I recently went to an Internet work shop on how to promote your website and make some bank from the website.  It was set up more for the product based sites but the principles can be applied pretty much to any website.  Which in this case to an illustrators/Graphic designer website.  Since we do offer a service, freelance illustrator and/or Graphic Designer, and our goal is to gain potential clients via our website.  It was a very instructional weekend.  Let share here a few of the things learned here.  Of course this will be just a small part of what was talked about at the workshop.

3 major online mistakes that are almost always done.

1. Trying to control everyone to come to your website.  What this means is basically who do you want to come to your site? Potential clients and buyers of art and/or design.  A person looking for pet supplies won’t be interested in your editorial art.  Look for people interested in what you have to offer.  Create keywords and tags that do that.

2. Having only one website. This doesn’t mean going out and duplicating your site over and over.  You can though create blogs that talk about digital art, one that talks about traditional art, one that talks about t-shirt art and have them all point back to your main site.  Buy up other domain names that can be redirected to your site.  For example your primary site is www.bensarthub.com, you can obtain the domain www.illustrationsbyben.com, www.bentheillustrator.com and so on.  Just have those domain names set up that when clicked on it directs the site visitor to your main site.  Imagine your site is an octopus, the more arms the better chance to bring in potential clients.

3. Dissimilar products on the same page. Pretty much self explanatory, if somebody wants a t-shirt they are not going to want to wade through pages of tote bags.  So if a person is looking for illustration work they are not to interested in your graphic design abilities.  Keep it on separate pages. Like wise editorial illustration work separate from advertisement illustration work.  Basically making it easier for people to get what they want.  Now if you have a virtual store this would be very beneficial.

Another important thing.  Treat each page to your site as if it were the home page.  Create keywords and tags specific to the content of that page, because you never know from which page somebody will come into your website.  For this reason always have all your necessary contact information on each and every page.

Their are a few more things learned at the work shop but I can share those later on.  Hopefully these tidbits here will get you thinking on how you should be promoting your site.

Ramsey Sibaja is a freelance Illustrator.