This will be my first post in an on-going series intended to help Artists to use the internet to grow their business.

First Step: Your Online Presence.

I’m always surprised when photographers and artists have ugly websites. I constantly run across sites for professional photographers—with published books even—who have the worst looking sites. Really awful. Red and green type on a black background with navigation menus that look circa 1992 and the site is so unorganized that you can’t figure out what action to take. Think of this. Let’s say you walk into a store. The lighting is bad, the merchandise is in a jumble with hand scrawled signs. Can you find what you want to buy? Are you going to bother wanting to browse? Do you feel any confidence in the quality of the merchandise?

There is no reason why you can’t easily have a very nice site. I have to sit on my fingers to keep from firing off an email of admonishment when I see sites that do a dis-service to the artist. Your site should be clean, organized and easy to navigate. So, let’s get to work getting you a site that is inviting and confidence inspiring to your viewer.

I can only think of a couple of excuses not to have a visually pleasant site.

1. You aren’t aware of the alternatives

We’re going to change that. There are many inexpensive templates and services out there. On Apple, you can get a .mac account and use iWeb. It’s incredibly easy to use and has very nice templates with photo galleries. I have several personal sites up with iWeb and I’m very happy with them. The drawback to using iWeb though is that it is not very SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly.

We’ll get into this more later, but if you really want to be savvy about using the internet to promote your art sales and services, you should have a blog. And not just any blog. A WordPress blog. WordPress is primarily known as a blogging format, but people are building their entire sites on WordPress. There is a huge community of users and it is very SEO friendly. Not only that, there are thousands upon thousands of WordPress “themes” available. Many are free, but even the “premium” themes are very reasonably priced. (I’ll cover how to choose a theme in up-coming installments.)

2. You think you should design your own website

You’re an artist so you think you should design your own website. I’ve been there too. Here’s the thing: it’s a mistake to think that because you’re an artist you are also a graphic designer. I started in photography. I have a degree in Fine Arts, but when I first transitioned to graphic design, my designs sucked. Graphic design uses a different vocabulary. Sure, they are both visual arts and share many rules, but knowing the execution is not automatic. Typography alone requires quite a bit of study and practice.

I’ll go even further and say that even if you are a graphic designer, you may not have all the skills required to create a fantastic website. I’ve been in graphic design for around 16 years, but it’s been mostly as a print designer. I know enough HTML and CSS to be able to go in and edit basic things like background color. Even designers who do have the skills, usually find it easier to choose a theme that has the “bones” of what they like and customize from there.

While I’ll be doing some subtle customizations of this theme Fresh News by WooThemes I love its simplicity. I love the way it looks like the 100% rag white museum board we use to mat art. Even down to looking like it it has beveled edges around the windows.

OK. So I want you to have a hard look at your own website and think about migrating to a WordPress format. I’ll be back within the next few days to talk more about choosing your theme.