Websites – updated construction, what to do and how to get the best results – or not.

Some time ago I wrote about websites and the frustrations of trying to find people who really do know what they are doing to update a site without finding yourself hooked into them doing everything for you and charging you for the pleasure.

Fingers crossed I think I have found a happy medium. Only time will tell, but it all looks good so far. However, I am doing what I always said I didn’t want to do and changing my site from a WordPress.com account which I have used for the past 15 years. My main reason for not wanting to move from WordPress.com is simply that I didn’t want to lose all the blog posts I have on my account and, in changing, I am sadly going to have to do just that.

So, in order to feel good about it I have had to change the way I look at it. Rather than being upset that I won’t have the huge back catalogue of blogs for people to dip in and out of, I am viewing this as an opportunity to revisit and rewrite some of the early blogs and to produce updated versions of them. To that end I have already started to delete the early ones and over the next couple of weeks more will go, too.

Another concern is the current following I have on WordPress.com. The nature of the .com site is that people can easily sign up to my blogs within WordPress.com as it kind of advertises other members’ work and you can sign up with the click of a button. I now have to find a way to ask all of you to follow me to the new site. We are still figuring out the best way to do this and I realise that I will probably lose a number of my readers during the transition, but I hope most of you will continue to follow me.

My final concern, for now, is that currently I am placed 33rd in the UK for art blogs and I don’t know if this forthcoming transition will topple me from that position.

Being ranked that high up the league tables and, in particular, being rated one of the top ten personal art blogs in the country (as distinct from corporate sites, such as Jackson’s Art or Cass Art) not only feels good but does give me a level of gravitas that in turn brings others to my site and my work. After all, at the end of the day I want people to benefit from my knowledge and see my artwork.

So, I hope I don’t lose my position on that table, I hope that you will all continue to follow me when the site moves over, and I hope that the revamped blogs will be better and more interesting to you my lovely followers.

Once everything is done and moved over if you are interested to know more about the person who has done the work for me and how highly I rate her, I will be happy to write an update and share her details.

For now, though I truly appreciate your support and I trust that you will continue to read what I have to say.

Hugs,

Alison

NB Just for the record, I do not get paid to endorse any of the brands, including websites etc., I have mentioned above. These are all products that I use and genuinely believe in.

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