STEPS TO BUILDING A WEBSITE:
1. Define Website Objective: What is the primary purpose of your Website?
a. Distribute Information
b. Collect Information
c. Sell
d. Reinforce Brand
2. Determine your budget: How much have you budgeted to complete your Website? Listed below are just some of the expenses you'll run into when building your Website.
a. One-time costs:
- Website developer
b. Ongoing expenses:
- Domain name registration (Annual expense)
- Website/e-mail hosting (Monthly Expense)
c. Website updates (Hourly rate or monthly contract)
4. Choosing and working with a Website developer
a. Things to ask your Website developer:
- What sites have they done?
- How long have they been in business?
- Who does their hosting?
- How much are changes and how quickly do they make them?
- Can they provide up-to-date references?
- Who owns what at the completion of the project?
5. Define Brand Identity: The look and feel of you site should clearly define who you or your business is. For example, are you friendly and approachable or, are you corporate and more business-like? Choose colors and imagery that supports your brand identity.
6. Create a Site Map: A site map is to your Web developer what a blueprint is to an architect. This is when you identify what pages you want on your site. Then start gathering the text and images that will go on each page. ii. Create Site Map: Below is an example of a typical site map that represents a 12 page Website.
o Home Page
- Contact Info
- About Us
• Driving Directions
- Products
• Purchasing info
• Order form
- Latest News
- Email signup page
- Our Services
- Staff
- Links
Provide plenty of contact information. The more you tell people about yourself such as your complete studio address, phone number, fax number, and email address, the more accessible you appear. Don't give potential customers the impression that you're hard to communicate with by only showing your email address and not even telling them where you live.
Keep text to a minimum. Use too many words to explain yourself or your art and you'll bore visitors right off of your site. If you wish to provide detailed information, link those pages rather than place them on high-traffic locations like your homepage. People who want to read more will click over to it; those who would rather see art won't be slowed down by it.
v. Price every piece of art that you have for sale. Not pricing your art on-site, but rather asking people to email you for prices, is a big mistake. You'll lose potential sales if you do this. As in real life, many people prefer to shop for art quietly by themselves. They're afraid that if they start asking for prices, someone will try to sell them something.
vi. Don't show too much sold art. Some artists think that showing numerous sold works of art will make people want to buy whatever remaining pieces happen to be for sale. The effect is exactly the opposite. Potential buyers think that the best pieces are already gone and all that's left are leftovers. They also get frustrated when a selection is too limited.
vii. Offer art in all price ranges. Internet art shoppers tend to be conservative, very often buy less expensive pieces, and get discouraged when every piece they see costs thousands of dollars. This is especially true when they haven't bought from you before. Make sure that everyone who likes your art enough to buy it will be able to buy something regardless of his or her budget.
viii. Be sure to attach a Copyright notice © on your Website with the applicable information
d. Design site
e. Build site
i. Make sure your web site looks the same on Netscape as it does on Internet Explorer. The same web site can look great on one browser and terrible on the other. Test yours on both before going public.
ii. Make your site easy to navigate. Some web site formats are far too confusing, have dead-end pages, or have gallery sections that seem more like medieval mazes. Visitors get lost, and lost visitors mean lost sales. Make sure that every page on your site is linked back to major pages like your homepage, contact information page, art ordering form, and gallery main page.
iii. Avoid large image sizes. Your art may look great as it downloads over high-speed connections, but remember that most people still connect to the Internet via traditional modems. Long downloads frustrate visitors and force them off of your site, so use images no larger than 30-60K.
iv. Never require visitors to join, register, get passwords, or fill out any forms of any kind in order to see your web site. Forcing people to identify themselves before they can see your art is a horrible idea. Imagine if people had to show their driver's licenses or other types of identification in order to visit bricks-and-mortar galleries or artist studios. This doesn't happen in real life and it shouldn't happen online.
v. Don't use "cookies" (small files that attach to visitors' computer hard drives, track their movements around your site, and collect personal data). The worst offenders are those sites that refuse to let you in unless you allow them to set cookies in your computer (I never stay on these sites). Cookies are an invasion of privacy and are occasionally necessary only when filling out certain forms or when buying art using "shopping cart" services. When people want to contact you, they will. Don't force information out of them.
vi. Avoid plug-ins, special effects, complex visuals, and other gimmicks. These often take a long time to load, require special software or, at worst, crash visitors' computers. Unless your web site is designed to be a work of art or performance piece in and of itself, and exists primarily for entertainment purposes, avoid the fancy stuff. Most people visit an artist's web site to see the art as fast and easy as possible.
f. Launch site
5. Market your site:
a. Most site referrals come from off-line sources. Word-of-mouth, traditional advertising, the traditional media, etc.
i. Put your website address on all stationary, business cards, and ads…even your voicemail. Sending out postcards to announce the launch of a new site is also a good idea.
b. Online Marketing: Newsgroup postings, web directories and links from other sites.
c. Submit your site to search engines
6. Maintain your site: Leave room for expansion—websites are fluid and organic and will be ever-changing. You want visitors to return, so update your home page with a new image and/or text every month or so
