
The templates offered through Squarespace incorporate principles of good design with eye-catching aesthetics. Image source: Author
This CMS integrates website analytics, SEO, marketing options such as newsletter creation, and third-party apps. 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 core features an artist requires to get a website up and running.
Wondering if there are any free websites for artists? Because WordPress is an open-source platform, meaning its software is made available for anyone to use, it’s always free. This free option happens to be very robust, although you’ll have to pay a fee if you want WordPress to host your site for you.
The thousands of third-party options on WordPress mean you can add a lot of functionality to your artist website. Image source: Author
WordPress is perfect for artists with unique website functionality needs because the platform provides access to thousands of third-party integrations. If you have a very specific requirement for your site, chances are good you can find the capability through a third-party app on WordPress.
As a result, WordPress offers lots of flexibility. This makes it a popular choice, and it’s used by thousands of websites. However, that flexibility also means it generally requires additional work to customize your site the way you want it.
Because WordPress has been around for years, it handles the basics of website creation well. Uploading content to WordPress is straightforward, and it integrates SEO into its templates.
It’s a little more complex than other CMS software given how much customization you can play around with, but it’s still a reasonably easy CMS to work with.
Your website acts as your artist portfolio, business card, and marketing centerpiece in one. Therefore, 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 constructed to achieve a specific marketing objective, such as collecting email sign-ups. Check out these landing page examples to get an idea of how they can help customers engage with your business.
A mix of a well-constructed website and marketing efforts that drive people to it will allow you to grow your audience and raise awareness about your works. So, it’s well worth the time and energy to create a website that best showcases you and your art.
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