Artspan News

The new Forum is up and running. We ask that all members help us to grow the Forum both by participating and by telling others. Building the Forum is important for the Artspan search engine rankings and also for the rankings for your individual site. Anytime you make a post, put in the link to your site. As the Artspan Forum becomes more visible in the art world, so will Artspan and so will your individual sites.

It's also fun to participate and can be a good source of important information from other artists or others. So, please go here to view the Forum and to register as a Forum member: http://www.artspan.com/community/. Some of you will already be registered with your Artspan username and password, but most will have to register. We strongly suggest you use the same username and password you use to access your site.

We have a new system to take care of any issues you may have with your site. It replaces the mailto:support@artspan.comand will allow us (and you) to keep better track of any problems that you need help with.

To access the Helpdesk, you can log into your member admin and click the Help Desk button. You can also go to http://www.artspan.com/help.

Once you are there, you can log (submit) a ticket. This is done by filling out a simple form:

Website address : Please type in the address of your Artspan site here.
Email : This field is already filled in for you. If this email address is not correct, please edit your contact information in your Email1 field, which is found by clicking on the Navigation Bar and then the Contact Page link.
Category : You can select from Billing or Support.
Priority: Please indicate a priority here.
Subject : A clear and concise subject line summarizing the issue
Comments: Please be as detailed as possible in describing the issue you need assistance with. Give us the step by step of what you have tried to do.
File: Below the ‘Comments' box where you put your question is a place to attach files when applicable.

The SUBMIT button is at the bottom of the page. Be sure to click that when you are done.

Once you have submitted your ticket, you will receive a confirmation email. If we need more information, we will contact you via email. All exchanges will be tracked on the ticket. You can edit and check on status of the ticket at any time by logging into the Helpdesk.

Once the issue is resolved, you will receive an email. If you need to address the same issue again, simply reply to the final email to reopen that ticket. This change is important: it will allow us to respond more effectively to your requests. As always, with urgent matters, call us.

As you know, we continue to boost Artspan SEO rankings for many key terms such as ‘Contemporary Art' or ‘Artists Websites.' This is vital in getting visitors to Artspan, and, ultimately, through the visitors' use of our search functions, through to your sites.

Because of Artspan's visibility on the Internet, your individual member sites also rank well. This does not mean that your sites will come up in the top 20 for the major art terms that are searched. There are many, many millions of art websites, so that is extremely unlikely. Where your site ranks very high is for searches done on your name. This is because of Artspan's prominence and because of the many links from Artspan to your site and back. Generally, a search dones on your name will return results with your site listed in the top 3 for those results. There are almost always many thousands of results returned for any name, so this is significant in visitors being able to find you.

One reason we mention this is the offer by another provider of template artist websites. For $28.00 a month, this company will bid on your name. That is, they will place, in Google returns, PPC (Pay Per Click) links to your site on the right hand side of the Google results pages for your name. It is much better to be in the organic (non-paid) listings on the left hand side of the page, as those links are where are clicked on 80% of the time. Thus, Artspan's work in getting your site ranked highly in the organic listings is much more important to getting visitors site than any PPC effort. It is also free.

Artspan can serve as a source for galleries looking for artists. We are delighted when this happens. It was a part of our original thinking in planning Artspan.

However, sometimes, a gallery will use Artspan to find an artist and will then suggest to the artist that they drop their Artspan site. This is certainly understandable: they don't want their customers to go directly to the artists to buy when they are working and spending to promote that artist. We believe there is an easy way for you to work with your gallery but also to keep an independent web presence. Simply state very clearly that all sales will go through the gallery or galleries and give their contact information on your Purchase information page and/or at the top right section of your homepage (that's the ‘Customization Field' – click on About You to fill that in). You should also provide a link to the gallery website. Clearly, working with your gallery or galleries on sales is important for both you and them, but, remember, in the course of your career, galleries may come and go. Some are effective in promoting their individual artists, some are not. Thus it's always important to keep an independent web presence and for you to keep promoting your career on your own, while at the same time working with galleries that represent you and that promote your work.

Incidentally, a number of members have told us they have been contacted by Saatchi Gallery in the London regarding free exposure on the Saatchi site. They have asked our view. Saatchi is of course a very prominent contemporary art gallery, so we have suggested they go ahead.

There is a lot you can do with your individual sites and it is our impression that sometimes members try to do a little too much. For example, members can add too many pages. A rule of thumb is to keep the sites as simple as possible. Remember visitors have limited time and any confusion or information overload can lead to the visitors just leaving your site. Something else to think about: it is not always a good idea to have a ton of images. Sometimes a representative sampling will mean the images really get looked at. 100's of images can simply turn off the visitor. If you have a smaller sampling, you can make it more interesting for the return visitor by regularly swapping out old images for new ones.

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Copyright 2006. Artspan LLC. All rights reserved.

All images are the property of their respective owners. The opinions expressed in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect those of artspan.com members.

Thoughts or ideas for future newsletters? denise@artspan.com

Technical questions or problems? www.artspan.com/help

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