This information is located in our software for artists. Some references within the text will be software related.

WEBSITES FOR ARTISTS
DEVELOPING AND MAINTAINING YOUR WEBSITE
By Tucker Neel
 
Introduction:
 
Having and maintaining your own artist website is of the utmost importance, as the web is becoming more and more the place where curators, collectors, funders, and critics go to find out about new artists. A web site is also an indispensable marketing tool and will showcase your work to the broadest audience possible. It is extremely important that your website is easy to use, works for you, showcases your work in the most positive light possible, and makes you accessible to the people you want to reach.
 
A disclaimer:
While the intro to the GYST software states very clearly that every bit of information provided in this program is a suggestion, not a rule, it is important to restate this word of advice again when addressing websites. So remember THIS IS ONLY ADVICE. It is up to you to do your research, plan and make decisions regarding what kind of web presence you want to have, and what sort of website will serve you best. The web is constantly changing with new programming languages, browser requirements, and accepted rules of “good design,” shifting each year. It is important to remember that your site should keep up with the times too.
 
Getting Started:
 
First Things First
Buy your domain name ASAP. Your domain name will be the URL you give to people directing them to your site. It should be memorable, easily pronounceable, and hopefully easy to spell. If your full name is available, it’s a good idea to buy that no matter what so that you won’t have someone owning www.yourname.com in the future. Check right now to see if your name is available by visiting any of the hundreds of sites that provide this search capability, like http://www.checkdomain.com. 
The price to register a domain ranges from $10 to $30 a year. You will want to buy yourdomainname.com AND .org. you might also consider buying .net. Anything else is really just gravy and you don’t have to worry about people confusing it with your own website name.
 
Buy only your domain name. Don’t bother buying any hosting services right now. That comes later and can get a little complicated. You can use any number of companies to buy your domain name. There are dozens of services out there so remember to do your research!
 
Godaddy.com is the most popular option.
http://www.thinkhost.com/ is a green company committed to Progressive causes
http://www.supergreenhosting.com/ is another green company
 
Your Website and You
As it is with your artist statement or portfolio, your website is all about understanding your audience, the way you want others to see your work, and what they want to get out of that experience.
Consider your practice and how you want to come across to people who visit your site.
 
You may want to appear commercial. You may want to only show work that is available for sale. You may want to include prices, or even an auction feature. Realize how this will impact how your work is viewed, as some people in the art world might find this tacky or distracting, while others might be surfing the web looking for a bargain.
             
You might want to appear experimental. Does your practice demand an extremely unconventional website, with lots of innovative features? These kind of sites usually work for artists who make interactive, web-based work. Also artists with more established careers tend to employ these sorts of unique, but sometimes frustrating, designs. Consider if you are willing to sacrifice usability for uniqueness.
 
You may want your site to mimic the look of a “white cube” gallery, with a white background, sans-serif font text, and minimal distractions. This is the most popular design for artist websites, especially the kind of sites offered by online services providing boilerplate designs. While your site might look like everyone else’s, think about how the ease of use will benefit or hinder how people see your work.
 
You may decide you don’t want or need a website. Some artists, especially those who built their careers during a time before the internet, often rely on their gallery to maintain their web presence. Other artists believe a website provides a false contextualization for their work. And some artists just don’t want to go through the hassle of having and maintaining a website. Before you decide to chuck the idea of a website entirely, think about the people you won’t be able to reach and the opportunities that will fall by the wayside if you don’t keep a web presence. Consider maintaining a limited artist website with just a few images, or just a statement and resume and contact information. In the end it’s up to you how much of your practice you make available on the web.
 
Do Your Homework
The first thing to do is to RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH. You should look at dozens, if not hundreds of artists’ websites before you even begin to think about your own site. You will want to bookmark the ones you like and the ones you really dislike. Taking notes on what works and what doesn’t will help you when you start to shop around for your own site. Some great places to start are:
 
Artslant
http://www.artslant.com/
Artslant is a site where artists can post their profile and samples of work so that they can network with other artists both locally and internationally. It’s linked to galleries, museums, and non-profits and is a great way to find out what is happening in some of the art world’s major capitals like New York, Berlin, L.A., etc. Browse artists profiles by visiting http://www.artslant.com/global/artists/profilelist?allcities=1. If someone has listed their own personal website, click on it and take notes on what works and doesn’t work.
 
Saatchi Online Gallery
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/yourgallery/A2ZArtists/
Like Artslant, Saatchi’s online gallery lets artists from all over the world post a profile with some examples of their work. It’s a huge listing, but worth browsing through to find artists who’ve linked to their personal websites.
 
It’s up to you whether you want to register with these sites and open your own profile, but it’s a good idea to launch your own website before you register with these services.
 
 
Basic Guidelines
Some basic advice and guidelines to think about when judging websites:
 
- Make it ACCESSIBLE. When you go to an artist’s website you should immediately see work and understand where you need to click to see more work, as well as the artist statement, resume, contact info, and any other information vital to their practice.
 
- KEEP YOUR VISITOR. You don’t want your website’s design to encourage your visitor to leave, ever. You want your visitor to stay as long as possible. Avoid splash pages, where, when you go to the main website link, all you see is one big image and you have to click on it to see more work. Even though it might seem obvious that this is what you need to do to access the rest of the site, you risk confusing your visitor or having them simply leave your site because they don’t like the one particular work on the splash page. Avoid designs requiring your visitor to download special plug-ins to view video or images. Anything like this could cause them to leave your site.
 
- Make it FAST. There is nothing more infuriating than surfing the web and having to wait for something to load, be it a horizontal bar, a swirling arrow, or a cute animal chasing its tail. This means that, in general, gratuitous features made using Flash are not your friend. Flash is an amazing program, but don’t let it get in the way of an eager visitor trying to see your work. The longer they have to wait, the more likely they are to leave your site. This rule doesn’t necessarily apply once you are in the artist’s site, as most people understand that it can take a moment to load video or images. But if it takes more than one or two seconds for something to load, you can bet you will lose visitors.
 
- A blog is not a website. You can certainly use a blog template, like a Wordpress template to design your site, but in general, you want each work to appear on its own, above the fold (which means you shouldn’t have to scroll down to see the work). Blogs are a great tool, as you will see later in this tutorial. But if you want a website that is easy to navigate and makes each individual work look its best, you want to avoid a blog format where you have to scroll scroll scroll your way down to see more work.
 
- Your website should focus on your art, not pictures of your vacation with your family, not pretty pictures of sunsets, and not work by other artists you admire. Your website should only have your work, and in general should only include work you consider complete and ready for exhibition. You may want to post pictures of works in progress, studies, or preliminary plans, but be aware that you risk giving away the surprise that comes with seeing complete work.
 
- Separate your fine art from other work. If you do work for hire, contract work, or commission work as a designer or in another field that you don’t consider part of your art practice, then don’t mix this work up with your art on your artist website. For example, if you are a photographer but you also take wedding photographs on the weekend to pay the rent, you might want to think twice about having those wedding photos on your site next to your fine art photography. Mixing the two could risk confusing your visitors, or worse, labeling you as unprofessional.
 
- Do not use “cookies” (small files which attach to a visitor’s hard drive to track movements around your site and collect personal data).  They are an invasion of privacy and may cause you trouble.
 
- Make sure site looks good on different browsers, especially Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer. Some people use older computers and older versions of these browsers so try to test your site using these aged computers as well.
 
- Don’t use too much text. You can say as much as you like with your artist statement, bio and resume, but don’t require your visitor to read tons of text at every turn (unless, of course, the work itself is text-heavy).
 
- Provide the right information. Just like your printed portfolio, you want your website to provide accurate and necessary information about each piece. This means providing the basic info for each work: Title, date, dimensions and medium. If the work needs more explanation provide it, especially for installations and work that might not be as accessible on the web.
 
-Keep your images limited to 72dpi. This is the standard pixel size for online images. You also don’t want your images taking up the entire screen. Remember, some people use very small computer screens when looking at websites, and have multiple windows open at once. Depending on the constraints of your web design, you might want to limit the width of your images to 800pixels max. Also, try to limit the size of images to less than 200K, which will ensure that each page loads quickly.
 
-Make sure you can easily drag and drop images directly from the site onto your desktop. This may seem like a negligible feature, but it’s very important. When curators, collectors, or just interested parties are searching the web for works they like, or artists to consider for a show, they will want to simply drag images off the site into a folder on their desktop. Make sure that when you do this the corresponding file name that appears on the desktop has at least your last name its title. Worried about people stealing your work or printing posters from your online images? Keep in mind that printing from a 72dpi image almost always guarantees horrible image quality. Plus, having your work on the web and copyrighted should deter anyone trying to use your work without your permission.
 
-Make sure visitors can contact you directly. Your site should have a contact page with your email listed. Some people prefer not to fill out forms, so you want to have some way for them to click on your email and contact you through their computer’s email program. There are ways to use html to hide your actual email address from spammers in a way that will still let visitors email you. And, of course, don’t list personal information like street address or phone number, unless you want everyone in the world to have that information.
 
-Keep ads off your site. Your website is the best advertisement for your work. Why would you want to clutter it with ads for other people’s stuff? If you want to make money from ad space, do it with a blog, not with your website.
 
-Share the love. Make sure your site includes a links page where you can provide a list of links to your artist friends, colleagues, institutions you support, and artists you admire. Sharing links is not only a great way to show support, it also generates web traffic and can help your site climb higher in internet search engine results. 
 
-For a look at common design mistakes and things you should NEVER put on your site visit The World’s Worst Website at http://www.angelfire.com/super/badwebs/
 
Ok so you have bought your domain name, done your research, gathered together many sites you like and a few you find god-awful. What do you do next?
 
YOUR OPTIONS
 
There are many options available to you when creating a web presence. First we should address the whole notion of “free hosting.”
 
Free hosting on a big group website
Nothing is ever “Free.” Free websites, demo websites, and websites run by online arts organizations make money by planting ad space on your site or profile page.
 
You can register with these sites as a way to network with other artists but you should keep a few things in mind:
-Your website will have the company’s name in it. So, if you give this site out as your official website it will be forever tied to that company, leaving visitors to wonder why you are too cheap to have your own independent website.
 
-You will be a nobody, a small fish in a big pond with hundreds, sometimes thousands of artists competing for viewers. If you operate your own site it’s all about you, and you control where your site links to.
 
-Ads will clutter the site’s design and distract from your work.
 
-Some of these sites have horrible, horrible designs and can make even great work look terrible.
 
-The chance of actually selling work using these sites is miniscule. At the end of the day the people really making money are the people running the site.
 
-It can be difficult or impossible to remove yourself from these sites AND, if they have a lot of artists on their site, your name, your hosted page could come up high in Google search results. This means that even if you have your own website, this site might appear before it when google runs a search. You want people to visit YOUR site, not some company’s site hosting your profile.
 
A few examples of big group websites are:
http://www.absolutearts.com
www.artistregister.com
http://artistresource.org
 
Take a few minutes to peruse the artists websites offered by these services and ask yourself if that is the ideal way you want people to view your work.
 
So what other options are available?
 
Hiring someone to do it for you
 
Paying a designer to create your website from the bottom up can be a fantastic experience, resulting in an amazing website, or it can be an infuriating struggle culminating in a mediocre site.
 
Designers can charge anywhere from $15 to over $100 an hour. As with almost everything else in the world, you get what you pay for. So if you want a site with a lot of bells and whistles, be prepared to pay for it.
 
Some designers can try to charge you every time you need to update your site. This can mean hundreds, if not thousands of dollars down the road. So make sure you work out the details of how you will update your site ahead of time.
 
If you are going to hire a designer you should make sure to do the following:
 
Do your research. Look at their past work, see if it fits the look you are going for with your site. If they specialize in designing for corporations, like banks or shopping centers, make sure they have also made websites for artists. You don’t want to be their first artist client. In fact, it’s a good idea to go with someone who specializes in designing artist websites because they will know how users navigate artist websites, they will know how the site should flow from page to page and the subtleties of making artwork look good on the internet.
 
Understand the difference between a designer and a programmer. A designer will actually create the look of the website, where text goes, where images go, etc. A programmer actually writes code and makes the design a workable reality. Sometimes designers are also programmers, but not always. If you just work with a programmer, they will expect you to design the work and you will get exactly what you ask for, which, in the end, might not be what you want. It is always important to talk with a designer.
 
Request at least three references you can contact. This means people you can actually talk to on the phone. You’ll want to ask them about their experience working with the designer. Did the designer meet their expectations? Did they do what they said they were going to do? Were deadlines met? Did the designer stick to the budget?
 
Never underestimate the power of references. First send the word out to your artist friends that you are looking for a designer. Ask around and see if you know any designers you can work with one-on-one. Who knows, you might be able to have them design the site for you in-trade for artwork.
 
Try and find a designer that will write code allowing you to easily update your site yourself. This will save you money because you won’t have to pay a programmer to do it for you.
 
When you have decided on a web designer, you will need to draw up a very simple contract stating when certain steps in the project need to be completed and when payment is due. It’s a good idea to reserve your final payment  (usually half of the total estimate) for when the site is entirely finished. Never pay the final payment until you have a copy of the site on a CD. This will be a single folder with many folders nested within it. The reason you want this file is because with it you can alter the code, and change and update your site yourself, should you decide to do so, or should you want to switch to another designer.
 
Doing it yourself
Designing your own website can be a great learning experience. When you’re done you will not only have built your site on your own terms, but you will have also learned a valuable skill that you can, perhaps, turn around and use to help other artists and make a little cash.
 
That said, learning how to build a website can be a daunting experience depending on the kind of site you want to build and how you want your site to function.
 
Before you decide to go it alone you need to ask yourself a few questions:
How much time do I have to devote to designing my site?
 
Do I trust my skills as a designer enough to believe that I will create a professional looking website?
 
How much money am I willing to invest in software and classes that will help me design the site I want?
 
Am I willing to learn programming languages like HTML, XHTML, CSS, PHP and programs like Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, etc?
 
Am I willing to keep up with changes in these programming languages and adapt my site accordingly?
 
Am I willing to invest in this design for the long-run? The web changes at a rapid pace and eventually you will have to redesign your site (probably in the next two years, if you want to stay trendy). Will you be willing to put in this effort?
 
After answering these questions you should have a pretty good idea of your abilities and commitment to designing your own site. If you are unsure whether or not you are up to the challenge, if you doubt your ability to put in the time, money and effort, or if you have no idea what HTML, PHP, Photoshop, or 72dpi even mean, you might want to consider going with a company that specializes in pre-fab artist websites (see below). Still on the fence? Read on and see what it takes to create your own website. Once again, please understand that this is a very rudimentary overview of how to craft your own website. Doing this yourself will take lots of time and diligence. But the payoff and the knowledge that you did it yourself can be priceless.
 
PLANNING
 
You should always plan a web site on paper first before you begin even gathering together your web site images and text.  Look at other artists’ sites and consider the features that you feel you need.  Most important, consider the objective and the audience for your site.  Do you want to sell work on the site?  Do you want to keep your site simple so that everyone, including those who still have dial-up connections, can see it?
 
Good design is important and the site should be easy to use.  While researching other sites, pay attention to details such as the navigation of the site, download times, the structure of the site, how each page looks, and the accessibility of the site (i.e.. plug-ins, browser, platform and operating system).  Some people go overboard with special animated flash content, and it drives visitors crazy, since they spend too much time waiting for a site to open and move on.  You do NOT want your audience to move on.
 
Use this site map to start sketching out how your site will flow and how pages will link to one another.
Get a stack of blank note cards and draw out a very rough sketch of what you want your homepage to look like. Then draw out what the Works page will look like, the resume page, the artist statement page, etc. Next lay these pages out and connect them with lines or string, showing how each page will link to another. The layout should look quite simple when it’s finished. You will want to document how this layout looks for incorporating it later into your websites’ overall design.
 
Content of the Site
 
You might want to break up your site into a number of categories, which can be accessed from a contents page on the first page of your site.  Some examples include: exhibitions, resume, artist statement, curatorial projects, public art, lectures and panels, or any of the other categories you may currently list on your resume.  You may also have a news section for upcoming events or a place to sign up for your e-mail list.  Carefully plan out just how you want your site to work, and begin collecting content for the site.
 
Content for the site should include any text based files you have (artist statement, resume, work descriptions, bio) as well as images.  The two most common image file formats for the web are JPEG and GIF. Use JPEGs for images of artwork, and GIFs for buttons and other graphic elements. The resolution of these image files on the web should be no larger than 72 dpi. Any files with a larger dpi will increase the download time for your images.
 
After you have created your site, imported images, text and linked up all your pages, make sure to have a few other people go over the design and especially the text to spot any mistakes. You don’t want to publish your site with any grammatical errors or misspelled words.  And you want to make sure that your visitors can get from page to page easily.
 
Hosting

A site host or provider is where the files of your web site reside on the Internet. Many companies can provide you with both a domain name and web hosting for one fee. Generally, the fee for web hosting is based on the space or file size that your web site will occupy on the company’s server, in addition to services such as E-mail accounts, password protected pages, etc.
 
You need to decide early on if you want your site to include video, multiple email accounts, lots of images, large images, a blog, a discussion forum, or any number of functions because these capabilities will influence how much your hosting costs.
 
A lot of people have hosting space that they do not even know about, as many companies provide a small hosting account that comes with an E-mail account. Most Internet Service Providers  (Earthlink, GoDaddy, MSN, etc.) offer their customers limited web site space as part of their E-mail service package. Usually this space is adequate for a basic artist web site, although if you don’t have your own domain name, often the web site addresses these companies assign are complicated. One way to get around this is to go ahead and purchase a domain name and then have the company that is providing the domain name reroute visitors to the address where your site is hosted. Otherwise your web site address might include the name of the hosting company, which is distracting to those looking for your domain name.
 
Make sure that when you purchase your hosting package you know what you are paying for. Many services try to sell you functions and space you simply don’t need. It’s worth the time and effort to call the hosting company and speak to someone directly who can walk you through the process. Also you might want to consult with a web designer, teacher, or another artist who’s dealt with this process ahead of time and ask what services you should purchase.
 
Software you will need
 
If the hosting company has a do it yourself web design component, you might be able to do everything via that site.  If not, and you decide to design your website yourself, you will need a software program such as Dreamweaver, or GoLive and photo editing software such as Photoshop, or Photoshop Elements (cheaper).
 
A web resource like thefreecountry.com has a list of free html and web editors available. If you don’t have Photoshop and don’t want to buy it, consider downloading Gimp, which is similar to Photoshop. Gimp is available at gimp.org. If you are going to add video clips or sound to your site, additional software will be required.
 
You might also decide to go with a web template that is recognized by blogging sites like Wordpress. There are literally thousands of templates out there. The trick is to find one that works for you. If you find one you are happy with you might have to pay the original designer a fee to use it. This can be much cheaper than hiring someone to design an entirely new site for you. But keep in mind that if you want to change the style of the template, meaning colors or any other design elements, you may have to learn PHP, HTML, or other programming languages. This can take time and money.
 
Getting Published
 
Once you site has been created, it needs to be uploaded/published. This will be an ongoing process in the life of your site. The main method of publishing a web site is to use a FTP (file transfer protocol) program. This type of program enables you to transfer files from your development site to a live server. There are plenty of good freeware FTP programs out there like Filezilla (http://filezilla-project.org/) and Cyberduck (http://cyberduck.ch/). Most will meet the needs and size of an artist’s web site so find one that works for you. Some hosting companies will take you through the process, or provide an easy way to publish through their web site.
 
Search Engines
 
Another aspect of creating a web site is making sure that web users can easily find your website. Search engines literally search a database of indexed sites by seeking keywords or phrases. However, in the case of crawler-based services such as Google, or in the case of user-powered directory-based services like Yahoo, you don’t need to submit your site because they have their own site bots. Search engine optimization is a science in itself. For more information on how search engines work, visit SearchEngineWatch.com.
 
Do NOT pay for services that promise to send your site to search engines or increase traffic to your site, these are scams. There is nothing they can do for you that you cannot do yourself.
 
Create reasons for viewers to come back to your site.  Upload new work, information or projects regularly, and inform your audience that the site has new content.  Always have news and events info that is up to date.
 
Copyright Issues
 
Guarding against unauthorized use of your online images is difficult if not impossible.  Exercise due diligence and do what you can to make sure your images are not used without your permission, but never use concerns over copyright infringement as an excuse for not showing your art online or anywhere else, as your work is already in the public domain.  Remember that your art is your business card—your single best means of advertising. The more people who see your art, whether in person or online, the greater your chances for making sales. Once your work has been published (this includes showing in a gallery or publishing to a web site), your work is then copyrighted.  For additional copyright protection, see the copyright section, or do copyright research on the web.
 
You can choose to put watermarks in your online work, but realize that this is usually distracting and might actually be unnecessary. It’s a better idea to just copyright your work. (See Copyright section)
 
Selling your work online

If you decide to sell your work online think long and hard about how this will influence how visitors will regard your work. If you’ve looked at many artists websites you’ll notice that most of them do not offer their work for sale directly through their website. There are many reasons for this. First of all, many artists go through galleries or dealers or sell their work directly out of exhibitions or their studios. This establishes a collector base sprouted from face-to-face contact. But with the internet changing how people view artwork, more and more sales are happening online. It is up to you to decide if you want to sell work through the net. Most artwork is hard to experience on the web, so most collectors don’t buy expensive work without seeing it firsthand.
 
If you sell work through your site you will have to work through Paypal, Ebay or other shopping carts. These services will take a percentage of the sale or charge a fee for each transaction. Contacting these providers and setting up a payment and sales system is relatively easy. Just make sure your website can handle the programming/coding issues that come with making online sales.
 
If your work is for sale, you should consider how you price your work. Make sure work that is for sale is labeled accordingly and make sure that viewers can understand your pricing structure as well.
 
Offer approval, return and refund policies.  On-line shoppers want to see art on approval first, and be able to return it for a complete refund if it does not look like what they saw on the web.  Without this, you will not get many sales. Also remember that the web changes the way work looks, so someone might buy your art and demand a refund when, say, the blue color in a painting appears different in-person vs. the web. Be prepared to receive returned work.
 
Once a work has sold take it off your site. Keeping sold works on your side can be confusing. It’s like visiting a store, but everything is already sold, which makes for a frustrating shopping experience. Or if it is an important work, make a different section for that work.
 
Ok. So you have thought about designing your site and realize that you don’t have the time or the resources. Also, you can’t afford to hire a designer. What other options are available?
 
Paying a company for a pre-fabricated site and hosting
 
In the past few years, dozens of successful web companies have begun marketing pre-made website templates to artists. These companies have done all the work of designing artists’ websites and some of them look quite good, others have problems. These companies make money by charging a sign up fee and monthly or yearly fees ranging anywhere from $15 - $100 a month, depending on the kind of site you want. Usually these companies also pay for hosting fees so you don’t have to, it’s bundled into your fee.
 
There are pros and cons that come with subscribing to one of these services.
 
The best thing about going with one of these services is that they have done a lot of the work for you. They’ve designed the front end, which is how the site appears when you view it on an internet browser. They’ve researched what makes a successful artist website and hopefully incorporated good design into their product. They’ve considered how visitors navigate the site, made it compatible with all browsers, and they work to fix bugs and solve problems. Most importantly for you, they’ve designed the back end, which is the program you use to upload content to your site.
 
Additionally, when you sign up with these services you may find yourself in excellent company with other professional artists willing to pay money for good web design. The host company might even have a list of selected clientele that link to your website, which both puts your site higher in Google searches, and also looks good to visitors trying to gauge your professionalism. Know what you are getting into. Research what other kinds of artists are on the site before you sign up.
 
When selecting one of these services you want to follow protocol similar to hiring a private web designer. Get referrals, research their client base, look at the sites they provide and judge them accordingly. See if you can talk with the people who actually designed the service. Test how quickly they return emails. If your having problems with your site in the future, you’ll want to be dealing with someone who gets back to you quickly and fixes problems even quicker.
 
On top of researching the sites they make available on the web, ask to see the BACK END, the interface their subscribers use to upload new content to their sites. See if they offer a trial period where you can get used to uploading your files. When viewing and using the back end, ask yourself the following questions:
 
Is the interface intuitive?
Will I need lots of assistance to figure out how to get my information onto my site?
Does the interface allow for me to customize my page?
Is it easy to change font size, color, and add new content sections?
How flexible is the layout and how much power do I have to change it?
How much do they charge for minor customization?
Does the upload feature shut down when I try to upload images?
What size files will the back end allow me to upload?
Am I limited when it comes to the orientation of images or where they appear on the page?
Can I back up my website on my own computer or a back up drive?
Will I be able to find and alter old files easily?
Is there a search feature?
How receptive is the interface to html codes, for example, this simple code used to embed pictures: <img src=" http://imagebase.davidniblack.com/main.php?g2_itemId=465&g2_imageViewsIndex=" />?
 
After navigating through the interface, you should have a pretty good idea of what it will be like to use the service.
 
Who should you choose?
 
We’ve looked into many of the companies offering pre-fab artist websites and have decided that we really like Artcodeinc.com. This company really has the best interests of their artist customers in mind. Their sites are well designed and easy to navigate. Their back end interface is intuitive and allows for just the right amount of customization. They are working on adding video capabilities, so their service isn’t perfect. But, unlike other services, they offer a free 30-day demo you can use to see if you like what they have to offer. And, most importantly, their service is very affordably priced at only $15 a month plus a $100 sign up fee. That includes hosting.
 
If you tell them GYST sent you, they will offer you a discount.
 
E-Mail
Using proper email etiquette can mean the difference between cultivating a lifelong fan or birthing an angry enemy. Make sure you learn to use E-mail correctly.
 
First of all you might want to purchase or secure a personalized email address connected to your website. This can be mail@yourwebsite.com, your name@yourwebsite.com, etc. Having this email makes you appear professional and looks much better than yourname12345@hotmail.com
 
If you are going to send emails to more than twenty or so people at once consider using a mass-email system as offered by internet hosting companies like Godaddy. Using this system will usually get around spam filters, and your email is less likely to end up in the Trash.
 
Remember, it is annoying and impolite to disclose the E-mail addresses from your contact list in the To: section of an email.  Send E-mails to yourself in the To: section, and then add the others in the BCC (blind carbon copy) section to avoid this problem.  Remember, some emails are private.
 
Be very careful when sending images in your E-mails, as they can take a long time to download.  If you don’t know the person you are emailing, think about warning them before you send an email with an attachment. This way, they will be sure to open your email, instead of rejecting it as virus-laden spam.
 
You should never send large files (more than 5 –10MB) through E-mail unless requested.  For large files consider using an online service like yousendit.com, which will allow your recipient to download the file via the web.
 
Never send a bunch of unsolicited images to galleries or organizations.
 
Never send out unsolicited information about yourself to a bunch of random E-mails you happened to receive because they were carelessly left visible in the To: field. You don’t want to receive an angry email asking, “How did you get my email?”
 
Use your mail program to create an E-mail signature file that will be included in every E-mail you send. Keep it short with your name, E-mail address, and web site URL. Consider including one sentence summing up your art practice so they will know who you are. This little trick will work wonders!
 
RESOURCES
Check out the GYST master reading list. But here are some places to go for more info about building your artist website:
 
Building Arts Audiences and Communities on the Web by the folks at NYFA
http://spiderschool.org/1997/index.html
 
Using The Internet to Market Your Work by Beth Kanter
http://archive.nyfa.org/level4.asp?id=257&fid=1&sid=51&tid=201
 
Using the Internet To Get Your Work Noticed by NYFA
http://spiderschool.org/workshops/njsca/index.html
 
AVOID COMMON ART & ARTIST WEB SITE MISTAKES by Artbusiness.com
http://www.artbusiness.com/weberrors.html
 
Commonly Made Mistakes When Building an Artist Website by Jodi Krangle
http://www.musesmuse.com/krangle-websitemistakes.html
 
Jessett.com –  www.jessett.com
Good basic information on the basics of creating a web site.
 
Register.com -  www.register.com
 
ReadyHosting.com - www.readyhosting.com
 
GoDaddy.com - www.GoDaddy.com
All register domain names and also provide hosting services.
 
Macromedia’s Dreamweaver MX - www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/
 
Adobe’s GoLive - www.adobe.com/products/golive/
 
Microsoft’s FrontPage - www.microsoft.com/frontpage/
 
Adobe’s Photoshop Elements - www.adobe.com/products/photoshopel/main.html
 
GraphicConverter – www.lemkesoft.de/en/index.htm
GraphicConverter converts pictures to different formats. It also contains many useful features for picture manipulation.
 
Freeware and Shareware titles –  www.versiontracker.com or www.webattack.com
  
Search Engine information -  www.searchenginewatch.com
 
Artist Trust has a list of independent web designers in Washington State. Artist Trust
1835 12th Ave.
Seattle, WA 98122
206/467-8734 x10
866/218-7878
info@artisttrust.org
 
Submit your artist web site URL for free to these artist directories:
• Yahoo! Directory  www.add.yahoo.com/fast/add?10203301
• The Pauper’s Artist Directory  www.thepauper.com/cafe/showpauper.asp
• The Open Directory Project  www.dmoz.org/
• Published.com 
• Artappeal.com
• Digitaldirectory.com
· Studioarts.co.uk

Weinman, Lynda. Designing Web Graphics: How to Prepare Images and Media for the Web. Indianapolis: New Riders Publishing, 1997.
Designing Web Graphics was written from a visual designer’s perspective, in an effort to teach other designers what is different about Web graphics.

Williams, Robin and John Tollett. The Non-Designers Web Book: An Easy Guide to Creating, Designing, and Posting Your Own Web Site. Berkeley: Peachpit Press, 1997. The Non-Designer’s Web Book is an attractive, full-color guide for aspiring Web designers. The authors first explain how to browse and search the Web, and discuss how to plan and post a Web site. They then get you into the real work of designing Web sites, whether for business or personal purposes.
 
Web Search Engines
 
Submit your site for free to these major search engines if your web site does not appear in their results:
• Google
• Yahoo!
• MSN Search
 
Message Boards / Groups
 
Interact with other artists online to get more exposure. Here are some groups and message boards to consider joining. Be sure not to spread yourself too thin - this tactic only works if you are engaged with the other users.
• Yahoo! Groups for Entertainment & Arts
• Craiglist Forums
• eZBoard
• The Pauper Cafe Message Board
• The GYST Ink Networking Site