image by bonguri
Last week when I was reviewing artist websites, I noticed that there is a trend toward building websites that are created once and then never updated. I wanted to say a little something about that today.
STOP IT!!
You know when you go looking at a company’s website and it looks like it was put on the Web in 1999 and it hasn’t been touched since? You know the signs, right? Little cheesy animated images and glitter? Framed pages. Web rings and reciprocal link pages?
The Web evolves rapidly, and your website has to be kept up to date or you’ll lose visitors. That’s just the way it is, no use complaining about it (no, really. stop whining). A website needs to be updated every couple of years to reflect current trends in design and technology. You don’t need to be trendy, but you do need to have some sense of what’s currently happening.
Your Website: Clay or Stone?
A website is a lot more like clay than it is like stone. With stone, you have to plan things out before you start hacking at it. Any mistakes made in stone can’t be undone. Clay, on the other hand, is very forgiving. You can remold it, change it, and shape it. Websites should be constantly changing, evolving, and reshaping.
Many of you reading this will be thinking, “But I don’t have time to constantly redo my website. It has to be right and then I have to go back to the studio.” I understand, I really do, but if you’re going to be an independent artist with control over your own career, you need to know a little bit about all aspects of your business – including websites.
Don’t fear mistakes
Whatever you do, don’t sit around saying, “I don’t know what to do.” You can make changes to your site on a daily basis if you want. Just work at it a little bit each day and you’ll get closer to what you need it to be. Also, the more you work at it, the better you’ll get at it and you’ll eventually be able to make changes faster.
Just think of your website as another work of art – one that isn’t ever finished and doesn’t need to be because it represents you, an ever evolving work of art.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
You are so right about that! I update my website almost everyday but I am lucky that I know how and it is easy on iweb. I think most artists don’t have the web knowledge to create their own websites and also have to rely on someone else to update their sites. I created my own website, but I assume that sites like Fine Art Studio make it easy for artists to update their own.
Clay or Stone? Websites for artists http://ow.ly/15vF4
This comment was originally posted on Twitter