Web Site thoughts

Last night my friend and I got a chance to go to a lecture called “Website & Email Essentials”. What a great talk.  Basically it was about should you build your own website as an artist or get a professional to do it.  I have heard in other lectures the idea of what is your time worth?  It is going to be more expensive having someone do it for you but in the long run what is the value you put on your time.  For me I see the precious time I get to design and assemble my art quilts is more important than sitting for hours trying to come up with the best designed website for my art business. Even after all the long  hours you put into it,  the special things that make a website geat needs to come from a professional. Here is some of my experiences in getting a website.  I have been trying to get a website built for about 10 years.  In that time  two of the builders who I briefly new to0k  $500 apiece to start the process.  Both of them left town shortly after receiving the money so no website for me.  The third person took my money another $500 and built a website that looked more like a used car salesman site then anything to do with my quilt art stuff.  I wasn’t allowed to change anything because he knew what was best for me.  Thus that website didn’t pan out either.  So here we are several years later and one of my oldest friends happened to be visiting my art studio and inquired “Do you have a website”.  So you can imagine my response which went something like I don’t think so, not in my lifetime.  She was persistent though and it turns out one of her kids who  had spent a ton of time between our houses as a child builds websites.  I got his number from her, thinking this is not going to be my future plans.  Ten months later my husband kept bugging me to call him and try it for a fourth time.  I called him and the rest is history.  He is awesome.  I now have a website that represents me.  He suggested that I do a blog too (which by the way I was so intimidated by that idea he had to give me a special tutorial on the internet to do it). He is actually in California and I am in Idaho, yes it is a very long distant work relationship.  Now that my feet are wet I love the blogging aspect.  So why is this important?  Well one of the points to the lecture last night was: find someone you can trust and who takes the time to get to know you to build your site. Get references from satisfied customers, friends and other professional people.   It is very important to me  that my  website inspires other people to do more with their art quilts and other art mediums.  Every positive point that was discussed in the lecture last night, I realized  my web builder had already done for me including how to build myself up in the search engines stuff. So if you are shopping for a new website contact Matt at www.technicallink.net you won’t be disappointed…….Karen