It may seem a little obvious to say that an artist's website is all about the artwork. However, if you've spent any time searching the web for art, you may have thought to yourself that artist websites aren't designed with the artwork in mind.
A good number of art-related websites or "Artist Websites" are not very user friendly or easy-to-navigate, and in many cases the websites take a really long time to load. These kinds of issues lead many website visitors or art collectors to leave a site out of frustration, never to return.
Research says that a visitor is only a few clicks away from leaving your website the moment they land. Seems sad, but it's a truth that every website owner must consider. When having a website designed, this should be a major consideration. If your goal is to sell artwork, how easy is it for people to find your art? Does your navigation make since to the average visitor.
Website navigation should be clear and concise. I've seen some really neat websites with some really cool navigation, but in the end their navigation left me wondering "what to do". There's a good chance that search engines don't know what to do either. Site navigation should be easy to find, and once it's found, the terminology should make since. Fine art should be no more than one click away, and realistically they should already see artwork on the homepage. Let's make it easier for collectors to buy your artwork,,, let's give the people what they want.
Load time is another issue for websites - especially art websites. If artist websites are all about the artwork, that means they are all about the images and images take time to load. Images should be optimized in such a way they are small in file size without loosing actual size and image quality. Bigger images make more of an impact so it's a balancing act.
Fine Art World artist websites have been designed with easy navigation and fast load times. Fine Art World's control panel or content management system is developed so that when an artist adds artwork, the image loads quickly on the front-end of their websites without sacrificing size or quality. The navigation is easy-to-find and takes visitors directly to the
artwork.
FawSites.com is a great resource for viewing Fine Art World artist
website live examples.
Be sure to check back for "Artist Websites Are All About the Artwork... and the Artist - Part 2 - The Artist"
