I’m working on updating my website this month. It’s taking me forever, but I know it’s important. I’m using squarespace, too. I’ve seen how ugly a place IG (and other platforms) can be, not from personal experience on my account, but it feels like it will be inevitable. I’m interested in learning more about SEO though...more on that later perhaps?? :)
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment Sarah - absolutely, SEO and search engines are on top of my list! Thank you for your suggestion. It seems that IG can sometimes be ugly because people can kind of "hide" between fake identities. Facebook groups feel different - people often sign their comments with their real names.
Hi Wera, thanks for this very timely article. I have spent the last 2 days researching website hosting. Gosh what a minefield! Like you many other artists are giving the same advice about having your own website. I have found pricing has not been very transparent and it seems there are always add on charges. I want to eventually sell my work on my own website rather than Etsy but I’m not sure the finances add up at the moment ! I guess I will keep on researching and hopefully come up with a plan but it has been a frustrating couple of days with no art made !!
Hey heeeey! What have you chosen? :) For a simple solution, have a look at portfoliobox: https://www.portfoliobox.net/pricing I think it is one of the cheaper options. I had it for over a year and I was very happy. Then I switched to Squarespace because I wanted even more fancy schmancy upgrades :)
Hosting is absolutely a minefield, as well as a confusing rabbit hole :-P I realize this article and your comment are from last year, but I just found it today and had to respond (I’m an experienced website consultant working through Wera’s courses, hoping to shift toward something more creative).
Hosting companies and the blogger affiliates they $$$heavily incentivize€€€ add to the confusion and lack of transparency, by the way.
If you go with Squarespace, it removes the hosting question from the picture. It does eliminate a little flexibility, though. Although it may appear that Squarespace costs you more than hosting and building your own website, things are not always what they seem. I think you had already begun to discover this at the time you left your comment.
There are plenty of choices beyond Squarespace vs hosted + WordPress (the software most people use to build hosted websites). But those are the most popular for good reasons – one of the biggest ones being the ability to easily transfer or reuse your content if the specific site or hosting is no longer serving you.
With that said, there is a lot of value in simplicity. I’m not familiar with PortfolioBox, so I can’t speak to its specifics. But in general, simple site builders will help you get something done quickly and often are easy enough to design with that the end result won’t look like hot garbage! You just need to go in knowing that your design and content are probably not very easily portable should you want to reuse them in another site.
This was a great post, Wera. I don’t feel comfortable on social media anymore. I suffered severe burnout in 2019 after starting a chronic illness blog (right before I got into Procreate and art in a more serious form) and had to quit. I was bullied in DMs and just couldn’t do it anymore.
I’ve had a website for a long time but I have a question. Should I create a new website since I’ve transitioned more to art and less about chronic illness? I’ve long wanted to merge the two ideas because one affects the other, yada, yada, and managing one is hard enough lol. I’m working on a remodel of sorts on it now. I’d love your perspective.
Soooo sorry this happened to you too Holly! The bullying :( I had one person harass me in my DMs and leaving comments full of foul words under my beautiful illustrations - just because I exposed her that she claimed someone else’s art as her own and tagged the original artist. You know, I’m also a yoga teacher, plus a marketer, and I’ll be certainly looking into communication channels where I could give more advice on the topics of mindfulness, burnout, social media fatigue for creatives. Artists are already such sensitive and intuitive people. We need good mindfulness and stress reduction strategies that will help us to protect ourselves from the abuse that we might experience online.
To the website topic: from my professional experience it’s better to separate two topics which are not “naturally” aligned. Meaning - you should have a separate portfolio website where potential clients can find you and collaborate with you. Think of your target audience - who do you want to discover your www? Clients? Or non-business related people looking for more information about chronic illnesses vs art? What’s the goal of your website? For example my goal is to: “spread the word about my online courses, establish myself as an Affinity/Procreate expert, tell potential clients I’m available for work”. And every page on my website should reflect these goals. Domains luckily don’t cost so much these days - they’re affordable. It’s better to have 2 websites in that case. If I may suggest: your “artist website” should be ideally with your name in the domain. I hope this helps! ❤️
Hi Wera. Thanks for introducing me to Substack. I'm really enjoying it! It seems to cut out all of the noise of the world and helps me to concentrate on worthwhile articles. Thanks for asking us to comment and to share links. I am a batik artist and pattern designer living in England and can be found at https://www.atticbatik.com
I couldn't agree more with what you've said in your article. My husband & I ran a web-hosting business for more than a decade and we were always keen to ensure our clients did the core of their business through their website. Not for our benefit but for all the reasons you've just stated; it benefits them.
I've also heard of companies planning a big launch or event and their social media channel has gone down and the net result of the expensive event was nought.
I'm so sorry you've suffered so badly through social media. It can be cruel. We have a friend with a successful business feed who has also had his feed cloned by somebody unscrupulous pretending to be him. The Internet is a great place but always best to try to exercise caution wherever possible and take control of what we can. 👍🏻 Sue
Substack is pretty cool, right? I’m currently discover some cool writers on this platform and I’m intrigued! It seems like people write her GENUINE content that is for real readers, and not just for search engines ❤️ And nice to connect with you Sue! I’ll surely check out your website. I’m totally on board with what you said, I agree 100%.
Hey Weronika, I’m a fan. In addition to being a great teacher, you are a terrific writer as well. I wish I could afford to pay for all the articles…but you’ve suggested we plug ourselves and our own personal websites. Mine is brettha.com. Which redirects to my name:
Brettaronowitz.com. (Which has way too many keystrokes) There’s a lot on my site even though I’ve tried to hone it all down to the basics, the stuff I do the best. I use wordpress with the DIVI theme which has many bells and whistles and is incredibly fun to work on.
I’ve always been the kind of person that moves from one endeavor to another. Case in point is Petitebikefit.com which has become the definitive resource for petite women cyclists (5’2” or less). I did the entire site all by myself… designing, drawing diagrams, taking photos, writing all the articles and reviews. I also created Motherloss Jewelry, a representational symbol for motherloss that I turned into jewelry. I also wrote and illustrated 5 children’s picture books and then created Chicken Scratch Press as the imprint for self-publishing. Finally, I also created satisfactionguaranteedguru.com to teach people how to get their money’s worth. How is it, with all these achievements that I can’t seem to get the whole marketing and monetizing thing down?
I totally agree with you. I think that a website is a must have for small businesses and creatives. Not only do you own it yourself and have the ability to customize it as you please. You can also drive sales and make it work for you if it set it up for success. Her is mine if you want to check it out. Sararenees.Se
I’m working on updating my website this month. It’s taking me forever, but I know it’s important. I’m using squarespace, too. I’ve seen how ugly a place IG (and other platforms) can be, not from personal experience on my account, but it feels like it will be inevitable. I’m interested in learning more about SEO though...more on that later perhaps?? :)
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment Sarah - absolutely, SEO and search engines are on top of my list! Thank you for your suggestion. It seems that IG can sometimes be ugly because people can kind of "hide" between fake identities. Facebook groups feel different - people often sign their comments with their real names.
Hi Wera, thanks for this very timely article. I have spent the last 2 days researching website hosting. Gosh what a minefield! Like you many other artists are giving the same advice about having your own website. I have found pricing has not been very transparent and it seems there are always add on charges. I want to eventually sell my work on my own website rather than Etsy but I’m not sure the finances add up at the moment ! I guess I will keep on researching and hopefully come up with a plan but it has been a frustrating couple of days with no art made !!
Hey heeeey! What have you chosen? :) For a simple solution, have a look at portfoliobox: https://www.portfoliobox.net/pricing I think it is one of the cheaper options. I had it for over a year and I was very happy. Then I switched to Squarespace because I wanted even more fancy schmancy upgrades :)
Hosting is absolutely a minefield, as well as a confusing rabbit hole :-P I realize this article and your comment are from last year, but I just found it today and had to respond (I’m an experienced website consultant working through Wera’s courses, hoping to shift toward something more creative).
Hosting companies and the blogger affiliates they $$$heavily incentivize€€€ add to the confusion and lack of transparency, by the way.
If you go with Squarespace, it removes the hosting question from the picture. It does eliminate a little flexibility, though. Although it may appear that Squarespace costs you more than hosting and building your own website, things are not always what they seem. I think you had already begun to discover this at the time you left your comment.
There are plenty of choices beyond Squarespace vs hosted + WordPress (the software most people use to build hosted websites). But those are the most popular for good reasons – one of the biggest ones being the ability to easily transfer or reuse your content if the specific site or hosting is no longer serving you.
With that said, there is a lot of value in simplicity. I’m not familiar with PortfolioBox, so I can’t speak to its specifics. But in general, simple site builders will help you get something done quickly and often are easy enough to design with that the end result won’t look like hot garbage! You just need to go in knowing that your design and content are probably not very easily portable should you want to reuse them in another site.
This was a great post, Wera. I don’t feel comfortable on social media anymore. I suffered severe burnout in 2019 after starting a chronic illness blog (right before I got into Procreate and art in a more serious form) and had to quit. I was bullied in DMs and just couldn’t do it anymore.
I’ve had a website for a long time but I have a question. Should I create a new website since I’ve transitioned more to art and less about chronic illness? I’ve long wanted to merge the two ideas because one affects the other, yada, yada, and managing one is hard enough lol. I’m working on a remodel of sorts on it now. I’d love your perspective.
Soooo sorry this happened to you too Holly! The bullying :( I had one person harass me in my DMs and leaving comments full of foul words under my beautiful illustrations - just because I exposed her that she claimed someone else’s art as her own and tagged the original artist. You know, I’m also a yoga teacher, plus a marketer, and I’ll be certainly looking into communication channels where I could give more advice on the topics of mindfulness, burnout, social media fatigue for creatives. Artists are already such sensitive and intuitive people. We need good mindfulness and stress reduction strategies that will help us to protect ourselves from the abuse that we might experience online.
To the website topic: from my professional experience it’s better to separate two topics which are not “naturally” aligned. Meaning - you should have a separate portfolio website where potential clients can find you and collaborate with you. Think of your target audience - who do you want to discover your www? Clients? Or non-business related people looking for more information about chronic illnesses vs art? What’s the goal of your website? For example my goal is to: “spread the word about my online courses, establish myself as an Affinity/Procreate expert, tell potential clients I’m available for work”. And every page on my website should reflect these goals. Domains luckily don’t cost so much these days - they’re affordable. It’s better to have 2 websites in that case. If I may suggest: your “artist website” should be ideally with your name in the domain. I hope this helps! ❤️
Hi Wera. Thanks for introducing me to Substack. I'm really enjoying it! It seems to cut out all of the noise of the world and helps me to concentrate on worthwhile articles. Thanks for asking us to comment and to share links. I am a batik artist and pattern designer living in England and can be found at https://www.atticbatik.com
I couldn't agree more with what you've said in your article. My husband & I ran a web-hosting business for more than a decade and we were always keen to ensure our clients did the core of their business through their website. Not for our benefit but for all the reasons you've just stated; it benefits them.
I've also heard of companies planning a big launch or event and their social media channel has gone down and the net result of the expensive event was nought.
I'm so sorry you've suffered so badly through social media. It can be cruel. We have a friend with a successful business feed who has also had his feed cloned by somebody unscrupulous pretending to be him. The Internet is a great place but always best to try to exercise caution wherever possible and take control of what we can. 👍🏻 Sue
Substack is pretty cool, right? I’m currently discover some cool writers on this platform and I’m intrigued! It seems like people write her GENUINE content that is for real readers, and not just for search engines ❤️ And nice to connect with you Sue! I’ll surely check out your website. I’m totally on board with what you said, I agree 100%.
Hey Weronika, I’m a fan. In addition to being a great teacher, you are a terrific writer as well. I wish I could afford to pay for all the articles…but you’ve suggested we plug ourselves and our own personal websites. Mine is brettha.com. Which redirects to my name:
Brettaronowitz.com. (Which has way too many keystrokes) There’s a lot on my site even though I’ve tried to hone it all down to the basics, the stuff I do the best. I use wordpress with the DIVI theme which has many bells and whistles and is incredibly fun to work on.
I’ve always been the kind of person that moves from one endeavor to another. Case in point is Petitebikefit.com which has become the definitive resource for petite women cyclists (5’2” or less). I did the entire site all by myself… designing, drawing diagrams, taking photos, writing all the articles and reviews. I also created Motherloss Jewelry, a representational symbol for motherloss that I turned into jewelry. I also wrote and illustrated 5 children’s picture books and then created Chicken Scratch Press as the imprint for self-publishing. Finally, I also created satisfactionguaranteedguru.com to teach people how to get their money’s worth. How is it, with all these achievements that I can’t seem to get the whole marketing and monetizing thing down?
Thank you dear for sharing and for your kind words! What is it specifically that you’d like to monetize? That’s an impressive website portfolio! ✨
I totally agree with you. I think that a website is a must have for small businesses and creatives. Not only do you own it yourself and have the ability to customize it as you please. You can also drive sales and make it work for you if it set it up for success. Her is mine if you want to check it out. Sararenees.Se
Sara, your website is BEAUTIFUL and I only speak english.
Oh, thank you so much☺️ I think I have to consider translating my site😊