Websites for Artists – the web design process

Making a start – stages of a web design project

Normally, communication with you is by telephone and email. Each project is different, but here is an outline of a typical approach for the development of an artist’s website:

1. We discuss your ideas for your website. With your input, we agree on an outline plan for your site including the look and feel, number of pages and galleries required and any other special requirements.
2. Based on the agreed plan for your site, we provide you with an estimate of costs.
3. Once the plan and estimate have been agreed to, we will get started. We’ll register a domain name for you and set up a development site for your artist’s website.
4. We’ll choose a suitable WordPress theme for your site and customise the theme to meet your design and page plan.
5. As the site develops, we’ll send you pages to review and incorporate any feedback you give.
6. When the site is ready, we will ask you to sign off on the site ready for launch.
7. We will launch your new site onto the Internet and tell the search engines about it.
8. If you have chosen the self-editable option, we’ll provide training on how to use the content editor.
9. After launch we will provide full support for your site – if you have any problems or queries, all you need to do is email.

Domain names

You will need a domain name for your website. For example, the domain name could be www.studiowebsites.co.uk. or www.studiowebsites.com. We will help you choose a domain name and register it for you (renewable yearly). Your domain name needs to be renewed each year. If you register a domain with us, we will manage the renewal for you.

Hosting

A website is composed of files (image files, text files, and other files which make your website work). These need to be stored somewhere. The place where website files are stored is called a ‘host’ computer or ‘server’ computer – hence the term hosting. When you buy hosting, you are actually paying to rent a space on a file server (large remote computer). We use a high quality hosting provider (not all hosting is the same). The first year of hosting is free with all our websites. You have to pay a yearly hosting fee in advance from year two onwards.

Updating your website

From time to time, you may want to update your website – perhaps with new images to keep it fresh looking or maybe to add details of exhibitions.

‘Paid for’ updates. Whenever you need to update your website, you send us a brief. We will review the brief and provide you with an estimate. Ideal for the technically challenged/or those without much time to spare.

Self-editable artist’s website – we set up your site so you can access the WordPress admin area which allows you to edit the text and image content on your site. This includes all your text pages and images in your image galleries. You do need to have some technical ability to be a successful WordPress editor, but we will give you full training and offer on-going support.

Half and half  – some clients opt for a self-editable artist’s website but use our ‘paid-for’ editing service as a backup if they are short of time.

We will be happy to talk you through the pros and cons of each system. If you are at all in doubt about your technical abilities, we advise that you ask us to do the updating for you. It’s often more time/cost effective in the end.

Getting noticed (Search Engine Optimisation)

Creating a website is only half of the story. Your website needs to be found by the major search engines such as Google and Yahoo. All our websites are designed in WordPress and WordPress is naturally very search engine friendly – which means that they can be found easily by the major search engines. However, for best results you need actively promote your site whenever you can in your literature or on your soical media pages.