What's the address?

Oh sorry, it's http://floweryapronart.moonfruit.com/

When I saw your URL, I immediately conjured up an image of summer meadows, farmhouse kitchens, sun, light, etc.  So I must admit it was a bit of a shock when I landed on your site and it's the complete opposite of what the name suggests!  Can I ask the purpose of the site - are you selling these images, who are you aiming the site at, etc?  I do like the illustrations, but the images and the site design don't match the domain name.  So it could disappoint people like me who are expecting a pretty-pretty site and products, and put off people who think the name indicates a girly-domestic/kitchen site.  Can I ask what made you choose the name?  Hope I haven't sounded too negative - as I said, I do like the images!

Yes you're right,
The purpose of the site is to get me illustration jobs but I don't think I'm selling myself properly. The name is a name I've had as an on-line pseudonym for Donkey's years and it's sort of become me now. I sell prints and I had a shop on the site for a while for those, but I recently shut that down because it was costing me more to maintain the Paypal link than I was selling.
Thank you very much for the feedback , and I'll try and think up a new name, maybe Horribleapron ha ha!

 

Hello,

Yup I agree with above, the site name suggests something quite different to what the site is about and on landing on the home page - I quite like the home page - it all comes as a bit of a shock.

I said this earlier to someone else who is doing photography, there isn't hardly any text on the site, nothing for google to pick up and so getting very many people to the site would be difficult.

I like the images too but I don't understand what the site is for - not sure how your Paypal link was costing your money.

The black background adds to the feel of the site to be honest, however, I would try it with a different background and see how you feel about it, the black makes it dark but enchanting, it adds to the imagery.....

Its a hard site to offer feedback on because at the moment it is a series of images, your info is on the "about me" page" not one of the most visited pages a site will ever get - I would maybe add a "what we do" page and add more details about what you offer - straight forwards detail in a no personal way.

Very hard to see the text on the about you page because the image behind the text is quite gloomy, that is a dark page, I am not sure if I sense a sense of humour but ya know, a serious client may not think that prescription meds and a glass of gin is going to get them the service they desire. I'd consider a bit of a change with that description of yourself a little bit.

Now, it is quite clear that you can illustrate beautifully but this site is showing me illustrations of a certain type, had you considered broadening your theme's?? Maybe just to test to see if other works brings you in more work?? Just an idea.

I guess it all depends if you want work from that site or not from it. I don't see any details about cost of work so the site right now is a few pages of pictures for people to print off if they want and not a lot more which seems a lot of a shame because it is your artwork which is very unique and so much could be done with it.

Thank you very much Missylamouri, these are all really good suggestions, I can see that you are absolutely right about a lot of points, I need to re think the whole thing, add some more information and take it a bit more seriously, I very much appreciate you taking the time to help me out, I think what I'll do is close it down for a while, and spend a few days re- doing the whole thing.
Thanks again, it's been really helpful. 

Yes it is very dark but interesting but I agree with the name of the site not going with your chosen theme. It appears more goth or fairytale like which is cool so perhaps you would like to change your name to something that depicts your sites dark yet. Flowery apron art is far from what your site appears to be plus there are no actual aprons to purchase. You can add your art to aprons and other cool stuff like cell phone covers on Zazzle.com and add a widget to your site and set up an online store on their site as well. I think your art would be wicked on an apron. I would get one. If you do sell aprons your menu should reflect it with a menu option named Shop or Aprons. Otherwise you should rename it to a more cool name. There is definitely a following for your art. I recommend utilizing it on sites like Zazzle as previously mentioned and ping.com to create cool cards and invitations. I believe you will do great on sales with the proper marketing techniques. I think you should establish a presence on twitter as well among the community of like-minded artists it will generate the traffice from the target market you are trying to attain. Using flowery apron art will yield more moms to your website and scare some of them away if they are unprepared for the magnificent beautifully fairytale/goth artwork you share with the world. Otherwise I like it although I think you should put an interesting vintage frame around a main image on each of your art pages. Just a suggestion.... Also your about page isn't clear enough for those that don't appreciate your artwork to want to read about you. I think the text shoud be a bright or deep red. The good thing is your domain still has moonfruit in the url in which when and if you upgrade, you don't already have a huge fan base used to your own domain name (ex: floweryapronart.com). I think you should offer a free piece of art to get others to join your website as members so that they are able to download it as long as they leave a link to your website and give you credit under whatever creative commons license you set. The worst problem you have is no copyright on your page which doesn't let the world know you own the rights to the work presented. We don't want anyone stealing your fabulous ideas and presenting it as their own. I suggest setting a creative commons license anyway just in case and perhaps adding a page or link in your footer that says Bloggers/Web Designers that allows them to display your art on your website and/or blog if they provide a link back to your website and perhaps display your name or website and make it into a link to your website. Choose the best landing page for the link you want artists to use. I think this is great exposure for artists as well as by contributing to websites that sell stock photo or create items for sale using art like Ping, Zazzle, etc. that I mentioned above. People go to these sites first sometimes to look for artwork to purchase and are able to search by category. You are able to utilize keywords for SEO so that they will find you among the list of artists in the category they searched for. I thought of a cool name for your website that no one has chosen yet since it is still available when I just searched is, fantasyapronart.com or some derivative of that. I was wondering though since you use apron, is there a deeper meaning behind the use of the word since it also means to be attached to someone or something? If so you should hint that in your page descriptions, meta keywords and in some way on your home page. Perhaps you can do it in a clever way which causes the reader to click on it for the next step to the your thought process and so on. These are all just my mind crazy at work freshly awakened at 6 a.m. I would love to see what changes you make when and if you do. Please email me at mail@frugaldivatemplates.com. In fact, would you like to sell me a piece of art that I can use as one of my web themes. I can do a signature series featuring your art that includes you signature literally on the corner of the artwork. We can work out a collaboration agreement that we will benefit us both. I am thinking of offering artistic web design to my menu of services now. I think it will be cool. I am off to designing now.

A new fan,

Miss Frugal Diva Designz

Frugal Diva Designz

203-30DIVAS 

Please visit my moonfruit website www.frugaldivatemplates.com or www.frugaldivadesignz.com and give me the same feedback as well. I would appreciate it.

P.S.

Your guestbook has the coolest guests and comments. So creative. You have introduced me to a new world. Thank you! 

Welcome :-) You are also aiming at a very niche market, your product is unique and ya know what I got the feel of when i looked at the site and read what you had to say was that you would produce a really amazing book - I felt that the images were aimed at adults but with a fairytail twist and as you are so Niche right now, this is why I suggested expanding on what you do -

In my own business I have learned that I need to keep on expanding product range, sometimes something that you think will work really well just doesn't and things that I try that I think maybe won't do so well, can rally take off and then I slap myself for not introducing the product years ago - so much trial and error involved with the product. Then getting the clinet to the website is the next hard thing and you could be sat on a most amazing product but people don't know you are there.

I understood that you are an illustrator so you can pretty much illustrate anything so I think allowing people to know how versatile you can be is a key here, so, if you are up for it, maybe having categories like "Mystical or Fantastic" which is how I would decribe the current art works on your site and then "Children's illustrations" - work for kids can be so varied from the mystical so an adaption on what you do but make the images, mainly the faces, less scary to kids or "wonderland" or "Early Years" Just thinking about Roger Hargreaves and the simplicity of the illustrations in hs books right through to Quentin Blake - I think there is so much to get your teeth into - versatility is certainly a consideration I think, of course I am just getting carried away here :-) You know what you want to do and how it will all go so merely suggestions.

An online Portfolio as you have it now( Portfolio being a major keyword that needs to be added to your text)  and if you haven't done this already could then be sent to all of the book people, I don't know how that works, editors, print houses, you will know who I mean.

Thinking about keywords, you need to set your mind to thinking what people would search for you, so If i was writing a book and I needed someone to illustrate for me I would search for "Book Illustrator" "Novel Illustrator" "Book Artist" So think of all the names that people might call their books, so novel, short story, pamphlet etc etc etc, then all thetems like "drawing, drawer, artist, art illustrator, sketch......really stretch the keywords you use, then there is your art so "magical, mysterious, magical, wonderous, creatures, animation, fairy, fairytale etc etc etc.

The more information you have and placed into sentences, often the hardest bit to be honest but yo have that imagination so probably very very easy for you to do.

I am not sure you need to close it down - I think just a background change and organisisng some pages and adding some text will improve things no end :-)

Sell yersen gal, you have an amazing tallent - Just summat else that's fallen into my head, not sure if you could but I am thinking about theatrical props, if you know you could do artwork for things like that then maybe consider that too - thatrical is a wonderful word and one that i think should be included into your site - not sure if you have shown your work in Art galleries either but that may help.

And quit the Gin, it makes ya depressed, Vodka is much better for one's health ;-)

Good luck!
Anne

And see, Miss Diva and myself were busy typing essays at the same time and I completely agree with all Miss Diva has said, never ever have I seen as much enthusiasm for someone else's business as we seem to have in yours or so much need to support :-)

I can't get over that I'm getting so much fantastic information and help and all round cleverness just for the asking! I can see loads of ways to improve the site and sell myself a bit better now, thank you all again for taking the trouble- tell you what, this is going to take a bit of doing for me so I've put a closed sign up for the time being while I try and make my brain absorb everything properly and then I'll spring into action. First I need to get the name sorted out, I think something like Dark fantasy or Twisted fairytale or something, the apron bit's nothing really, only years ago I started a shop selling aprons on Zazzle... supporting Gay Vicars if you will... I think it's still there even, but it's time to lose that now. I'll definitely get back to you Miss Diva, and I'll have a drop of vodka instead missy,
and let you know when I've finished (it might be a while)
Thanks loads Chaps, it's been a revelation.

Karen

Ya know, if you want to drop any ideas by just do so - Dark Fantasy reminds me of summat rude ;-) Twisted fairytale is good, sadly the URL is taken - not sure if you know this but take a look at Easily.co.uk and you can type in the domain name that you like and then select .co.uk and you can see if it is taken or not, if so who has taken it and then do a search to see what sort of thing they are doing. Try to avoid domains like Twisted-fairytale and any with a number or a dash in it - trying to think of another term for twisted...........

Because yo are in the UK then a .co.uk URL is better to have.

Yell if you need to know anything, someone will be able to help you!!!