Website Terms

Ever wonder what the heck I am talking about when I use terms such domain name, hosting, DNS?

Here is a list of common website terms that you may hear me use when we are working together on your site.

Website terms and definitions

Domain Name – This is the internet address of your site. It is what people will type into the address bar of a browser in order to get to your website. Example: www.YourName.com

URL – The internet address to a website or to a specific page within a website or blog. Every web page has it’s own unique URL and will be the name that you give to a page.

www.yourname.com is a domain name, and a URL of your home page.
www.yourname.com/gallery is the URL of another page on your site.

Domain Registrar – This is a company where you purchase your domain name for an annual fee. The average cost of a domain name is around $10 to $20, any more than that then you are paying to much. (read my post on domain name scams)

Note that if you forget to renew your domain name your website will not appear on the web and can be sold to someone else.

Parked Domain Name – After purchasing your domain name it is considered parked at the registrar’s website until you redirect the name servers to your hosting site.

You can also register more than one domain name. Say you want YourName.com and YourName.ca, you will use one of these as the main domain of your website and park the other at the same hosting site. Then when someone types in either one of those domain names in the address bar of a browser they will land on your site.

DNS – Domain Name Servers – To point your domain name to your hosting account insert the name server addresses that are provided by your hosting company into an area called DNS (domain name servers) in the domain name account. This will connect your domain name to your website at the hosting servers.

If you have more than one domain name as mentioned under Parked Domain Names then you will have to point the secondary domain names as well.

Once the connection is made and resolves over the internet (usually with in a few hours but they will say up to 72 hours) your domain name will appear in the address bar and show off your new site.

Host, Hosting Account – This is a company that sells space on their servers so your website can go online. There many hosting companies out there and each have their own terms and costs.

Image Website Terms

.jpg or .jpeg – the preferred file format for most website images and images of your art. You would name your image and save it as a .jpg or .jpeg

Image Size – can refer to either the actual outside dimensions of an image in inches or pixels as well as the resolution.

Resolution – refers to the number of pixels, or dots, per inch in a digital image file. The fewer the pixels or dots, the lower the resolution and the smaller the file size. Resolutions of 300 dpi and higher are required for printing. Resolutions of 72 – 100 ppi are best for web sites.

DPI – dots per inch, typically used when talking about images for printing.

PPI – pixels per inch when talking about images for the web.

Developer Website Terms

Not that you have to worry about any of these items. They are the guts that run WordPress and what allows you to manage your website content with out having to know anything about how to use them. Just so you know.

PHP – Hypertext Preprocessor (the name is a recursive acronym) is a widely used, general-purpose scripting language that was originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages such as those in WordPress.

MySQL – “My Sequel” is a relational database management system (RDBMS) that runs as a server providing access to a database. We need one to run WordPress.

HTML – Hypertext Markup Language is the language that most websites use for defining their layout and structure.

CSS – Cascading Style Sheets are often used to define styles, such as colors, fonts and sizes, of elements on a blog or website. Changes made to a specific element on a stylesheet will apply to that element everywhere it appears on the site.

JavaScript – is a scripting language that allows applications hosted by other websites to work on yours. Many widgets and such that give you code to put on your website work via javascript.

CMS – Content Management System – are programs that run on your hosting server that allow you to manage your website content online with out having to know HTML, CSS or JavaScript. All Artbiz sites are created this way using WordPress.

Pages Vs Posts

Understanding the difference between pages and posts

Before we start working on your site, it’s important to have a clear understanding of the difference between pages and posts:

Pages are usually those which have a static purpose in life. For example an artist statement, bio, CV, Gallery pages or a contact forms. They do not usually contain information about news items, for example, which are added to the site on a regular basis. Pages are generally defined so that they are always accessible from the front page. Some people build entire sites with just Pages – this is especially the case for sites with little need for dynamic content and is very popular with small businesses and us; the artist.

Posts usually contain semantically and chronographically arranged information – for example, news reports, event results, and of course blog entries! The semantic structure is defined by categories and tags, and whilst making it easy for people to navigate your site will also help search engines to understand the content of your site and so improve the relevance of search results.

Clear Your Browser Cache

How to clear your browser cache and refresh the browser.

When I am working with a client and make changes to their site I ask them to clear your browser’s cache and refresh the browser so they can see the changes.

Refreshing the browser just reloads the page.

Look for a circle with an arrow on the end of it. Usually it is up by the address bar, right or left and looks something like these examples.

When changing a background or header image you may need to refresh twice and/or clear your browser’s cache.

Clearing your browser’s cache removes temporary internet files from your computer.

Every time you visit a website your browser stores the pages on your local computer in a temporary file. This enables quick loading of the pages when you revisit a website.

But when you are working on your site and go to view your changes and see that nothing has changed – it can be a bit freaky. You say to yourself I know I did that right or I thought I did.

First thing to do before you go back and change anything is to clear your browser’s cache. It is good practice anyway and if you have never done it you may find it helps your computer to speed up.

Clearing your browser’s cache will remove the stored pages from the temporary file on your hard drive. Every browser has a slightly different process to do this.

Now clear your browser’s cache and refresh your browser and you can see all your hard work (and mine).

Blogging for Artists: It Works

I wrote an article about the real reason artists need to blog, and jumped on the blogging bandwagon and started writing about my work.

Well I get to be my own success story. It works!

I received a phone call one Friday afternoon from New Haven artist & curator, Suzan Shutan. She was in the process of finalizing an exhibition proposal. But before she finished she decided to do one final Google search for art made with pins & needles.

It just so happened that I wrote a post at kimbruce.ca (my fine art site) about my work with pins and needles (you can read it here). Suzan found it on Google and included my work in the exhibition proposal with some pretty amazing international artists.

Being found online by Susan created a domino effect that started with the Pins & Needles exhibition at Housatonic Museum of Art in Bridgeport, CT. When the exhibition opportunity came through I wrote for a A.F.A. project grant and was successful.

My Heels series was created for the exhibition and I posted images of the work to my Facebook profile. An artist friend (that I had never met) posted a couple of links to shoe museums, she thought I’d be interested in. I submitted my work to The Virtual Shoe Museum and was included in their online collection.

A few years later that same online collection site put together a major exhibition at Grassi Museum in Germany. I was included in the show and subsequently the Museum kept my piece as part of their permanent collect.

From there a New York fashion magazine, Heaven Has Heels, found my work at The Virtual Shoe Museum and approached me for an interview. Which I happily agreed to.

I don’t know what, if anything, will happen next, but I firmly believe that none of this would have happened had I not written about my work and had my images ranked in Google.

There are many good reasons to craft content for your website, whether you blog or not, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is sharing your work with the world and letting them into your world so they can get to know the person behind the art.

How to use your website as a submission tool

10 tips on How to use your website as a submission tool

Do your research. Find a gallery that fits your work.
Respect and follow the submission guidelines that are posted on the gallery website.
If submission guidelines are not posted then contact the gallery and ask if they are accepting submissions and if they accept website submissions. The more we as artists ask for our websites to be used as a submission tool the more likely it will happen.
Write a cover letter in the email introducing your self and stating why your work fits with the gallery.
Address your email letter to the appropriate person. If that person is not listed on their website perhaps phone and ask who you should address your submission to. This will show that your are professional and respectful.
Read my post on Writing there are some good resources to help you put together a letter.
Attach at least one image into the body of the email, preferably at the end to encourage the gallery to click-through.
Wait a couple of weeks and send a follow-up email (unless they state specifically not to – don’t call us – we’ll call you) and ask about the status of your submission. Include your URL which should be part of your signature – read “Shameless Self Promotion for Artists”. Be respectful and thank them for their time.
If you don’t hear back, well you don’t hear back. Let it go and carry on to the next.
Please have your site up to date. That means your CV, contact info and your images.

What you should not do…

Throw your URL into an email and say “I am submitting my website for review”, click and send.
Address your email letter to “Dear Gallery So and So”.
DO NOT batch email to a number of galleries at the same time.

The procedure for submitting via your website is really no different from what you would do normally. You still need to do your homework, write your words and take your pictures. Perseverance Furthers!

Shameless Self Promotion For Artists

Here are some ideas: self promotion for artists to increase the traffic to your website (If you don’t promote your website who will?)

People need to know that you actually have a website. Tell them, publish your website address on everything include adding it to the signature of all your emails. I know one gallery whose business card has only their website address on it and nothing else. Certainly this may drive traffic to their site if only to retrieve their phone number and address. You may not want to go to that extreme but do put your website address on everything that goes out including on the back of your paintings.

An artist I know keeps prospects and clients informed of new work by creating a postcard that announces new work on her website. The postcard cover always includes her website address as well as an image of the new work. The message on the postcard back encourages her clients and prospects to visit the site. This sends the message of her continual success to her client/prospect base and brings more visitors to the site. VAAA has a great postcard printing program for their members.

Another artist client of mine includes an image of her work in all her emails. Clever girl!

Artist websites tend to be heavily weighted with images, as they should be. But search engines (Google and the like) are looking for text and will not extract text from a jpeg (just so you know). Consider writing a short statement on your gallery page that briefly outlines what that particular body of work is about.

Search also engines like new and fresh content. If you have something to say consider writing a blog. If that doesn’t appeal to you create a news page and post your upcoming events or even create links to your favorite art sites and tell us why you like them.

Links are also important especially one way links that point to your website. Try listing your site in some art directories like artistincanada.com