Are you still wondering whether you need a website for your artwork? Be assured, every artist should have a website because social media networks and art sharing sites are not enough. Creating your own artist website doesn’t need to be difficult. In this post, we’ve listed 10 reasons why you should make a website for your art and the TOP 10 website builders for portfolio websites and web stores! Read on to find out more…
Making a website for your art is the most effective way to get your work out there seen, market them, grow your audience and sell products and services.
Have you already taken the step and launched your own artist website or are you still asking yourself, ‘Should I make a website for my art?’ If the latter is the case, then this is the right post for you!
In this article, we are going to delve into why an artist should have a website and I am going to give you 10 good reasons why you should make a website for your art – today!
If you still find it intimidating to build your own website, I am also going to suggest website builders for artists for you that make it super-easy to design a website – whether you just want to showcase your portfolio or make a website to sell your art.
If you feel more courageous and ready to master a few techy challenges, then check out my post → How To Make An Artist Website With WordPress.
But without further ado now, let’s get started!
Should an artist have a website?
Back in the day, the only possibility to discover artists was by going to galleries or buying art magazines.
Nowadays, you can find awesome art in so many places on the internet! There’s no longer the need for a middleman – such as a gallery or a magazine – that suggests artwork to you. You can discover great artists at first hand, just by visiting social media networks, online art platforms, or the artists’ personal websites.
That allowed a lot of artist to create a level of exposure that was previously unthinkable. And many were able to build pretty successful art businesses.
Related: → How To Start A Digital Art Business (w/ FREE Art Business Startup Checklist
How is that possible?
Very simple. If you have an online presence, your art can be found, shared, liked or ‘pinned’ and there’s a manifold higher chance to get eyeballs on your work. Especially a blog post has the potential to go viral and attract thousands of visitors within a short period of time.
That’s why an artist should have a website. Whether you are a digital or traditional artist, photographer, poet, writer or even a music artist, you should make your own artist website – sooner rather than later!
Do I need a website for my artwork?
Why social media networks and art sharing website are not enough
There are many social media networks and art sharing websites around where you can upload your art. It’s definitely a good idea to use social media, art sharing sites (like DeviantArt, Behance, Fine Art America, etc.) or specific digital art platforms like ArtStation.
You can promote your art, connect with like-minded people, gain feedback from other artists, grow as an artist and grow your audience.
However, these sites should never replace your own artist website. They should rather be part of your marketing strategy and help you drive traffic to your website.
Should I make a website for my art?
If you are still not convinced that you need a website for your artwork, here are 10 good reasons why you should make a website for your art!
10 Reasons why you should make a website for your art
REASON #1. You decide how you want to present your art and yourself as the artist.
When making a website for your art, you can choose the design of your website and customize it completely to your liking.
You have your very personal art style and preferences and your own artist website can reflect that. Social media platforms and art sharing websites only let you present your work within very limited boundaries.
Your personal website gives you the freedom to showcase your art and present yourself as the artist exactly the way you want.
REASON #2. Your own artist website fully belongs to you.
When you make a website for your art, you do not only have full control over the design, but you are also the sole owner.
Your social media profiles and accounts on art sharing websites don’t belong to you. Social media networks and art sharing sites may become outdated or disappear. It already happened. Just think of MySpace, Snapchat, and Shadowness (a former art sharing platform). Once the site disappears, your content and your followers are lost forever.
Your own artist website is an online presence that you’ll never lose. Plus, it’s also the first thing that comes up when someone searches for you online.
REASON #3. Your artist website helps you create a sense of professionalism and a branding.
Every company has their own website. Just imagine: you see a product that you are interested in on Instagram or Facebook. As you are trying to get more information about the product and the company that’s selling it, you find out that the company doesn’t have a website. How trustworthy would you find that company?
The same goes for you as an artist – especially if you want to sell your work. Businesses need a website to be taken seriously, and having an artist website will help you create a sense of professionalism and trustworthiness.
It allows you to build your artist brand by having your personal domain and logo that people will remember.
REASON #4. You have a place to freely speak about your art.
When people see artwork they like, they do not only want to contemplate the piece but also find out more about the meaning behind it.
Your own artist website is a place where you can freely communicate your thoughts behind a particular work of art. You can speak about what inspired you to create it, the creation process itself, and the meaning behind the work.
You are not limited by space. On the contrary, you can create an entire blog post with work in progress shots, timelapse videos, pictures that inspired you, and so on.
REASON #5. You can have your own domain name.
As I mentioned above, an artist website is your chance to create brand awareness. Your artist name should also be your domain name, or if not possible, at least be included in your domain name.
This will help people remember you and also find you easily when searching the web.
Some of the website builders we are going to talk about later on in this post, allow to get a domain name for free. However, this will always be something like “www.wix.yourartistname.com.” You should absolutely avoid domains where your artist name is only the subdomain of another website. Why?
First of all, such domains don’t rank as high in Google’s search results as unique domain names. And secondly, they are way harder to remember for your audience!
REASON #6. You don’t want distracting ads or other artists’ work around your art.
When you share your art on social media platforms or other art sharing sites, your artwork never gets the full attention of the viewers.
Because, either, there are third-party ads that distract the viewers from solely focusing on your pieces. Or, you will have to compete with other artists for the viewers’ attention. Either way, your artwork is never fully in the limelight. (Free website builders also place their ads on your website; that’s another reason to avoid them.)
Your own artist website, however, allows you to channel people towards your creations and your creations only. They then have the time to peacefully contemplate your art and make their purchase decision.
REASON #7. You control how you make money and you don’t need to share your profit.
If you make a website for your art and include an online shop, you can sell your artwork, products and services directly from your site. And the best thing – you don’t need to share your profit with anyone!
You have full control over what you sell and how you price your items. You can sell fine art prints, downloadable images with a license agreement, or Photoshop resources.
Should I put prices on my art website?
Yes, absolutely. If people are interested in a piece of yours but they cannot see how much it costs, they will most likely leave your site. Because most potential customers are reluctant to ask the artist for prices. They prefer to shop around quietly, decide whether they can afford an item, and if so, make the purchase.
Not putting prices on your art website means lost customers…
REASON #8. You can SEO-optimize your website so that it ranks high in Google.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is impossible on social media platforms and art sharing sites. But you can optimize your own artist website to rank high in Google and other search engines.
Search engines use algorithms to determine how relevant the content of a website is to a given search query. If you have your blog posts optimized for certain key phrases, your website will appear in the search results.
This will allow you to create more exposure for your art, increase your sales, and grow your audience.
REASON #9. You can track website traffic and other important data.
To optimize and improve your artist website, you need to know who visits it, when, and where they come from.
Google Analytics and Search Console are free tools that you can connect to your website and that will provide you with free data about your website visitors.
For example, you can see what country they come from, how much time they spend on your website, which pages they visit, and which search query they typed into Google.
If some pages turn out to be less attractive than others, you can improve those pages and drive more traffic to your website.
REASON #10. You can build your own email list.
You can have as many followers on Facebook and Instagram as you want – once the platform decides to change their algorithm, your posts may only reach a small percentage of your total following. And when people delete their social media account, the contact is lost forever.
This cannot happen with your own email list. If you have an email opt-in on your website, fans and followers have the option to subscribe to your newsletter. You can then contact your followers whenever you like.
People are way less likely to delete or change their email addresses than their social media accounts. Your email list is a safe and long-term way to stay in touch with your audience.
- The Best Lead Magnet Ideas To Grow Your Email List
What kind of website should an artist have?
Basically, there are two kinds of websites that an artist can have: a mere portfolio website to showcase their art or a website with an integrated web shop to showcase and sell their art.
Depending on whether you wish to simply showcase your works or whether you also intend to make some money from your art, you can choose the kind of website.
Having said that, you can always start with a simple portfolio website and later on upgrade to an ecommerce website, if you decide to also sell your work.
All of the website builders we are going to have a look at below are very scalable and allow you to upgrade from a simple portfolio website to an artist website that sells whenever you wish.
We are going to show you the TOP 5 website builders for artists to build a portfolio website and the TOP 5 website builders to sell your artwork.
Overall, Squarespace is the best option for showcasing art because it comes with numerous templates that are specifically geared towards artists. For artists who want to sell art on a larger scale, Shopify is the way to go due to its advanced ecommerce features.
But first up, here are our TOP recommendations for artists who want to showcase or sell their art:
Top 5 Website Builders for Artists to Create an Online Portfolio
- Squarespace – Overall best website builder for showcasing art.
- Wix – Flexible website builder with lots of templates to choose from.
- Weebly – Portfolio website builder with great blogging features.
- Pixpa – Portfolio website builder especially for visual creatives.
- Jimdo – Guided web design approach for both newbies and advanced users.
Top 5 Website Builders for Artists to Launch a Web Store
- Squarespace Commerce – Best visual-focused ecommerce website builder.
- Wix eCommerce – Budget-friendly ecommerce features with highly customizable web shop.
- Pixpa eCommerce – Easy-to-activate e-commerce store for your digital art platform.
- Shopify – Advanced ecommerce functionality for larger art stores.
- BigCommerce – Another ecommerce-focused website builder for larger sales volumes.
Top 5 Website Builders for Artists to Create an Online Portfolio
- Focus on visual content
- Lots of templates for artists
- Easy to use even for beginners
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Free trial available
Paid Plans: $16 - $49 / month
Squarespace has by far the best template designs that are specifically geared towards visual creators. That’s why so many photographers, digital artists, illustrators, graphic designers, and so on have their websites hosted with Squarespace.
Squarespace comes with a drag-and-drop website builder that makes it super-easy for anyone to create a website without any coding skills. While Squarespace’s templates are not as flexible as Wix’s and Weebly’s, they put your visuals in the limelight.
Squarespace’s plans are highly scalable, meaning you can start with a website showcasing your art, and upgrade to one of their ecommerce plans when you feel ready to sell your work.
While Squarespace doesn’t have a free plan, it offers a 14-day free trial for you to decide whether or not you want to stick with it. The Personal plan for $16 per month is a great choice for all artists who are just starting their online art platform. You’ll get your custom domain name and unlimited bandwidth – everything you need to get your artist website up and running!
→ Read our Full Squarespace Review for Visual Creatives for more.
- Flexible website templates
- 500+ templates to choose from
- Option to build website from scratch
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Free plan available
Paid Plans: $16 - $32 / month
Wix lets you take a survey to find out about your requirements before you start building your website. It will then suggest template options that are suited to your needs based on your answers. This can be extremely helpful when choosing a template for your artist website, because Wix comes with more than 500 premade template designs!
Wix’s templates are as easy to customize as Squarespace’s, but much more flexible in terms of design options. Plus, they also allow you to create a web page from scratch – totally to your personal liking.
Wix offers a free plan, so you can start building your portfolio website at no cost. However, you won’t get a custom domain and Wix will also display ads on your free site. Wix’s paid plans remove the ads and include a custom domain name.
For all artists who are just getting started on Wix, the Light plan for $16 per month is a good choice.
A great website builder for artists who also want to run a blog on their website.
- Customizable templates
- Great blogging platform
- Budget-friendly option
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Free plan available
Paid Plans: $10 - $26 / month
Weebly doesn’t have as many templates as Wix to choose from, but you can still tailor every design to fit your needs. Weebly also comes with a drag-and-drop editor that makes it easy to populate your website with content.
The grid structure is not as flexile as Wix’s and you won’t be able to place elements exactly where you want. However, Wix is ideal if you are planning to run a blog alongside your art portfolio. It has a great blogging platform with inbuilt SEO features.
Just like Wix, Weebly has a free plan to try things out. But if you want to have your own domain name and no ads on your site, you need at least the Professional plan for $12 per month.
Portfolio website builder tailored to photographers and other visual creatives.
- Great for visual creatives
- Structured templates ideal for beginners
- Lots of extra portfolio features
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Free trial available
Paid Plans: $4 - $12.50 / month
Pixpa is similar to Squarespace in that its templates are specifically designed for photographers and other visual artists.
Pixpa is the best pick if you want to make a portfolio website for your art because you will get lots of extra features that other website builders don’t have. This includes client galleries, image compression tools, the option to add meta data to images, and much more.
The templates are not as customizable as Wix’s, but this will also help you avoid faux pas in your website design. That can be something especially useful when you are just starting out making a website for your art.
Pixpa doesn’t come with a free plan, but you have the option to test it out with the free 15-day trial. Their cheapest plan starts at $4 per month, which is also pretty affordable for budding artists.
Website builder with guided approach for both newbies and advanced web artists.
- Guided web design approach
- Ideal for beginners and advanced
- Small learning curve
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Free trial available
Paid Plans: $9 - $14 / month
Jimdo comes with a guided approach similar to Wix’s, which is ideal for beginners without any website building experience. You can reply to a number of questions and tell Jimdo exactly what you want your website to do.
The website builder is easy to use, even for beginners, and you won’t need much time getting used to. Jimdo offers a free trial as well, so you can start without paying any money or submitting your credit card details.
All Jimdo premium plans are ad-free and you’ll get your own domain name and email address. The Start plan for $9 per month is a good choice to host your personal portfolio website. But if you haven’t made up your mind yet, you can always start with the free trial to test the waters.
How to make a website to sell art
Should you make a website for your art that also sells? If you do not only want to showcase your creations, but also allow people to purchase prints and other products of your designs, then you should make a website to sell art!
For that purpose, you’ll need a platform that provides you with essential ecommerce features to display products, handle payments, and manage your stock.
The TOP 5 website builders with ecommerce features that we are going to talk about below can handle these functions without sacrificing the quality of your design!
Top 5 Website Builders for Artists to Launch a Web Store
Best ecommerce website builder for artists to create a visually appealing web shop.
- All essential ecommerce features
- Visual-focused web shop
- Easy-to-use shop builder
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Free trial available
Paid Plans: $23 - $49 / month
With Squarespace Commerce, it is as easy to make an art shop as it is to create an online portfolio. Squarespace has ecommerce functionality included in their Business plan, providing you with all the features you need to launch your online store.
You don’t need any third-party software to start selling because everything is already built in with Squarespace – from shopping cart, to payment gateways, to product galleries, to upsells and discount coupons.
If you want to have more functionality, you can check out Squarespace Extensions with third-party integrations to embed more ecommerce features in your online store. You’ll find apps like Printful and Printify that help you support your art business.
Squarespace’s ecommerce plans start with the Business plan for $23 per month. You’ll be able to use PayPal and Stripe as payment gateways with a transaction fee of 3%. When you upgrade to the Basic Commerce plan, you will have no transaction fees.
Budget-friendly ecommerce builder that’s easy to use and highly customizable.
- Wix Art Store is one-stop solution
- Easy-to-use ecommerce features
- Budget-friendly business plan
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Free trial available
Paid Plans: $27 - $159 / month
Wix eCommerce is a website builder that’s within the price range of most budding artists. A Wix web store is as easy to create and highly customizable as a regular Wix website.
The Wix Art Store is a one-stop solution for showcasing and selling your art online. You will get all ecommerce features you need and you can also start selling your products on social media platforms like Facebook and Pinterest.
Wix will let you create an online store for free, so you can try everything out at zero risk. If you like the platform and want to make your listed products actually available for sale, you’ll need to be at least on the Core plan for $27 per month.
Wix’s paid plans offer good value for money, including unlimited bandwidth, up to 50GB of storage space, a free domain name for one year, and ad vouchers.
Easy-to-activate e-commerce store for your digital art platform.
- Integrated e-commerce store
- All essential selling tools
- Free web store trial available
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Free trial available
Paid Plans: $7.50 - $12.50 / month
Pixpa eCommerce makes it easy to add a store to your existing portfolio website. The online store will have the same look as the rest of your online art platform.
As a web artist, you can sell digital items, images, and services, but also physical products such as prints and print-on-demand products. Pixpa lets you start creating your web shop without paying any money with the 15-day free trial. You can add products to your store, set shipping and tax rates, and connect payment gateways.
To make your store live, you’ll need to upgrade to one of Pixpa’s paid plans. The cheapest plan for web shops is the Creator plan for $7.50 per month, but you can only sell up to 5 products. For up to 25 products, there’s the Professional plan for $10 per month. If you have more, the best option for you is the Advanced plan for $12.50 per month that also lets you add an unlimited number of images.
Website builder with advanced ecommerce features for artists who want to sell on a larger scale.
- Advanced ecommerce features
- Beautifully designed templates
- Lots of apps and plugins
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Free trial available
Paid Plans: $29 - $299 / month
Shopify is a great choice for artists who want to sell lots of different products and who already have a customer base in place. Shopify is not the cheapest among online store website builders, but it has the most advanced ecommerce features.
Shopify comes with beautifully designed templates and a large selection of apps and plugins. These enable you, for example, to sell across different channels, like Amazon, eBay, and social media, and to integrate gallery and product pages.
You even have the option to connect print-on-demand platforms to sell prints and other merch with your art via Printful or Printify.
If your goal is to start a serious art selling business, Shopify’s functionality that you get with the Basic plan for $29 per month is worth the money.
Another great website builder specializing in ecommerce to take your art business to the next level.
- Commission-free
- Revenue-based pricing scheme
- For artists with existing customer base
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Free trial available
Paid Plans: $29.95 - $299.95 / month
BigCommerce is an ecommerce website builder similar to Shopify. BigCommerce comes with all ecommerce and SEO features you need to take your art business to the next level.
You will get access to common payment gateways, coupon and discount options, and you will be able to sell your products across different platforms. However, you should have an established customer base and sell a large volume of products per month to justify the price.
Unlike Shopify, BigCommerce doesn’t take any commission fees from your profits, so everything you make is yours. BigCommerce’s pricing plans depend on your revenue range. Each plan lets you sell an unlimited number of products.
The Standard plan for $29.95 per month, for instance, is for businesses that didn’t make more than $50,000 in the previous 12 months.
