Web sites for artistsDayton Visual Arts Center

December 15, 2012Steve Betts

sbetts@minethurn.com937-477-1797

Steve Betts◦ Senior Software Developer at GD-AIS◦ 24 years software experience◦ Many many websites◦ Photographer

Who am I?

To promote your art To connect with your fans

Why have a web site?

Biography Artist Statement Portfolio Contact Information News

What to put on your website

Static◦ Everything on the web site is fixed before

displaying the web page◦ Changes require user to code them◦ More difficult to maintain

Dynamic◦ The web page is created when requested◦ The content is stored in a Content Management

System (CMS)◦ Pages may change based on the date, or the user,

or some other criteria◦ Easier to maintain

Kinds of web sites

Free is never free Introductory pricing – know what it will cost Technical Support – who you gonna call?

Things to beware

Find a hosting service◦ Look for inexpensive but reliable service◦ Check http://dayton.bbb.org

Get a domain name◦ Use your artist name in the domain

Get an email address◦ Make it easy to use, like artist@ or info@

How to start

Hosting should be about $5/month Domain names cost about $10/year Most hosting services include a domain

name and email, but some don’t

Costs

Wordpress is software that manages the web site for you

You determine how the site should look using themes and plugins

Themes are designs for a website Plugins are additional functionality Vibrant community Free! http://wordpress.org

Wordpress

Places to get Wordpress hosting◦ http://www.inmotionhosting.com/wordpress-hostin

g.html◦ http://www.bluehost.com/◦ http://wpengine.com (costly)

Hosting

http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ http://newwpthemes.com/ http://themeforest.net/ (not free)

Themes

Examples

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ There is a plugin for everything NextGEN Gallery – show your pictures BackupWordpress – back up your website Facebook Photo Fetcher – get images

from Facebook Flickr Manager – get images from Flickr

Plugins

When putting images on the web◦ Make them web sized

2-3 inches at 300dpi 500-600 pixels

◦ Watermark them

Images

Start with what is there Add little bits at a time Everything can be changed Play!

Play