My background in the world of art, which had me working as an art buyer for a publishing company, a store owner, a gallery intern, and an artist, gives me perspective on the world of art marketing from both sides of the equation. Add to that my experience building and marketing websites and you will find that I know what works, and what doesn't, for artists' sites.
I see artists struggling with the issue of websites over and over again. Below I have outlined a few areas that will make your site work better for you and your business.
Often times when artists and craftspeople sit down to create a new website for their art, they set their eyes on a look and feel first and foremost. Who can blame them? That is what they know. Look and feel is the expertise of most artists. However, your web presence is, and should be, very different than a work on the wall of a gallery or a piece on a pedestal in a museum. Artistic websites needs to strike a balance between an interesting design, usability motivated functionality, and search engine friendly elements.
First off, lets talk about the purpose of a website for an artist or anyone else. People often get so caught up in showing their uniqueness and personality with their sites that they forget the end game, which is information dispersal. Artists know what to do with a gallery, but the Internet is more like a library, and websites are like the books that line the shelves. A good artist website is similar to an artist-made book. It is unique and surprising in many ways, but there are certain elements that are included in them, such as a binding and written words that define them as "books" and not paintings or sculptures.
The most important element for any website is navigation. If you want a user-friendly site, the navigation needs to be well organized and clearly defined. If a user ends up on your site and has to struggle to find your navigation, you may have just increased your "bounce rate", which is the percentage of users that leave your site before they go beyond the homepage. This is not to say your navigation should be boring, however. You can use color, font, layout, and, if done correctly, movement to create a navigation that is inline with your style and personality for the site.
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