Hi, all! I'm needing to start getting up my own website, up until now I'm only had my work on marketplace style websites like Etsy, Artfire, Handmade Artists, and a few other sites along those lines, but I'd really like to have an actual stand-alone website. I've looked at ArtSpan, but have found their package rates to be a bit deceptive. When you look at their plans and pricing it says the two different price options, but it is not until you look at their FAQ that you find out that that price is only if you don't chose to use a domain name (originally their plans even mentioned that the highest priced plan allowed for a domain name, but, again, said nothing of that having an extra cost).
So because of this, I'm looking at FASO instead. I could really use some advice from for those of you here that have a website through Fine Art Studio Online. First of all, do you like their websites and service? I'm trying to decide between the Platinum and Gold plans, I like that the Platinum plan has no limit on the number of images you can put on your website, but I prefer the cost of the Gold plan. Both plans allow for a shopping cart, but do they include options for shipping costs? I've heard from others that have sites through groups like Weebly that their sites can't add in shipping.
Something else that I've been wondering about is that there seems to be a pretty even split between artist websites that list their prices and those that don't. What would be the best way to go?
Any info/advice you can give me on FASO, and websites in general, is greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance!
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I am the Artspan founder – we were the first (1999) to provide template websites that were specifically for artists. These sites are also part of a larger marketplace site, artspan.com, with searches, directories, portals and artspanSHOPs. This is a complete service for art professionals But take a look at artspan.com and our most recent launch, this week, www.jewelspan.com.
I don’t want this to turn into an infomercial! I wanted to correct the mistaken impression that we don’t allow people to have domain names – we very actively encourage it. The member websites are designed for professionals and professionals should have their own domains. We don’t buy them for our members as we believe our members should control their own domains, they should be listed as owners and admins. Our pricing for artspan is 215.46 per year for the top package with everything included, totally customizable and manageable websites with all features including integrated carts and prints-on-demand and so on. BTW, jewelspan sites have a introductory offer of $99 for a year. Take a look at our sites and those of FASO @$480 per year.
I'm really sorry for my poor wording, I didn't mean that domain names weren't allowed in the sense that you could not have them, but that the different plans no longer (when last I looked) made any reference to your being able to have one or what plans you were able to have with (when on previous occasions when I'd looked I had seen reference made to it). Also that while that information can be found on your site I did not find it to be easily found, and found other things to be unclear.
I was just thinking the same thing. I'd love to see your site, too.
Sure! Here's the link: www.handmadendesigns.com
I think I may have made a decision. Thank you all soooooo much for the help! As great as I'm sure faso is, I really like the looks of indiemade's websites better and its cost is a lot more affordable for me.
Cathy, Dan, your sites look great!! Some of the best I've seen on faso. (I really wish faso showed what their templates look like as it gets rather tiresome looking through umpteen pages of artist profiles. So many of them start to look the same after awhile.)
Again, thank you! I really appreciate all the info and advice.
I'm really loving it! It is sooooo easy to use. Thank you so much for the info about them, Connie!!
Laura, post your link here after your Indiemade site is ready. Love to see it.
Setting up a domain name and keeping it current is not a big expense if done separately. There are lots of sites that will handle the registry and host the domain name on a "domain name server". Once that's done, you keep control of where your site is hosted, and can change it if you decide to move your web home.
Cost is about $12 for the first year, and $12/year afterward for a top level domain name such as laurahepworth.com
Many hosting services don't require you to have your own domain name, and will host you as a "subdomain". This can take a similar form to a top level domain name, for example, you might be laurahepworth.faso.com, which would be a subdomain hosted by faso.com. It's essentially the same thing as being listed in a subdirectory.
The advantage to a hosted service like FASO is that they are artist-centric. They put quite a bit of effort into providing marketing and social links, and making it easier for you to get a site up and running.
If you are planning to sell from your site, you must list prices. And you must make it clear what it will cost to ship something. Some sites will allow multiple purchases to be bundled under one shipping charge, based on quantity or weight. I don't know if FASO will do this, or let you determine the parameters. I can do it with ZenFolio, a photographer-centric site, which would also work well for other 2-D artists.
Most template driven sites work with a PayPal shopping cart system, as it passes the PCI-compliance and the data storage to a third party. It will cost you an extra 3% out of your sales total. Some sites will also charge a commission per sale (ZenFolio does this on the cheaper subscriptions -- it's 4% of the profit, not the gross sale) so check to see if this will affect you.
A good prebuilt eCommerce site will give you the ability to set your own shipping and handling charges, by weight or quantity, and to offer more than one shipping speed, if you want. They may also let you collect sales tax for more than one state, if you have "nexus" in more than one state, by nature of having a retail location in more than one state. In other words, if you have a physical presence in states other than your home state, you may be liable for collected sales tax. This is a big can of worms, as each state treats this a bit differently.
If the site can't handle shipping, then you can always build it into the price of the item. It will be taxable, however. Some states want sales tax on shipping, others do not. I have yet to find a pre-built eCommerce site that can handle all of these variables gracefully.
The one disadvantage that I can see to FASO is that it is relatively expensive, as a hosting platform, if you don't plan to take advantage of their mailing service, their eCommerce hooks and the other features that they offer. At $28/month, it is still less than a full fledged cart hosting system. But basic hosting for a WordPress templated site will run you at the high end about $10/month. See BlueHost, for example. There are many good gallery sites out there, some with eCommerce capabilities. If you just want a web presence, look into WordPress or Weebly, two fairly easy hosting systems, without the cost.
Either way, you should be able to use your own domain name. On WordPress, you do need a separate hosting server, such as BlueHost, GoDaddy or HostGator, if you want the site branded with your own domain name. GoDaddy and BlueHost both offer one-click installs of WordPress. Go shopping for templates on WordPress.com, or just do a Google search. There are many many template providers nowadays, with minimal, responsive templates for free, or a one-time charge.
Good luck with whichever way you decide to go.
What a great thorough answer, Jim. Thank you.
I've never used any of these complete business system websites and had no idea they offered so many services. Pretty amazing.
Do you think that if you are on one of these gallery sites that you get as good SEO as you have on your own hosted site? It seems to me that you'd be in competition with everyone else on the site (kind of like an art fair!) I agree about the domain name, it is such a tiny expense. All of my domains are through goDaddy.com and they cost $9.95 a year. I am not selling products, only advertising on my sites, and I have PayPal links on them which works well for my purposes.
I hate to see people buying bells and whistles that they won't use and that are expensive when so many inexpensive options are available.
Your SEO is calculated mostly on what kind of content you have and how well targeted it is. Handmade glass will score better in organic search than just glass, for example. So being on an aggregate artist site won't necessarily boost your SEO or hurt it. Using very specific keywords in your content will help it, no matter where your site is hosted.
For those of you contemplating building a new site, here are some good tips. Written from the perspective of a WordPress site for photography, these tips make sense for almost any type of site. GraphPaper press has a subscription model for its templates, as well as a single template purchase. Templates are pretty easy to install on your own hosting service. It does require that you have a method in place for uploading content. Usually it's down via FTP, or using a web design tool like Dreamweaver. GoDaddy has a built-in file uploader, too.
Between indiemade and faso, I would tend towards using indiemade. It seems more focused on the needs of artists, and cost a bit less per year. It does limit you on the number of items you can sell, but it's unlimited as far as the number of items you can show. It looks to be more organized than faso, although I haven't personally built a site on either.
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