Many artists have begun combining traditional and digital art mediums to their portfolios. Social media platforms have become a norm for artists wishing to share their work. However, due to the time frame and the lack of control, many artists have sought out their websites on shared hosting platforms. If you are an artist seeking to maximize your exposure and showcase your artwork in the best light, here are some things to consider.
What is the viewing experience?
Before picking the best domain and web hosting services for your needs, you must decide how your artwork will be displayed. Do you wish to have it in a slideshow form? If so, it may be the best option to have a CSS or C++ site designed and then use a top-rated web hosting platform to put your page. Having an HTML page with a nested plug-in may be the best option if you wish to update the images constantly.
Should you wish to have a site that only showcases the latest work, a WordPress page may be the right option. WordPress has an abundance of plug-ins, templates, and other features that allow a digital artist to showcase and talk about the work being presented. When coupled with blogging, the digital artist can boost the SEO of their website, driving traffic. An increase in traffic means you gain more recognition as an online artist.
What are the limitations?
Digital art is usually produced in a program that allows for layers. While many artists compress the layers into PNG or such formats, the compression is not enough to produce quick loading times. It is critical when you are making a site for shared hosting that you choose the best-shared hosting for WordPress or your HTML available. Shared hosting will have a cap on the amount of data used. As the images loaded are apt to be higher than that of the average website (due to the level of detail or wanting to present the image in HD quality), ensuring that the bandwidth of your page is high enough to handle the images is a must.
Some platforms have limitations on the size of the image. For a digital artist, this can be a significant disadvantage if the reduction of your image causes pixelization. For example, if you have a 4HD image and must reduce it down to a 1080 pixel image, some information may be lost. You must weigh the factors of quality and the site's limitations and adjust your art accordingly.
Can images be downloaded?
One way to avoid compression issues is to have multiple levels of compression for the images. This will cause a loss of information and detail as the image goes to smaller and more compressed sizes, such as going from HD to a low-resolution JPG image. However, if you use one of the top domain and web hosting services, you can have high-resolution images in a folder ready for download for clients seeking a higher definition of your artwork.
Loading time for your content
A good hosting service will have ample uploading and downloading times for your site. For speed, you should test your website, whether it is on a WordPress web hosting service or another shared website hosting platform. Sites should load in less than 2 seconds. Any site which takes more than 2 seconds to load is slow in today's world. If your digital artwork loads slowly, consider saving your images as ready for the web.
Why you should have your site over a third-party site
Some may think that it would be easier to use a third-party site. There are plenty of them available for artists. Yet, this is not the best solution. When the terms and conditions are thoroughly read on many of these sites, the artist will find out that they are relinquishing the rights to the image. While they retain the main copyright of the image, they may be signing away the distribution rights of their image, meaning that the site can sell your work for a profit without royalties to you.
Though third-party sites may have a level of security, many of the sites do not monitor the downloading and the sharing of digital content adequately enough. Some sites even offer a right-click and print option. As a digital artist, you must control how your images are shared and the level of security for those images. Only through having your website on a top-rated web hosting platform is this made possible.
Once you are online
Once you have a site online, ensure that you keep a careful eye on it. Update the material regularly to boost your SERPs. Have security in place and watermark your content to avoid image downloads you do not want. Allow comments. Above all, let your creativity flow and showcase who you are as an artist. If you do so, your online presence will be successful.
Friday, October 15, 2021