Starting A Website As An Artist

Why start a website as an artist?

I've been sharing my art journey for the past year on social media. Learning in public and building my skills. A website has always been in the back of my mind. A website to house a portfolio, record of skills and online shop page. A place I can send people to when they ask what I do for a living. Having a website as an artist feels right.

Now you're thinking. "I could just sell art on Etsy or Facebook Market Place." That crossed my mind for sure over this past year. It seems like it would be the easy way to get started and make a quick buck.

I like to look at a personal website as a long term plan. A place to build a solid foundation that I can grow with. A website that I own means that I can setup an email list. I have full control over my shop. I can write blog posts and even embed my YouTube art time lapse videos. It's a way for me to have one place for everything.

What hurdles are there to setting up a website?

The biggest hurdle was learning all the backend stuff when designing this website. Luckily I have a husband that has interest in helping me out with that. So he found all the no code solutions available. A few weeks of research and we had found all the answers we needed to get this up and running. I love Google and YouTube for this exact reason.

Why a blog?

Most would think having a website for a shop seems like a good idea as an artist but why make a blog? After learning more about the internet and search engines, having a blog makes sense. As an artist, I have art pieces with stories behind them. I make social media posts all the time with long text sections. These stories are already great short blog posts. There's no rule for how long a blog must be. I even recently heard of blogs from people that do it daily and use it like Twitter.

It's a way for me to get my stories and thoughts down on "paper". I've always loved journaling. This can be like a journal entry of what I'm up to or even the simple meaning behind a piece of artwork. I love that a blog can be anything you want it to be. Writing has never been my strong suit, being dyslexic and all, but I'm not going to let that stop me from telling my story.

Managing A Shop Page

This is the next thing my husband and I are figuring out for this website. I'm not in a rush for this one. I don't have any products to sell yet but it's something I'd love to do. I know so many that have expressed they want to own some of my art so this will be a place for that. Planning to sell a product is a big step when starting a business. It means learning how to track inventory, package and ship items. I'll have to keep you all updated on how that goes. I have stickers and prints in the works but that's a topic for another blog.