Art, Artists and the Web: Part 4--What to Do After a Website is Designed

What to do if you are an artist after you finish your website.

Unfortunately, just because you?ve created a website, does not mean that anyone will visit it. The first thing to do is visit a website called "Words In A Row", www. wordsinarow.com. This is one of the best websites that explains how to have your website show up on search engines. This is called "search engine optimization" or SEO.

There are a number of things that you want to make sure you want to do and know.

1) Make sure your artist?s website has a title.

The name of your website should probably be "Your Name Artist" or "Your Name Art." There are so many web sites out there that are titled, "Enter", "Untitled", "Welcome". You as an artist do not want to make this mistake on the Web.

2) Make sure you have a description.

It is now recommended that your description be 20 to 25 words long. It should be full of "key words". Key words are words that are the most relevant to your artist?s website and that will make it easy for Web visitors to find it. For an artist key words could be your name, your medium and words like art and artist.

3) Make sure you have key words.

Key words exist separately from the title. Some people feel they are important to search engines, some people do not. Best to make sure and have them. It is now recommended that you have 20 key words. Try and come up with the ones for your artist?s website that are the most relevant.

How much money should you pay to have your website show up on search engines?

You can spend a wide range of money or you can do it for free. Either way, you need to make sure that you educate yourself about the Web; you will need information, patience and knowledge.

Search engine optimization is not a science. No one knows for sure how to make a website appear on the Internet. Stay away from anyone who makes promises and guarantees.

Also stay away from quick schemes and shortcuts to make your website show up on the Web. These can get you banned from Search Engines permanently.

The "rules" of the Web are constantly changing as the Web adapts to the huge transitions that are consistently taking place.

So far the Web standards that are dictated by the search engines change about every six months to a year. One day your website appears on a major search engine and the next day it disappears. Billions of other websites are experiencing the same problem. It takes about a month to six weeks for the "pros" to figure out what may have happened. So far search engines do not share this information. Then there are a series of informative articles on the Web spreading the news on what appears to be what search engines now require.

This can be very frustrating, because websites are not like a painting or a sculpture that when it is finished you can then leave it alone. As an artist it is a good idea to think of your website as a constant work in progress. If you look at it this way, it can be really fun. How many artists would love to go back and constantly keep working on their work of art; with a website you will need to do that, so accept that fact and enjoy it.

© Mary Baker 2005

You can visit Mary at her website, Mary Baker Art, at http://www.marybakerart.com, see her beautiful paintings and read her articles on a variety of subjects including, Art, Artists and Vocation, Tips on Breaking the Creative Block , Art,Women and Creativity and the four part series on Art, Artists and the Web.

A list of articles can be found on her Site Map and Mary's paintings can be seen on every page of Mary Baker Art.

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