WordPress.comMore and more, artists are realizing that they need to take control of their online web presence.   You need to build and maintain your own website, unless, of course, you can afford to pay someone else to do it for you.

But if you want to do it, then here are some reasons that I recommend you give WordPress.com a whirl.

 

 1.  Tons of Themes to Choose

At the time of this writing they have around 141 free themes and 70 premium themes.  In that collection, there are 23 responsive themes which are becoming very popular because of the many device sizes in existence.

The variety is large enough to find a theme that suits any personality and style.  For artists, the important thing is to find a clean, simple theme that allows their artwork to do the speaking.

2.  Can Integrate Your Social Media Sites

Sharing is available as well as auto sharing your blog posts.  Many artists hate how much time this whole process can take.  So being able to automate these things is a real plus.

3.  Can set it up as a Website, Blog or Both

I know there are still artists who have no desire for blogging and want only to build a more traditional website to house an online portfolio.  Yes, you can do that with WordPress.

Of course, I always recommend blogging to be part of the website to help increase traffic, but everyone has their preferences, and WordPress accommodates that.

4.   Has Some Great Built-in SEO

WordPress is a great format for Search Engine Optimization.   But this is just another item on the long “to do” list that artists don’t want to deal with and often times don’t even understand.  So having some of this already built-in can do wonders for your website.

5.   Security and Backups of your Website Included

Now, we are moving into the top reasons why I recommend WordPress.com to artists. Maintaining a website these days is getting harder to do.   Security issues are a major concern.

WordPress.com is probably the most locked down and secure location to house a free or low costing website. Yes, this does create some limitations since they don’t allow third party applications, which is one of the ways they maintain security.

The largest trade off for this security is the inability to do e-commerce at WordPress.com.  For some businesses this is unacceptable, so they need to use WordPress.org instead.  But, to do so means becoming completely responsible for security and backups.

This isn’t that large of an obstacle for artists though, because of websites like Etsy and Fine Art America, Zazzle and others.  Artists can easily set up their e-commerce on those sites and place tabs in the menu bar of WordPress.com to open their pages on those sites.

6.  Two Step Authentication for Extra Security

An available option at WordPress.com is to set up an authentication via a phone to protect the login page.   With the Brute Forge attacks that hackers use to try to break through Usernames and Passwords, WordPress.com has added another level of security if you want to use it.

7.  The Issue of Ads

Yes, if you go completely free, there will be ads on your website.  Most free sites have ads.  And most of them offer some sort of upgrade to remove those ads.

These places are online businesses.  They have to pay for the hosting space in some way.  Ads are a major way to do that.  So you either let the ads run or you pay something to be ad free.

Artists, I highly, highly advice you pay to remove those ads for two reasons.

  1. To make your site look more professional.
  2. To keep visitors from clicking away from your website.

I recommend that you invest in two things with your website at WordPress.com. First, purchase that upgrade for No Ads at $30/year. Second, purchase your own domain name instead of using the free WordPress.com domain. You don’t need to do either until you have your site up and running and ready for the public.

8.  Check for My Next Class

If you live somewhere near southern Michigan, check out my Speaking page for my WordPress.com classes at WCC.  The class is called WordPress: Getting Started.

Filed under: Websites

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