Making an Art Website

 Coast Chimes' Website Banner

A website for me is a constant work in progress

I'm proud to not only make all my works completely by hand using techniques mastered over many years of study, trial and error, but also to have learned how to manage all other aspects of running a (very) small business.

This includes taking photographs, managing supplies and stock, finances and taxes, Etsy, and building my very own website— the focus of this post.

Somewhere around 30 years ago, a very savvy fellow artist on eBay warned me that things were changing, that eBay could not be depended on in the long term, and that I should make my own website. I knew literally zero about that, other than that my internet provider at the time included a small amount of space for people who wanted to make a website. I found a little more information about that space, opened it up, and stared at a completely blank screen! Welcome to HTML.

I fortunately do have determination. Thinking back, I have no idea how I managed, but somehow I cobbled together an very basic website (back then, tons of sites were like that.. well, maybe not quite a bad as mine, but bad). Most remarkably, some orders filtered through!

As time went by, and I would nibble away at improving my site. I learned a bit more, and a bit more, and it got better (but still really bad!). Eventually, I moved on to using commercial software (Rapidweaver), which produced a huge bump in the quality of the site. I went through a number of versions using that software, always somewhat happy at the conclusion of the latest revamp, increasingly unhappy as time went by (time for another revision!). And always learning.

Finally, cloud based solutions clearly seem to reach a point to be a viable option. So I moved over to Shopify. Another steep learning hill. I am still with Shopify, and still learning. The one thing that I know for certain is that the more I learn, the more I realized there is a lot more to learn!

I'm never going to be a pro. Not a chance. I rely on the extensive available documentation, and even more so on forums, where usually the latest mess I make already has someone who has encountered the same mess, and skillful people have offered solutions.

Most recently, as I get a bit braver about digging into the actual code, I have found ChatGPT to be a lifesaver. For example, I did not like that the theme I use had an automatic 'hover to zoom' effect. I looked far and wide, and could not find a way to disable this feature. I did find through a forum the likely section of code responsible for this zooming, but I did not feel comfortable simply erasing it, because doing something like that can have unintended sad consequences. I provided ChatGPT with the code, and it confirmed it was responsible for the hover to zoom, and provided a clear simple way to disable it. Best of all, it worked.

So now, after spending several weeks putting the latest version of my theme in place, fixing all the pictures (over a 1000!), adding Alt Text to every picture, fixing the banner (see above), re-writing the descriptions, and many other changes small and big, I plan to take a break and start making new things to get restocked. In the mean time, please visit my new and improved site: Coast Chimes 

Fall Hikes, Fall Chores

One of my favourite trails
Mount Elphinstone, Roberts Creek, BC

After many months of preparation, the 2017 Sunshine Coast Art Crawl took place last weekend, and it was the best one yet! The only real glitch is that after investing in several thousand awesome fairy lights, for the first day the power was out the entire time! It was kind of fun, getting everyone to take out their cell phones and to use their flashlights. Still, I am sure that cut down on the sales for Friday a bit. Especially Friday and Sunday, but Saturday too, were all far busier than past years (which were already super busy!). Excellent!

It is now time to unwind. Today I went on a solo hike through one of my most loved trails, above Roberts Creek on Mount Elphinstone. It was delightful taking time to stroll, breath, let nature wash over me. Really nice!

I have also already started and made good progress revamping my website. First I had to clear out over a hundred sold items-- nothing like browsing on a website where it appears everything is sold! Now it is a much nicer experience. I changed pictures on the homepage. Polished some of the language. If you have time check it out: Coast Chimes.

Tiny Mushrooms, Mount Elphinstone Fall Hike

New Website: Coast Chimes

Coast Chimes: New Website
WWW. Coast Chimes

I've made half a dozen different websites for Coast Chimes, starting back 20 years ago. They have ranged from okay to not very good. The further back in time you go, the more easily one could get away with a sloppy website, as at the start people did not expect much! These days, you better have a pretty decent website if you hope to sell.

Today you need to go beyond just okay. You have a fraction of a second to grab the attention of the new visitor, a visitor with a very critical eye, or their finger hits the back button and goodbye potential customer.

Even without any prior website building experience, I believe any artist-crafter could build a fairly decent looking website using Shopify without too many headaches. Taking that website beyond the basic shop to where I feel a website needs to be in today's competitive world will be more challenging.

After my basic shop was up, I felt like I hit a wall. I had ideas I wanted to implement, but the supporting documentation for Shopify was frankly scary complex, and I was scared of really messing up my website.

I approached several experts for hire. Prices were far steeper than I had hoped they would be (in the thousands was not unusual). Also, very few provided a clear vision of what they hoped to accomplish for my site. Why would I hire them if they had no vision? Do they do the same site for a seller of imported plastic toys as for an artist?

So I got thinking, and decided the first thing I should do is figure out exactly what I wanted for my site. That way, I could tell the experts what I needed, and they could tell me if they could do it, and how much it would cost. This seemed a much better approach than my initial: 'my site is a mess, how much to fix it?'.

However, after figuring out what I wanted for my site, I realized that maybe, just maybe, I could tackle this thing myself. So defining what was needed helped enormously. A logo was number one, as everyone says this is extremely important. They also say it is a big deal, and a job for a professional. This can cost in the hundreds, easily. Wanting everything as simple and clean as possible for my own site, I did my own simple and clean logo. It took me 15 minutes. I doubt it is up to professional standards, but I think it looks fine.

The biggest challenge was to arrange all my stock into different collections, and make clickable buttons (rather than visitors having to scroll through 12 pages of mixed stock). I decided on 9 categories, and got busy reading how to make collections in the Shopify help section. It seemed overwhelmingly complex, but once I got going, following each step in the instructions as I went along, it turned out to be not too bad after all. Then I just made small buttons from pictures I already had handy (a picture of driftwood, for example, for my driftwood section), figured out how to place these on my homepage using a grid, and made links. Not bad at all.

Could someone with zero website building experience accomplish this? Probably, given enough patience, asking for help on forums, being bold and trying. I would say the written instructions make things sound a lot harder than the reality, which is often the case with technical things.

So instead of spending a thousand dollars or more, I got to learn some cool things, I got the satisfaction of doing it myself, and, most importantly, I got a much better looking website that I am proud of and happy with.

Advertising a New Website

My New Website: Coast Chimes

With the launch of each new website, I always run a little advertising campaign to help get it going. The launch of my newest version is no exception.

I don't recall it being very challenging to set up a campaign with my first several websites . But this appears to be an area (along with online selling in general) which has not gotten easier, or cheaper, with time.

With the new Coast Chimes Shopify site, I thought I would go in to Adsense, click a few buttons, fill in a couple of lines, and advertise. Ha, ha, ha.... nope. Not really.

It is true that I could get a very basic add with a bunch of keywords up and running quite quickly, but the number of various options / screens was, to say the lease, overwhelming. I didn't have any idea what many of them even meant.  I decided to give Google Adsense a phone call to consult with an expert, for free, as offered in an email sent from Adsense.

The first phone call lasted about a half hour. A very nice and knowledgeable service representative went over a whole lot, and we decided it would be best to pause my current campaign and arrange an appointment with a higher level technician, so that I could maybe get some images into my ads.

I knew a little about what would be needed, so I started looking at my old Google Merchant account prior to consulting with this next expert. Wow. What a tedious, multi-tasking sort of chore that is! I fooled around, but in the end decided to wait for the expert's phone call.

When I talked with the expert, he got me to share my screen with him, and led me through many, many steps. The job took over an hour. Now there will be a few days until the team approves my set up!

Then it will be back to the expert, to finish the process of integrating my images with my ads.

Then back to the initial contact, to help with the keywords and bidding amounts etc. etc.

All this, just to get a little ad campaign going. I had no idea. Truly, I think it is quite amazing any ads appear on Google!

From what I saw before pausing my initial ads, this is likely to be far too expensive for me to use anyway! Those clicks cost so much money!

Driftwood Wind Chimes

I've added a new section to my website~ just driftwood! If you would like to see it, Click Here.

I see a surprising number of people searching for driftwood, and even driftwood wind chimes. Who would have thought there would be so many other fans of this high-character, low maintenance wood? Well, I love it, so I guess it should not be too surprising that some others do, too.

For this new section of my website, I used a different way of showing the items~ a carousel image gallery. I'm not sure which is better, the other way, from thumbnail pictures to larger pictures with details toa full size image, or this way. There is one less level to navigate here, so I am thinking this may be better. I'll see how it goes, and maybe change the whole site to this method. Decisions, decisions...

In the meantime, I got the old workshop / greenhouse torn down (hard job! It was well built.) and the site cleaned up, and the new, renovated shop now has built in tables and shelves, the outside trim is almost finished, and today I made the first items inside the shop~ it's going to be much, much better! Pictures soon.

vs.5, New Coast Chimes Website

A partial snapshot of the homepage of my new website. vs. 5~ it's been a long haul! Why not take a moment and explore~ it's a pretty site, with pretty things. To see my new site, just Click Here.

As so often happens, what at first seems so easy becomes more and more complex. Why is that? While it was approximately a million times easier and more fun building a website using nice software, it soon became apparent that there were also many neat new things that could be tried, and that brought with it a steep learning curve.

Since I do almost all my actual work (making neat things) outside in unheated space, designing this new website provided the perfect excuse to sit inside, away from the snow and cold. It is amazing to me, though, just how much time and effort can go into a website. Just choosing titles for each page is a major task, not to mention colors, and.... well, you get the picture.

I know vs.5 will not be the end of it, either. But at least I have gotten it to the point where I feel quite proud.