How can an Artisans of Colorado membership be of benefit to me?

As one of the main administrators of this site, I thought it might be useful to explain some of the benefits and give members a feel for what our goals are for the site and how the two can work together to give this site value to all Colorado artists out there.

If you are a Colorado artist, you may already have a website. But how many visits do you get in a month? If you're one of the lucky few, maybe you get several hundred. If you are like the rest of us, that number is much lower and more than likely, 90% of these visits are the results of someone googling your artist name.

How often do you get a patron who found your site simply by using the search terms "Colorado artist" OR "Colorado watercolor"? Unless you have devoted hours submitting your website to various directories, cross-linking with quality websites, and optimizing your web page, you're not going to get much traffic from people who don't know who you are already.

Why choose Artisans of Colorado?

Certainly there is a place for free websites such as Flickr or even MySpace. We encourage artists to show their work in all venues for the maximum exposure possible. But when you list on a national database with thousands of artists, you may as well just be a nameless face in the crowd. At Artisans of Colorado, our service is unique in offering a place that is region specific. What is unique about our service is people coming to Artisans of Colorado are looking for original art and Colorado artists specifically. Some services have thousands of people and it is often difficult to search and find what you are looking for. Artisans of Colorado provides another outlet for your work to be displayed with a higher probability that people will find you through the search engines.

I encourage you to take advantage of all the services AoC provides to display your work. With our price model, you get representation of yourself and your art with your first 3 images free . For a modest fee, you can showcase all of your art in a place where it is more likely to be seen by potential buyers. We took a nod from popular sites like Flickr and did away with annual membership at the basic level. Unlike other sites which are composed of mainly pictures, we provide the thing that the search engines like to index most, which is content. Adding images to your portfolio cost you only $3 per image. This is a great way to load your portfolio with plenty of content. More info can be found on our pricing page.

We believe that the more your art is displayed on-line, the easier it is for a potential buyer to find you.

Artisans of Colorado is a place for artists to come together as a community, and drive user traffic for finding art and leading buyers to your website.

Will Anyone Find Me?

A website may have the latest tools, a flashy interface, and might even be popular with artists. However, what good is a website if the average Internet user cannot find it? That is why we work hard to promote Artisans of Colorado on the web. As a matter of fact, at the time of this writing, Artisans of Colorado was on page one of Google for the search terms "Colorado painters" and for "Colorado artists." Even better, these rankings are passed onto you as our member. Artisans of Colorado is also optimized for the search engines with the individual members of AoC. So if someone was looking for you in Google, chances are your page on Artisans will get a high placement on Google, if not number one.
We also strive to make the site itself as user friendly as possible. We believe that simplicity is key in any website. Our goal is to make Artisans of Colorado a valuable resource for artists and art lovers alike and to make finding that perfect piece of art easy and enjoyable.

We are always interested in hearing new ideas for making this website the best it can be. Feel free to drop a note in our suggestion box and tell us what you would like to see on ArtisansofColorado.com