Five Signs You’re Ready for a New Website
If you’re wondering if you’re ready for a new website, or if you’ve been putting it off for some time, here are some sure signs that it’s time to take the bull by the horns, so-to-speak, and step up your game!
You’re ready to elevate your work and/or increase your prices.
Do you know that you add value to your artwork by informing, enriching, and deepening the experiences people have when they are viewing it and learning about it? Your website provides a wonderful opportunity to introduce your work in detail, showcase the creative process, and let your audience get to know you in a way that feels authentic and welcoming.
You hold control over how you present your work, and how you choose to connect with your visitors, which isn’t always the case on online marketplaces, for example. You have an opportunity to convince your site visitors, indirectly, that your work is priced accurately and thoughtfully based on your trajectory as an artist, your credentials (if they come into play), or any successful collaborations/press mentions that would matter to your ideal customer, for example. There are lots of ways to approach this effort, so these are just a few examples to illustrate my point.
Your website design (“look and feel”), and user experience, can also add value to your work almost instantly — when it is done well. It is the difference between walking into a discount store in real life, and walking into a specially curated pop-up shop that looks, and smells divine from the moment you enter!
Don’t underestimate the value of great design. When your website is ‘checking all the boxes’ with respect to design, layout, navigation and shopping experience, it will automatically help increase the perceived significance of your art in the eyes of serious buyers and collectors (it’ll also justify the ‘higher’ price in their eyes).
This is also a great way to avoid the disconnect that can sometimes happen when the way you price your work, and the way it is presented online are not in sync. If you’re used to presenting, and selling your work in art galleries for example, is your website providing a ‘less than’ experience? It happens more times than you think. Remember, even luxury brands successfully sell their wares online. They’ve mastered this challenge, and so can YOU!
2. You’re shifting to a different target customer or market niche.
If you’ve been contemplating a shift in your target market, or if your work has evolved, and you’ve expanded your offerings, it’s time to give some serious thought to a new website. Maybe you’ve improperly identified your target market in the past, or you’ve discovered a new offering that is in high demand. Perhaps you’ve made a decision to create multiple streams of income in your business. There is a very good chance that your old site is not up to the task, and no one likes a site overhaul, which can overcomplicate what should feel like a fresh start.
Your website is your central business hub, whether you also continue to make sales on Etsy, or another third-party platform or marketplace. Use it as such. You can successfully tailor your site to several audiences, including your existing audience, and expand your reach to a broader market with a new site that has been built to spec. Proving your offering’s relevance to a different audience doesn't mean abandoning the things that make your work valuable to your current customers. It means adjusting a few things, including messaging to highlight the benefits that are more aligned with the new audience. It’s exciting to consider the possibilities.
3. Your site no longer reflects your recent work.
If you’ve had your current website for more than a few years, does it accurately reflect your current work? Has your work evolved over time? Do you avoid giving people your website address because it’s not as current as what you post on social media? If you’re no longer using your website as intended, it’s probably not helping you make any sales!
It’s OK, though! Use this as an opportunity to dream a little. Dream bigger. Dream funner (not a word, but it captures the spirit of what I’m trying to say). When you can, set aside some time to explore the websites of other artists (I started a Pinterest board for this very purpose, which you can see here) and make note of what you like and don’t like.
Better yet, create an (online) vision board using your favorite tool (I like Canva, which has a free option that is perfect for this kind of thing), but if you’re comfortable with Photoshop or Illustrator, by all means, use one of those tools. Upload a few images of your work, and then add images (screenshots) from other websites you love (not the artwork, but I’m referring here to layouts, fonts, color palettes and such). This will help you visualize how it all works together, and you can make changes and try new things until it feels right. Do set a timer, though, because it’s so easy to fall down that rabbit hole, and then it just gets confusing or overwhelming, which defeats the purpose. You can always come back to it in a few days. You might be surprised to find that you’ve gained some clarity about what you like and need in a new site.
4. You can’t, or don’t know how to update the site yourself.
Let me start by saying that there is no shame in not knowing how to update your own site! It took me a long time to learn my way around, and I know from first hand experience how absolutely convoluted some of the platforms can be, especially for anyone who isn’t a tech master.
If you are committed to a certain platform, because you’ve been on there forever, give yourself the space to explore better options that work FOR YOU. When I found Squarespace, I felt like the clouds had parted! I’m joking, but only in part, because as an all-in-one solution, I immediately found that it was easier to manage. I no longer had to worry about breaking the site, or keeping plugins updated, or worse, paying someone else to maintain the site for me.
And, if you are listing your work on a third-party marketplace platform that made it super easy for you to showcase your work, there are some things you need to consider. Is the site helping you make sales? Are these the right customers for your business? Are you able to capture visitor and customer emails so you can add them to your email list? Are there any transaction fees? If so, how do they compare to the fees you’d have on a site of your own? (If it’s free, no harm done). These are all things to consider as you contemplate where you want to take your business next.
5. Your current website isn’t helping your business grow.
If you’re not making sales or converting visitors into customers, it could be due to a number of things, so unless you have a professional website review, it’s hard to really know if you need a new site, or if you can make a few changes to your existing site to get it back on track.
One of the more obvious reasons (which is easy to spot) is a site that is not mobile-responsive (this means your site won’t automatically adjust to other screen sizes, which makes for a less than ideal visitor experience). If your site was built years ago, you may have some catching up to do on this front. And, it’s very important because search engines like Google penalize sites that aren’t compliant in this sense, which means you won’t see much traffic coming to your site.
Another reason, which unfortunately is quite common on artist sites, is a site that is slow to load. If you’ve uploaded lots of images in high resolution because you’re focused on image quality, you’re not only slowing down your site’s loading time (which, again, gets penalized by search engines), but you’re also potentially exposing yourself to copying or image theft. So, the recommendation here is to use images that are optimized, from the very beginning, so that everything loads quickly (and still looks great!).
Did anything resonate with you?
If you’d like to explore working with me, I’d be honored. Contact me. Or, if you’re interested in building the site yourself, be sure to sign up for my upcoming free masterclass on this topic. It would be my pleasure to have you in class.
