Websites and Online Portfolios

carlianne

Geoffrey Gordon

Thank you for your response, perhaps my assessment was a tad harsh. But I will put some points below to specify what I mean. I am sorry if this is lengthy…..

Website Platform

It is important to get this part right, Wix and Squarespace are starting points. I am not going to say good starting points but they are better than nothing. If you are going to use a freebee solution... don’t think that people wont notice the “powered by Squarespace or Wix at the bottom”. Rather pay a little extra to get it removed as Jake has done. Nothing screams newbie like not investing properly in your website. You don’t want to look cheap, especially when your artwork is so amazing.

My thoughts on art station and deviant are that they are great platforms to show casework, you could even add dribble and Behance. But they are social platforms, not websites, a professional has their own website, not just a social presence. Also, consider being on platforms like these make it easy to switch from you to someone else's profile... you can be forgotten quickly, because the platform allows users to browse other artists, too. Now if you have a profile on one of these platforms and then a link to your website, that would take them to your website where the focus would be exclusively on your work

One of the points Jake raises is to collect email addresses as you cannot rely on a social platforms to always be there. An email list is gold. In the same breath building, a website on a service-based platform holds the same risk. What is Squarespace closes down... you have no longer have control over that and will lose your website? Food for thought 26 Reasons Why WordPress Crushes Squarespace Every Time

Lastly, I wanted to add that WordPress has come a long way with the birth of page builders like beaver builder and elementor. Designing your website is a drag and drop experience no coding needed is a reality. You will have way more features available to you to and it's not built on a platform that could go away as WordPress is opensource and not reliant on a service.

Domain

Good advice with regards to domains, I just wanted to add that you should secure your domain as soon as possible... don’t wait until your ready to build a website as the domain may be taken and you will be forced to register something else. Even if you don’t build a website just reserve it for when you are ready to.

Home Page

The home page is the most important page of a website; its purpose is mainly to engage visitors and direct them to where you want them to go. So, look at all the pages of the website and then decide what elements are important, this will, of course, be shown in order of importance and will also be determined how each point should be highlighted.

Example:

Children’s book illustrator home page

Strong intro statement introducing who you are and what you do, your message must resonate with your target audience. If you are talking to publishers then your message needs to be directed to them.

The secondary focus can be a gallery of your best work but not all... just enough to give them an idea and then an option to view the full gallery on a separate page.

If you have done previous books you want to also highlight that on the homepage with a link to your books page, so they can see what you have done.

Lastly you need a call to action that entices the publisher to get in touch with you. I noticed on all your websites there is no prominent contact page. Now I know you are going to tell me you are busy and you don’t want people to bother. But for most websites that is what is standard and you can bet they will be looking for a way to get in touch with you.

I could go through examples for each different type of illustrator based on their services but that would take some time, maybe if others have questions, I would be happy to respond.

Advice on about, portfolio and services is solid, the only extra advice is you always need a call to action on your website pages. There is nothing worse than scrolling to the bottom of a page the visitor has consumed your content and there is nothing….. You need to tell them what to do next….
Blogs
As far as blogs are concerned jake hit I the nail on the head… its good to have them as they help from an SEO perspective in creating depth to the website and bringing traffic in from different resources. Remember from google's standpoint it reads texts, it cannot read images unless properly formatted, but you still need enough text on pages.

Also, it is a big misnomer to say people don’t read blogs……. Well written blogs are still very much alive, the problem is people are lazy and don’t write quality blogs. But the ones that follow good guidelines are read all the time and contribute hugely to a successful website.

Images

All 3 of you get this part wrong.... sorry guys…. Images are your most important selling point. It's how Google knows how to index you properly because it knows what the image is and where to index it for searching. By doing this correctly you can increase your traffic to your website exponentially. Here is an example…… from each of your websites…. Don’t be mad at me just pointing it out….

@Will-Terry
HotTubSM.jpg – would be more effective if it was renamed to “animals-in-a-hot-tub-will-terry.jpg

Google reads the word “hottubsm”…. The google search engine things…. Mmmmmm what is that …. let's just chuck in in the miscellaneous pile…

@Lee-White
Illumination.jpg – yes it describes the image but not fully. “water-color-illumantion-concept-lee-white-print.jpg” is way better. It tells Google the medium, about the image, who did it and that it is a print.

@Jake-Parker

headshot04.jpg - that is the name of your first image… Buy now I know you know where I am going…. Better to be called “jake-parker-illustrator-comic-author.jpg”

I am going to stop at this point hopefully this has been helpful.

xin li

@carlianne I love your last name. "Tipsey" sounds so artsy (I am not a native English speaker, I have no clue what it sounds like to English speakers).

carlianne

@xin-li it is cute! But it is very close to and pronounced the same as the slang word "tipsy" which means someone is a little bit drunk. So i wonder if I'll have to change it for kidlit books? I dunno maybe it'll be fine

Julia

@Geoffrey-Gordon hello! Good summary! It took me many hours on skillshare / internet to put this information together for my small business project : I believe it does really well apply to illustrators who are also entrepreneurs. Thanks for sharing the good tips!

Lee White

@Geoffrey-Gordon Those are all good points. Although I probably would have phrased it like "Hey, here are some things you can add to what was said on the podcast" instead of "man, you guys really blew it".

Geoffrey Gordon

@Lee-White My apologies, I was having a bad day. Feel kinda sheepish now...

Please know I have the utmost respect for you guys. "I guess I got carried away with the first part of your intro to the podcasts.... " some times we are gonna agree, sometimes we are going to argue...., but every time you are gonna learn something new.

Whitney Simms

@Geoffrey-Gordon that was awesome advice! Thanks for taking the time to share. Yeah, we all fall victim to, opps, that’s not how I meant to say that.

NessIllustration

@Jake-Parker I really have a problem with platforms like Wix and Squarespace ^^'''' I don't like them because I think they're overpriced services that are a little manipulative and exploitative. They sell us the idea that "Building a website is SO hard! You could never do it in a million years! But with us, making a website has NEVER been so easy! Buy our overpriced service and you only have to pick a theme and fill in your info, and you're done!" The thing is... That already existed and it's called WordPress, and it's free. Yeah that's exactly what WordPress does: you pick a theme and put in your information, text and images. Sure it allows you to do more, like if you WANT you can go play with the code. But you certainly don't have to. And like @Geoffrey-Gordon has pointed out, now there are even page builders like Elementor so that if you can't find a theme you like, or if you just want to tweak an existing theme, you can drag and drop building blocks into your page. Being opensource, it also means the amount of help available is enormous. You can head to Youtube and see step-by-step tutorials for anything you could ever want to do. There are even hour-long tutorials of people putting together a WordPress website from beginning to end. Yes, it can be done in as little time as 1-2 hours.

The thing that WordPress lacks is proper marketing. It's cemented in people's minds as this complicated service. Before I built my website, I was terrified to try it because I thought it was a software that helped you write your own code, basically. That is really, really far from the truth. But companies like Wix and Squarespace lean into that. They saw that Wordpress was a wonderful easy service that people were afraid to use because of misconceptions and and they thought "we're going to build something similar, repackage it, and market it as the only headache-free way to build a website!" While that's smart from a business, it's only a step away from blatant misrepresentation and lies, so it really rubs me the wrong way. Just my 2 cents!

Lee White

@NessIllustration We love wordpress. And if people want to use it, that is awesome. I say do whatever floats your boat. I wouldn't say that Squarespace is "lies and misrepresentation". It's just a service and they have branded themselves as easy. And they have made it easy. They do what they say they do, so I don't think it's a misrepresentation, maybe it's just something that is more expensive. But I don't see where the lies are with them. Personally I love squarespace and think the value is high. The commerce side of it is so robust and easy. Now maybe Wordpress is right up there too. I dunno. But I literally can sell 1 print per month and pay for my square space site. I'm good with that. : )

I've had trouble posting on instagram and archived most of my posts since someone mentioned that people interested in hiring illustrators look at IG accounts and expect them to be streamlined to the level of a portfolio. My website is waiting on portfolio pieces so it's not referenced in my instagram account yet. So at this stage I'm not worried about people trying to hire me, but I don't want to put myself at a disadvantage from the start! For now, I'm going to mark my IG account as student work and try not to worry about posting lower quality work, but I would be interested to hear how everyone balances their IG and website and how that may have changed at different stages. I think Will Terry mentioned he has his IG feed into his website, but would have to listen again to be sure.

smceccarelli

@Geoffrey-Gordon Thank you for raising some very interesting points - however critical

I have not listened to the podcast yet, so I cannot comment on anything, but I wanted to ask you a question about image names, which you specifically addressed. I recently went through a very thorough SEO exercise on my webpage where I’ve introduced alt-text and keywords for each image. I have not, however, gone through the trouble of renaming all the files. Would you say having alt-text and keywords associated with the images is enough from google’s perspective, or should I also take the time to rename all the image files?

Incidentally, I have noticed a considerable increase in traffic after getting my keywords in order....so it does have an impact.

The only thing I can comment on: my page is on Wordpress since inception and I’ve never had reason to change. It gives me a great balance of flexibility and ease and I like the thought that I can do whatever I want with it.

Jeremy Ross

Hi @smceccarelli, I agree - Wordpress isn’t as hard as some may believe. What’s hard is completing amazing portfolio pieces (at least for me!).

For the record, I’m using Wordpress with Elementor and it was pretty easy. I had some issues at first with SSL for security, but that was Namecheap, not Wordpress.

This episode and forum topic is timely since I’m in the middle of creating my own site.

Thanks y’all!

carlianne

@carolinedrawing I'm not sure what you mean by people that are hiring illustrators look at your IG and expect it to be streamlined to the level of a portfolio. If you were applying to a job you would provide your website or portfolio, if I were doing the hiring process I wouldn't then also look at your instagram and be like "oh he has old student work on here" and not hire you. I would base it on the portfolio you sent in? Or are you just talking about someone looking to commission an artist and doing so through their instagram? In which case, if you aren't trying to get a job right now, I'm not sure why it would matter?

As for what you can post I think that they talk about that in the podcast on social networks. But you can post student work, saying you're an aspiring_______. And people will follow because they want to watch your journey.

I have my website and portfolio linked right now, but I need to add a call of action to my website which I don't have. So right now it's just arttips and art pieces on my instagram, and my official portfolio and contact on my website.

NessIllustration

@Lee-White I don't have anything against people that use SquareSpace or find value in their service I know a lot of people like it and if they are satisfied, that's all that matters... That's why 99% of the time I hear about SquareSpace or Wix I stamp down on my initial reaction and just don't say anything, even if my eye starts to twitch every time I hear the name haha! I dislike how much misinformation there is about Wordpress, and how most people who haven't used it are led to believe building a website on Wordpress is complicated when it's not. All their marketing and copy writing leans into that perceived pain point. There's only one reason people are lead to believe that: so companies like Wix and SquareSpace can make money selling supposedly easier tools - which are in fact, the same tools available for free on Wordpress...

sigross

@NessIllustration does wordpress give you a free personal domain name or do you have to pay for that?

I setup a shop website with Shopify, which is well expensive. But I wanted their dropship facilities so I don't have to deliver my own large prints. I have a Squarespace too. Now though I'm trying to cut down on costs. I think the most likely outcome is to move my portfolio site to adobe portfolio as I'm paying top dollar for Adobe CC. They have a portfolio page built into the subscription.

NessIllustration

@sigross I have my portfolio with Adobe's platform and love it!
As for Wordpress, you have to pay for your hosting and domain but that's all. Hosting on Siteground starts at $3.95 a month for one website and a domain on Namecheap is $8-12 a YEAR, so less than $1 a month. Wordpress' ecommerce system, Woocommerce, is free and can integrate with many dropshipping services. My favorite is Printful, they have great quality large prints and it integrates with Woocommerce. Basically anything that Squarespace can do, Wordpress can do it too, but cheaper. By switching your portfolio to Adobe and Shopify to Wordpress, you're looking at reducing your costs to about $5 a month for everything, which is nothing to spit at!

sigross

@NessIllustration Thanks for the info, sounds good, I'll defo switch to adobe to save some money.
I had no choice with Shopify as The Printspace (printers) uses them, they don't do woocommerce right now but may in the future. I know they are setting a printshop up in the US too. I want to remain loyal to them as they are lovely people and quality printers, plus I can go in and see them as I like to be able to sign some editions. I've also found a factory round the corner in London that'll print fabrics and wallpaper and I can add dropship with Shopify through them. Where I make a saving is on worldwide shipping as the printer only charge £6 ($7.50-8). Which makes shipping simple.

Geoffrey Gordon

@Lee-White I agree with @NessIllustration. To elaborate her point a little more. The main issue I have with places like Squarespace and Wix is the long term offer. Yes setting it up is quick and you can band out a website, services like these are always tiered and limited. Meaning once your website is up and running, sooner are later you are going to want to add some integration or functionality and then that's when they say please upgrade your account so you can have this new feature. So it could be a payment gateway or a newsletter feature or even a better way to showcase your gallery or you could run out on the number of pages you are allowed. This is how these services work, they get you hooked in at entry-level and then when you well invested, you feel obligated to move to the next tier of payment and before you know it what was once cheap is getting more expensive.

Wordpress does not have these limits and there is literally a free plugin for every extra solution you want to an addon or a once-off payment for a premium solution, either way it is much better to invest in the right platform than to have to redo everything from scratch when you find out that your current service can longer help you or it costs too much to maintain.

I wish I could be a lecturer on SVS to show people just how easy it is to set up a website using WordPress. The only costs for the student will be the cost of a domain and their monthly hosting which is really cheap like between 5 to 10 dollars a month. I could show them ....

How to get started, buy a domain, set up a blank WordPress install
How to add pages, posts, and media
How to properly prepare and plan your website
Best practices for each page and understanding effective layout
Understand basic SEO principles,
How to maintain their website and keep it safe from hackers

Just a thought, I have 8 years working with WordPress, there is a lot I could offer on this subject. best of all they won't need to know any coding at all...

xin li

@Geoffrey-Gordon You could do a youtube channel. and we will totally follow you :-). Thank you so much for the tips and advice on image SEO.

Personally, I think Squarespace vs WordPress is a minor question in the process of making a website. I think the bigger question for with website for illustrators is what Jake talked about "the purpose".

But that said, saving a bit of money to run business by using a quality free platform is always welcome. So more knowledge of Wordpress is definitely useful for illustrators.