As a creative entrepreneur or artist, you may be wondering what kind of website can best help you promote your work, services, or product. You may think you have to spend hundreds or even thousands to get an attractive website up and running, with ongoing big costs to maintain it.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Almost unanimously, leaders in the world of marketing and promotion, use a software program which you can set up for free, and which can be customized to promote your projects, service, and products. You can also set up a membership site, and sell your products from this site.
The name of this software is WordPress, and there are two ways you can go, either with WordPress.org or WordPress.com. With the WordPress.com you get free hosting, with the other you pay a small monthly fee to your own hosting company.
I advocate you get WordPress.org with your own hosting, as it’s only with this version that you can do all things you need to do as a creative business venture.
With WordPress you can create blog posts, as well as web pages which feature your program, services and artwork . You don’t have to be a techie to quickly add text, photos, and videos to any of your pages or blog posts.
Although you can set it up yourself, it’s probably easiest and most time and cost efficient to hire somebody familiar with the software to do this. They will be able to help you with the initial setup so that it has the look and feel you want, and some of the features and plug-ins you need to promote your business.
You can easily get somebody to setup your WordPress website and blog this through going to such sites as www.elance.com. It can cost you anything from $50 – $300, to set up the basics you need.
As you learn about how to promote your business, and add products and services, you can further customize your WordPress site. You can also link it to your social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.
Finally, as a creative person you obviously want your website to look good. You may be wondering whether WordPress sites can meet your artistic expectations.
Believe me they are immensely flexible, and with the right tech and design help you can showcase your work in a great number of dazzling ways.
However, you must also remember, that the prime object of the site is to promote and sell. Make sure to learn how to do this effectively rather than thinking that the beauty of the site will sell your wares on their own.
It’s an old cliche in the marketing world that some of the ugliest sites sell better than the most beautiful. I am not arguing that you create an ugly site. As a creative person, it’s important that it reflect your aesthetic values. However there needs to be a balance between the look of the site, and it’s functionality as a promotional and sales tool.
Thanks Katie for sharing this. I’ve been debating about using WordPress but you made good points between .com and .org. I’ll be sharing with several of my friends that are also wondering what to use to update/create their websites.
Claudette Chenevert
Stepmom Coach
Katie – I so agree with your recommendation. I’ve found WordPress to be a wonderful platform – allowing both static and dynamic pages, as well as lots of apps/widgets. I DO rely on an awesome webmaster to handle the techi-er side of things.
Glad this is helpful, Claudette. I went through a lot of personal agonizing about how to set up my website. While I still have design and copy tweaks to make, and apps to add, I am very content with my decision to go with WordPress.
Mary Elaine, I would love to know what apps/ widgets you find most useful. And how great that you have an awesome webmaster.!