First you’ll need to purchase a domain name which is about $10 a year. You will also need to get web hosting which can be $6 to $15 a month depending on the hosting company and the plan you choose. I believe these expenses are investments in your art career and well worth the cost in order to promote you and your work. But I also know that for some artists just starting out these are expenses they simply can not afford.

If you are looking to create a web presence without spending a dime I recommend starting with WordPress.com. This is a completely free blog service that offers plenty of great features and customization all within a community of other users who are there to help you when you need it. You could head over to WordPress.com right now and have a website/blog up and running in less than 15 minutes without ever having to break out the credit card. This option takes away any excuse you may have for not having your own artist website.

The great thing about starting with WordPress.com as your website service is that the content you create on your site is easily transferred to a WordPress.org site when you’re ready for an up grade. Also WordPress.com offers paid upgrade options as well to improve your site without ever having to move it. Any time and effort you invest in WordPress.com is not wasted due to this ease of upgrade that is built in.

WordPress.com Vs. WordPress.org

If you are not familiar with WordPress you might be a bit confused at this point by the mention of WordPress.com and WordPress.org. They are two different blogging solutions. Simply put the .com version is a blog service and the .org version is a blog software.

WordPress.com hosts your blog or site on their servers for free and your domain name is something like artpalaver.wordpress.com.

WordPress.org offers software that you install on your own server you’ve rented from a hosting company and is then connected to your own domain name. It is what I use here on artpalaver.com.

WordPress.org is super flexible and can be customized in just about anyway you can imagine to just about whatever you need it to do. Right out the box it is very search engine friendly. There are countless themes and plugins available for free that help you change the look and function of the your site. And there is a large community of avid users found on blogs and forums around the web that will help you when you need it. Those are just some of the reasons I think WordPress.org is a great solution for a do it yourself” web presence. But I do understand that the approximate $120 a year price tag can be too much for the emerging artist.

Start with the completely free option and eventually move to the better self hosted .org option.

If you do start off on WordPress.com though one small expense you might consider is buying yourself a domain name. Scrape together the $8.88 needed to secure the name for a year and then have it forward to your WordPress.com site. myart.com is better than myart.wordpress.com.

Any questions?

WordPress For Artists | Create A Free Artist Website With WordPress.com is a post from: Art Palaver The Artist Marketing Resource.

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But I know many artists who use WordPress never get around to activating Akismet because they get confused when it asks for a WordPress.com API key.

What is a WordPress.com API key and how do I get one?

Basically the API key allows your blog access to Akismet’s service to check if the comments appear to be spam or not. There are two simple ways to get your key. You can go to WordPress.com and sign up for a username only account or you can go directly to Akismet’s site and have them email you a key.

Does not really matter which route you take, they are both very simple. But I highly recommend that you do take this step of getting that Akismet plugin activated. It will save you a lot of time by weeding out the real comments from the ugly comments.

WordPress For Artists | Stopping Spam Comments On Your Art Blog is a post from: Art Palaver The Artist Marketing Resource.

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I recommend using

Welcome to WordPress Wednesday!

Plugins are tools that you use to add function to your WordPress blog or site. Think of them as upgrades. There are hundreds of them and most of them are free. The following list is what I consider a good foundation for any WordPress based website.

1. WordPress Database Backup – This plugin simplifies and automates the back up of your site’s database. The database is where most of your site’s information is stored. Having regular automatic back ups can really save you when things go wrong.

2. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – Every time you post to your blog this little guy will look at your past posts for ones that relate and add links to them after the post. This helps your visitors to keep reading and stay on your site longer. That is a good thing.

3. All in One SEO Pack – SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and good SEO helps people find your site and you through organic cost free searches. This plugin boosts the SEO of your whole site and blog posts. If you do use this one I suggest checking out the plugin’s site to learn how to really get the most out of it.

4. SEO Friendly Images – Properly handling the images you post to your site can really increase traffic to your site. (As previously mentioned.) This plugin does some pretty geeky stuff to improve your images in the eyes of Google.

5. SEO Slugs – If you can’t tell already SEO is important and you want to do all you can to improve it. This plugin removes common words like ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘in’ from post slugs. Trust me the last thing you want is an ‘a’ in your post slugs.

6. Google XML Sitemaps – One more to help search engines find you. This plugin creates a file that makes for easy reading if your a search engine robot.

7. WordPress Automatic Upgrade – WordPress is great but there is always room for improvement. Which is why every so often new versions will come out that contain bug fixes and feature upgrades. This plugin does all the heavy lifting for you when it comes to keeping your site up to date.

8. RSS Footer – Many people will be reading your blog via RSS. That means they will rarely visit your blog. This plugin allows you to include a signature in every post that you can use to brand your posts or to market something specific. If you’re reading this post via RSS you’ll see what I mean below. If you’re not reading this post via RSS you can subscribe (For Free!) by clicking here.

9. What Would Seth Godin Do – Funny name but a great plugin. This one allows you to give a specific “hello” to new visitors who have never been to your site before. A great way to grab their attention and encourage them to subscribe to your content.

10. Gurken Subscribe to Comments – Pretty self explanatory. After someone comments they can get an email when there are follow up comments. Help encourage dialogue between you and your fans.

This list is by no means an end all be all list, just a foundation. Like I said there are many plugins out there that do a wide range of things. I am always on the look out for new ones so let me know of any you’d put on a list like this.

WordPress For Artists | Ten Essential Plugins For Your Art Blog is a post from: Art Palaver The Artist Marketing Resource.

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