Website Hosting for Artists

Artists are not necessarily known for their technical expertise - depending on which medium they work in, of course - but that doesn't mean it isn't important that they have a good website with specially designed features that will showcase their work properly. One of the best ways to do this is to make use of a specialised content management service for artwork hosted online, which will allow you to arrange a gallery or portfolio of photographs and other images of the work you do. These services are often 'middlemen', though - which means that they can incur hefty monthly costs on top of your web hosting expenses. Is there a better way to deal with this problem?

You Can Cut Out The Middleman

If you learn a little about how to put together a website and find a good program to help, you'll be able to use a real web hosting company to create your online portfolio and gallery without incurring these additional fees. It's extra work in the short term, but in the long term you're likely to find that it will save you a great deal of money.

Many modern web hosting companies are able to offer applications, applets and addons alongside their paid plans that will help you get to grips with creating a site like this and have your website up and running in much less time. Two that you might want to look into specifically are Coppermine, which is designed to be as flexible an image gallery as possible, and WordPress, which has been developed over time to have as many varied uses as possible.

What's The Catch?

There's always a catch - and in this case it's that you'll need to spend a little while learning how to use the new software, which might seem a little complex at first. It's worth it in the long run, but there's a definite learning curve and it will take up a chunk of your time for a day or two while you teach yourself how it works.

Thankfully, help is available. Not only are there plenty of tutorials online, you may also benefit from looking into a program called Fantastico - something that's offered by a lot of big web hosting companies to help their customers do just this. It'll make it possible for you to get your gallery up and running with just a few clicks, in no time at all. You'll still need to take the time to learn how to get everything going, but this makes the process much simpler.

It's also worth bearing in mind that many web hosts will be only too happy to help you out, and technical support should be available to get you started.

What Are The Benefits?

The main benefit in this case is simple: you're going to save a lot of money, possibly as much as several hundred dollars a year. It's not hard to see how that helps you out, after all! You'll also benefit from the extra control that you'll have over the look and feel of the end product. If you work in a visual medium, it stands to reason that aesthetics are incredibly important - both to you and to your customers or clients. Having this extra level of control will probably help you to feel much better about the end result in the long run, and it's well worth learning about for that reason alone.