hi and welcome back to my channel
today's video is something that I have
been wanting to make for so long because
so many of you have requested this I
pretty much get asked this question in
literally every video and that is how to
make an artist website or how to make an
online shop to help sell your prints and
originals so I'm so grateful that wicks
com reached out and decided to
collaborate with me on this project for
those of you who don't know Wix comm is
a free online website builder so it's
actually zero cost to sign up build your
website use their web editing tools and
launch your website and today I'm just
going to be showing you guys just how
easy and simple and intuitive it is to
use you don't need any prior website
building experience or coding experience
you can be a complete novice at this and
still make a professional looking sleek
mobile-friendly website and just to keep
things really authentic I decided to
film the footage of myself using the
website for the very first time so the
voiceover in the tutorial person I
recorded later but all the video footage
you see of me clicking around on the
screen and playing the different
features that is also my very first time
using Wix calm and I ended up being able
to produce a complete website with like
a home page a portfolio online shop with
like different products and things like
that I did all of those and around 15
minutes it was so easy and I cannot wait
to share this tutorial with you guys so
I hope you find it useful okay let's get
started first things first I'm just
going to press the start now button the
entire flow is pretty intuitive I'm
going to sign up for a new account enter
my email address and set up all that
information here and it's going to ask
you a series of initial questions to
help you get started with your website
so I'm going to pick online store
because I think that's a really
important part of a website for an
artist and there's two options you can
use
use the Wix Adi which is a little bit
more simple or the Wix editor which i
think is a little bit more advanced so
for today's tutorial we're just going to
use the Wix Adi and much like before
you're just going to fill in some
initial information it's going to ask me
what kind of online store I want to
create I couldn't find anything for art
so I just put artists which luckily came
up with the results and then you wait
and it says does your website need any
of the following features and I feel
like just get subscribers we can edit
this information later but for now I
think that's a good option to have and
now it's asking what the name of our
website or business is I'm just going to
put in happy the artist sites actually
I'm a happy D artist portfolio and store
and again you can change any of this
information later so it doesn't really
matter what you put here and if you
don't have an address that's totally
fine you don't need a physical address
if you have a pl box maybe to put it
there
and again just filling out some
preliminary information a great thing
about Wix is you can add a social media
network and you'll see what I can do
later but it basically ties in and
integrates all of your social media
networks that you fill in here very
elegantly into the design of your
website so after I added all the links I
want I'm just going to click Next and we
now begin the wizard that kind of help
helps us get started with our page I'm
just going to quickly select a template
style just to see what it'll look like
press my create press create my home
page and we get taken to this screen and
there's actually going to be a built-in
tutorial that Wix first shows you sit on
the animations you see right here I'm
not actually moving my cursor it's an
animation that's playing on the website
and super useful because you kind of
just get a brief 30-second quick look at
all the menus which buttons to press
where which features are hidden
which link it's a really great way to
kind of jumpstart a brand new website
editing tool which I know can be quite
daunting and after the little tutorial
wizard is done playing here is the first
version of our homepage all the content
you see here is kind of the default
template content so now we begin the fun
part which is customizing the content
and filling up all the information with
our own information again the really
great thing about Wix I think is
especially if you're very new to website
building they really do a great job of
guiding you through the entire process
so you don't have to be super tech
literate or you know super experienced
in this area we've already gone through
SEO like so many many little wizards and
tutorials and there's still one more to
go it just kind of shows you the basic
functionalities or the things that you
should be paying attention to
it's almost like an FAQ version of what
typically people want to do with their
website so changing templates which is
what I'm doing now also changing colors
changing fonts things like that I'm
going to just kind of speed through this
part because I just ended up taking a
new template and I actually exited this
wizard a little early because I have had
experience building websites so I'm
going to go ahead and show you guys kind
of the more important parts of what
pages to add what information for
artists portfolios on your shop is
important to include for an artist
specific page so I'm just going to fast
forward this part real quick alright so
now I'm just going to get started
replacing all the filler content with my
own images I clicked on that weird
multicolored banner and this window
popped up where I have the ability to
drag and drop images from my computer so
I'm just going to go ahead and upload my
latest little painting I think you'd be
a great banner or kind of welcome image
my website so I'm going to replace it
and bam already it looks so customized
and so unique to me and now I'm just
going to kind of edit the text a little
bit the template button says learn more
but I think I would
to say shop just because I would love to
write off the back give people an easy
way to access my shop if they want to
buy prints and buttons are actually able
to be connected to pages so here I'm
just going to press connect to and
select the shop page and that way when
the user clicks on this button now they
will be directed to my shop page ok next
up I'm just going to quickly edit this
artist bio section for your artists bio
I would recommend just writing a really
succinct and informative paragraph about
yourself don't make it too long-winded
but include a few things like where
you're from what your artistic style is
and perhaps a little tidbit about your
past
show or sales experiences if you're just
starting out and don't have that yet
feel free to limit your information to
just talking about your style that's
totally fine and now I'm going to be
replacing this default video here I'd
rather have an image than a video here
so I again I'm just going to press
replace and go into the wizard and I'm
dragging and dropping another artwork of
mine this time it's a recent
illustration so I think it will look
good underneath the painting above yep
that looks pretty cool and the girl
kinda looks like me so if it's perfectly
for the artist bio section in the
default template here they have this
cute little quote on the front page I
don't really find it useful as cute as
it is I think I'm just going to delete
this entire section and you just kind of
press the three dots on the side here
and press the trashcan and it will help
you remove sections you don't want this
contact me section I think is really
useful for any artists website to have
you want a way for your fans and your
collectors and your potential collectors
to be able to reach you I'm just going
to drag and drop it to the bottom of the
webpage I think it's more suited to be
at the very end instead of kind of in
the middle here and notice that on this
template they allow you to preview three
little products on the front page of
your website and I think
that's a really good idea it's a really
great way of letting people know right
away that you do have products available
for sale on that it's not just a
portfolio site so I'm going to edit the
products now just add a few things it's
a pretty easy so the products wizard is
it's like a separate pop-up but it is
definitely still integrated into the
website here I'm just going to press
mute product you can pick digital or
physical obviously mine would be a
physical product which would be like a
print I'm going to select this recent
print of mine and there are many
different customization options on the
products page you can add a description
where you talk about what your print is
made on the inks you use a paper you use
you can even add like dimensions or
different product types so if you have
two different sizes or perhaps you have
like a regular version or an embellished
version of the same print and you want
to list them under the same product and
just give users the choice to select
which one they want you can do that all
on this page it's super intuitive I am
as you can tell here I didn't really
mess up that many times and I was able
to easily find out the features that I
wanted so I really did appreciate the UI
design of the products page because
product pages have a tendency to be very
confusing a lot of columns a lot of
empty tables and I think this flow
worked really well for me so after I was
done editing my product I was trying to
explore the other functionalities of the
product manager page so there I saw that
there was a business setup section and
here we could have business info there
was a way to choose and view what types
of payments that you accept from your
customers and I think I was mostly
curious also about the different
shipping options because you're going to
have domestic orders international
orders and you really do have to find a
great way to accommodate everyone and
also calculate the proper shipping price
for everyone obviously international
prints will incur a higher shipping fee
than domestic ones and I always like to
keep my
is shipping prices fair so here I was
really happy to discover that there was
definitely a very easy way to customize
shipping for different countries and
different options so you can either have
a standard flat rate or you can even
choose what the shipping will be
depending on the weight of your product
so if you ship like let's say let's say
you don't make prints but you make
jewelry or even furniture here is just a
great way to allow your customers to see
how much shipping will be upfront and to
kind of automate the entire process so
after finishing my first product and
shipping info I am just taking a look
now at the preview of my home page and I
think I'm going to make two more sample
products just to fill up this area
because it looks really strange with my
one actual print with the full artwork
on the thumbnail and then also two weird
icons on the side so I'm just going to
quickly go back and make two more
products and I think a great way and
maybe this is a hack maybe it's not but
you can actually just select a product
that you currently have and duplicate it
so that way for for example if I have a
SHOP full of 20 prints I'm set to make
one main print product duplicate it and
kind of just change out the title and
the photo for each different product
that way I don't have to fill out all
the information from scratch every
single time okay I think now that I've
added three different products this
little section of the homepage looks way
better it actually looks quite pretty I
really like it
and I think right now I'm just going to
play with kind of the different designs
of this product review as much as I love
the current one you know it doesn't hurt
to explore to see if perhaps there is a
better way to design this section okay
so moving on to the next section once
I'm done fiddling around with this
product section I think I'm going to try
adding a new page so right now I'm kind
of just working with the default pages
that they give me which is just home and
shop so I just go up here
press add and press projects and I'm
just going to randomly select one of the
options right now just to kind of play
around with it I always give myself the
option to update it later so for now
I'll just select this template here and
using the difference or sorry um using
the exact same method I used before to
update all the images I'm just going to
click on the image and it's going to
bring me to a wizard where I can select
from images that I've uploaded myself so
I'm just going to go ahead and do that
and replace the images and titles for
three sample works afterwards I'm going
to fiddle around with the different ways
that I can present my works obviously
this can support way more than three
images but for now with the three that
I'm working on I want them to cover a
huge part of my screen just so it
doesn't look so empty so I'm going to go
with this template here I think it's
very sleek and modern and definitely
gives me the coverage and length that
I'm looking for I'm also using the
section on the left here to give this
page a little title the default title is
my work which I think it's a pretty good
title already but I'm just going to be a
little bit more specific and call it
paintings and drawings portfolio and
then as you can see here I changed my
mind I decided to actually make
portfolio just the main title and
there's actually a really a nice option
to make a sub header so like a subtitle
and I decided to put paintings and
drawings in that section just to keep
things a little more organized I think
now I've done enough stuff where I can
preview my website from the upper right
tab here just press in preview I just
want to get a sense of how it looks when
I feel like I've almost completely
filled out all the information I need to
obviously this is pretty minimum since
this is a website created in 15 minutes
but just a quick run-through of the
pages to get an idea of what the layout
would look like and give myself kind of
the ability to continue to add content
to these pages and be confident that
they will look good
here when I did my preview I especially
on the mobile preview as you can see
there's just a lot of stuff on the
header like my email my my fake phone
number and I kind of really didn't like
that I wanted to jump into the beautiful
header and content of the website before
you know all this weird kind of
informational text so I decided to go
back and actually remove these two
elements from the header it's quite
simple all you have to do is click on
the elements themselves for example this
phone number and then you just uncheck
it so as you can see my left side you
just uncheck all the elements that you
don't want to be displayed you can
always add them back later but now I
think it is just way cleaner and way
more I guess easy on the eyes and easy
to digest so I also decided then to keep
cleaning and I deleted the happy be
artists portfolio and store from the
main header of the homepage
I just kept it simple and put my name
happy the artist because it's pretty
evident from my my header and also my
links up at the top that is going to be
a portfolio in a store I also realize
that the project page was still named
projects I want to name it to change the
name to portfolio so it can match the
title of that page and all I have to do
is click on the Settings icon and press
rename and let's see oh and I've decided
to add a contact me page so I just go up
to the top tab there press add and
select contact me or contact from the
page type and again so many easy options
for me to choose from it does all the
hard work for me I went ahead and picked
a very simple template that doesn't have
an image or a map update the info to
what I wanted to say and then I'm done
and after that last page I think my
website is done I have the four main
pages that I think are crucial to an
artist website I have the home page shop
about me a portfolio and a contact page
so now I'm just going to exit out of my
preview and press
this on the right hand side and on the
publish page you have an option to
determine your domain name if you
already have a custom domain you can
link it up but for simplicity sake I'm
just going to type in kind of a less
beautiful but it's a free URL that I can
now use and it's live and I can link
this from my Instagram for my YouTube
and it's a great way if you're just
getting started and if you don't have a
lot of money or budget for a custom
domain it's a quick and easy way for
those of you out there to get started
and make your first website so yeah I
hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial and
found it useful thank you so much again
to Wix for allowing me to share this
with everyone and for making such a
great product so I wish you guys the
best of luck in creating your website's
see wasn't that a lot easier than you
might have thought it's really not
daunting at all once again Wix calm is
completely free for you to sign up so
feel free to give it a try there's no
pressure and I look forward to seeing
all of your beautiful sleek web sites
and I wish you guys the best of luck
happy website building and I hope to
catch you in the next video bye
[Music]