I am proud of my website, merglennstudios dot com, that I created through FASO dot com and I don't mind telling people so. But being happy about my web presence hasn't always been the case. I used to be one of those guys who liked to tell people that although I have a website, I didn't have time for updating and posting new material there so the site was really out of date. Besides, when someone asked about the website it was most likely while they were standing in my booth looking at the real stuff right there in front of them, and that made me mad. I thought to myself, "What? You aren't satisfied with seeing the real thing?"
I have had my FASO site for about two years, but before FASO I had a site for about 6 years that I let someone else manage. I began realizing the error of my ways and decided to take down the other website that I had paid someone to create and webmaster for me back in 2005. My webmaster had great design and programming skills and he was happy to host the site for very little extra. Each time I needed an update, I regretted having to get the information ready since I knew that his time putting it on the site would cost me something, plus I was always wishing I could tweak this and that a little here and there and couldn't. I didn't know all those fancy programs he created my site with and I didn't want to learn those programs (or buy them) and HTML code and whatever else I had to know in order to have THAT nice site. Plus that older site always appeared to be out of date since the information didn't get changed and updated enough.
So we didn't have a website at all for about four or five months while I began learning HTML (I found a great tutorial) and preparing to do my own coded site. Luckily, I discovered FASO and VOILA!, have been exstatic ever since. I still haven't done everything I'd like to do with my FASO site, like get an email signup space on the home page, but it's working and I get results from having it. Also, FASO has great support and marketing info and analytics and whatnot. Best of all, it's clean looking and set up for e-commerce through paypal. I've made more money from sales on the site than it has cost me. And it costs me just $26 per month.
I might be inclined someday soon to get back in there and use a a different template and change the colors up a bit. Just yesterday I removed the outline boxes from around the perimeter of my thumbnails and it looks cleaner. I still need to create a better ABOUT US page since ours is still a bit mysterious feeling and less inviting.
So if you are an artist who makes excuses about your web presence, get on FASO start a decent website. FASO is a website service that you can manage yourself pretty easily and it is tailored to artists. Does anyone else already use FASO? WOOHOO!
Replies
I'm highly considering using FASO. I've used weebly for years (good starter site, but not good professional site, seems too expensive for what you get). And I'm either going to start again from scratch using wordpress or FASO.
I have a few questions. Is the shopping cart software included? is hosting included, and are there any set up fees for starting with FASO. I guess I could do more research on those questions, but if you have any insight, I'd be open to it.
Have you ever entered there monthly competitions, and if so have you ever won anything? Again any insight would be great!
I don't remember having any set up fees. FASO hosts it, shopping cart is on there, I own the domain name, it's $28 a month for gobs of space. It's a great service. Check out my site at merglennstudios.com. You don't have to use the template and colors that I use. FASO has simple templates and newer ones that I haven't yet investigated. I might change my site a bit someday, but it's working just fine as it is. Good luck, and WOOHOO!
Cool artwork! I think I'll use the site, shopping cart software alone is already expensive. If you get any incentives for referrals let me know. I'll tell them you referred me.
Hi, Brandy. Thanks for the kind words. Seems I remember something about referral incentives, so mention merglennstudios rather than mine or my wife's names.
I hope I've steered you correctly about the shopping cart. I know I have an e-commerce website with FASO, but shipping fees might not work exactly like a true shopping cart can. I dunno. All I know is people can buy from my site and I get the money and ship the goods. It is linked to paypal. If you have doubt about that system, please call FASO and discuss it on the phone. They've always been available by phone when I've needed to discuss something with a real person. WOOHOO!
Correction to the above.....I now have an email sign up block that appears on every page of my website so that I can start an email list. WOOHOO!