I am in the process of having to rebuild my website and start over since I originally did mine with Front Page and my server doesn’t support it anymore. It is still up, but I can’t update it. I had already decided to go with WordPress based on several recommendations and since I want a site with my domain that I control.

I taught myself Front Page, but WordPress is proving to be challenging as far as a theme that has thumbnails for works that aren’t cropped and options to go to a detail page like my current site.

I would love to hear suggestions from anyone here using WordPress about specific themes that work well for artists. Also are the costs of a premium site annual or one time only? Any info would be helpful.

I’d like to chime in with regards to Wix.

1. SEO loading times.
Both are huge issues with their websites, which is why I only recommend it to clients who are not search-based (say, the local hairdresser or vet) and have information-only websites. Wix’s loading times are quite horrid, and their links are long; both with really lower SEO.

2. Multi-lingual websites.
Please, please, please don’t make the same mistake I did and make a multi-lingual website on Wix! The automatic menu bars that appear on each page no longer work, so you have to add each menu button AND corresponding page link on EVERY page, in EVERY language. That’s a lot of buttons! Now imagine that the client decides to change font size, a page name or anything else mid-way through the process. Start again!

I’ve heard great things about Squarespace and might give them a try. While I’m still a fan of the Genesis Framework for WordPress (very well-coded, great for SEO, plenty of tutorials for customisations), it would be nice to take a break from coding once in a while. Thank you for these tips, and for your hard work putting this together!

But the main thing I wanted to mention is that Squarespace has a great Portfolio App for mobile devices. It syncs with your portfolio, and updates every time you have data or wifi access. But if you are somewhere without data access, all the images are still there. I found this really helpful as I don’t have a data plan for my iPad, but I could still show people my portfolio on it. Here’s more info about it: http://www.squarespace.com/apps/#portfolio Not sure if this is only for iOS devices.

Alyson – yep – I would use them for a basic artist website. I’m past that with 400+ pieces of art on my website.

My opinion…

But for a beginning website they are definitely the way to start.

And so what that it’s not portable. It so easy to recreate the website it doesn’t need to be. Just save your text somewhere, the images, along with a few screen shots and that’s all you need to start again.

If at some stage these easy sites don’t provide what is needed then you move on to something bigger. But to start bigger is a waste of time and money for most artists.

I would never blog with a site that doesn’t provide standard export functionality. But a simple website with fewer than a dozen or so static pages – no big deal. Static content is crazy easy to build fast these days.

I think there is a huge business oppty here to build artist websites on one of these platforms for a couple hundred dollars. Then hand it over to the artist and let them go to town. Just need to get the template in place with headers and menus and then they can upload content to their hearts content. Super simple. I hear setting up a store front is now super easy on these also.

Artists should be making art – but paying big money for someone else to do your website is also no longer necessary. The world is changing.

—lisa

I totally agree, Lisa! I can use code and count myself professional but why cook when you can get ready-made-and-easy-to-tweak?
If you disregard WordPress for a minute the comparison chart shows the others as being very similar, but they are actually not. Pricing and features are quite different and worth exploring before anyone decides.

A-M: I have to confess that I added that comment before running it by Kim and publishing it. Blame me! I certainly didn’t mean to imply that you aren’t thinking about your future. Just the future usefulness of the software. And, I agree, that it might be one in the same thing now that I read it as you have.

As I said to Lisa here, I have just had so many clients come up against limitations when they want to expand.

I agree: at least you have a website that you manage. And I’m happy that the limitations are helpful to you.

You have to pick what is best for you. I love that you know what’s best.

I ask because I’ve had a bunch of clients frustrated with the limitations of these sites – after they get to a point where they want more flexibility.

Excellent points, Lisa. Would you use one of them?

WordPress did indeed change the Internet. And now these new drag and drop website builders are doing it.

What lessons from Kodak can hard core WordPress.org designers learn? The world is changing. People are tired of the hassle of WordPress. It’s simply too hard for most people. and its no longer necessary.

Telling artists they aren’t professionals if they don’t use WordPress sounds to me a bit like clinging to selling film as the world around you is going digital.

—Lisa

I also have struggled with how to make my website. I recently went with Weebly for the same reasons: I hate struggling to learn technology for a website.

I tried hiring someone to make my website. That was expensive and a huge failure.

You write “…This makes them particularly seductive for artists who aren’t thinking about their future usefulness [when not choosing WordPress].”

I am very disturbed by this comment. I am constantly thinking about my future as an artist: studio time, inspiration time, social media time. This comment feels as if by choosing something other than WordPress (described as Michaelangelo’s studio), that the artist is NOT thinking about their art as a business.

I don’t want Michaelango’s studio because it is not MY studio. I have limits in my studio because those limits help me make art. So I don’t use WP. I can live within the limits
of my chosen website builder because I’d Rather Be in the Studio than trying to learn code to build a website (building websites is not my business – my business is making art!).

At least I have a website! That I manage! All by myself! The quality and ease of visitor to go to it and the ease of my management makes it totally worth the time investment. I love the simple designs available to me. The limitations help me and they are easy to workaround when they might hinder me.

All of these platforms have pros and cons…and for me the biggest concern is I have limited time in my studio and the website has to be easy and fast to maintain (or I just won’t…and I haven’t…I go paint!).

The website has to work FOR me, NOT me for the website.

Excellent comparison of sites. Thank you for the thinking and sharing. I am bookmarking it just because it might help when I think I might make a change.