I got this great question the other day from one of my readers about whether artists really need to create their own website to sell their art.

Is it really necessary to have a website to sell your art. Isnt it possible to achieve the same thing with other options such as zazzle, imagekind, blogger, foliotwist, fineartstudioonline.com, etc.,? Without all the management challenges of managing your own site?

- Jeremy

There are a ton of services out there that can help artists get a presence online. While they’re all great, I always tell artists to be sure that they keep at least a part of their website presence under their control. Here’s what I wrote back to Jeremy.

Hi Jeremy,

Thanks for the question!

No, it’s not necessary to have your own website in order to sell online. You can use a service like FolioTwist, Etsy, or Artfire to sell your work and many artists do quite successfully using this route. The advantage of using one of these services is that you can start selling without going through the process of developing your own website.

Plus in most cases, you don’t need to know HTML or web design in order to start selling. You also will avoid dealing with the technical part of maintaining your website, although you still need to maintain your inventory and content yourself just like you would with your own website. Plus, you are still responsible for getting traffic to your site. While many of these services may also have some built-in traffic or marketing services, you are ultimately responsible for getting people to visit your website.

However, there are some distinct advantages to having your own website that’s completely under your control. One advantage of developing your own website is that you have control over all aspects of your website, how it functions, what kind of content you can post, and how it looks. Plus, you don’t run the risk of losing your web presence with little or no warning. Remember that services like FolioTwist, Etsy, or FineArtsStudioOnline can be sold, go out of business, change their fees, or terms of service at anytime. If 100% of your online sales comes from one of these services and they go under, then 100% of your web presence is suddenly gone. Just last year, thousands of eBay sellers were scrambling to find alternatives to eBay because a series of policy and fee changes negatively affected their businesses or put them out of business completely.

A lot of artists who sell online have both a presence on a third-party service and their own website. They use the website strictly for showing their work and directing them to their web store. The third-party service is used strictly for sales as many have a built-in ecommerce component. Some actually sell both places and use the service to direct traffic to their own site. While this can create some more work, there are several advantages to this approach. One, you avoid the risk of having all of your eggs in one basket. You keep a measure of control over your web presence while you’re also taking advantage of using a third-party service. Second, this gives potential visitors multiple places to find you. Those that may not stumble over your FolioTwist site may stumble over your other web presence…and vice versa. So it doesn’t have to be a case of either/or, but rather a case of both/and.

For most newbies, I recommend starting with a service in order to get their presence up as quickly as possible. And it’s also good for getting familiar with mechanics of maintaining a web presence. Once they get their initial presence operating on a web service, they should start building their own web presence that’s completely under their control…whether it be a blog or a simple website that has contact information or a simple gallery of their work. While it can be some extra work, if done correctly, it can greatly pay off in the end.

Do you have a burning question about websites or promoting yourself online? Click on the “Ask a Question” tab at the top of the page and send me your question. I’ll send you an answer to your question personally.