Websites for Artists
As an artist, do you want an online presence, which you have complete control over and can call your own without it being expensive and costly?
Many artists display their work in many free online art portfolio systems and Social Networks, which is a great way to begin your promotion and has the advantage of already being widely known and well used, but there is many disadvantages of promoting your artwork this way, including;
- Some of the sites will be limited in terms of functionality, or how many works can be displayed at one time, or even allowing you to display all your data that you would like displayed.
- A majority of Social Networks include in their Terms and Conditions that anything you share on their site becomes their property and you give them a free license to profit from your work without any payment due to you, the creator. Just check FaceBook (and many others) for this stipulation.
- You are competing with many others in getting your artwork seen by others.
- Whilst Social Networks are well indexed by Search Engines, what makes your profile worth listing highly in Search Engines over the thousand of other artists promoting themselves in the same way?
While it would be nice to have your own site, many artists are put of by the costs associated of running your own site. However at Focus-Films we have created a fast and affordable streamlined service which will allow you to have your own website that you can fully control, without the need of technical experience.
Website Details
We are available to register your domain name and provide web hosting for only £35 per year (for .co.uk or .org.uk domains only). With this service you do not have FTP access but we provide technical support for every account and can provide 5 email accounts or unlimited email forwarders.
For only £400 we will install WordPress and configure your website and add your content and ensure you have the functionality to promote your artwork further and take complete control over your website.
We provide training at no additional cost and provide face-toface, telephone, skype, and email support in the usage of your site.
By contracting our services your outlay costs will be:
- Year 1: £435 (Initial web hosting and domain registration, site creation and training)
- Year 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.: £35 (domain renewal and web hosting renewal, paid yearly)
What Do I get for My Site?
We will create an initial site for you that will give you the functionality that you require to promote and manage your own site and artwork. We will create the following pages based on the content you need to supply us:
- Home: General introduction to your site and welcome message
- About/Artist Statement: Information about yourself and your art.
- Gallery/Portfolio: All your artwork, neatly categorised into proper portfolio albums.
- Latest News: Section for all your latest news, posts and any other type of article you wish to publish
- Contact Us: online form and any other public contact details.
- Links: links to any sites of your choice.
- Privacy Policy: We create your privacy policy which will state how you treat peoples data when they contact you
- Terms and Conditions: We provide a statement on any restrictions on your site and general disclaimer (copyright info, limited rights of use, etc.)
We will also choose an existing available theme and tweak the design and code to better match your art and needs.
What about Functionality?
We will add basic functionality for your site such as an interactive gallery, Social Network promotion tools, search engine sitemaps (easier for your site to get indexed), and other security related functionality. If you have your own ideas on what functionality you would like for your site, we can also implement your thoughts and ideas.
Once Your Site is Live
Once we have got everything in place we will provide you with 2 separate logins to your site and provide some basic training in using your site:
We realise that you taking control over your site will be a learning curve, therefore we provide unlimited support through telephone, skype, and email, at no extra charge.
We also retain and Admin account (which can be removed) to provide direct technical support on your site if required.
Additionally, we also manually submit your site to the major Search Engines, promote your site through through Focus-Films and the Concepts network (our non profit sites). We also offer guidance on how to better promote your self online.
Contact Us
Whilst we encourage others to utilise Open Source and try for themselves (see below), we understand that sometimes it is just easier and faster to hire technical specialists to set-up your site. We also realise that these services can be costly (elsewhere), that is why Focus-Films is delivering am affordable streamlined service for Artists.
If you would like to use our services please contact us with details about your project, or view our online web portfolio.
Why not try yourself?
Focus-Films is different because we are completely honest about our usage of Open Source software for website creation, and we only charge for the work we personally create on your behalf. In fact we encourage others with some technical skills to try and create a website for themselves, and have published a step by step guide on “Lochgelly – Loch of Shining Waters” for creating your own site.