Is a web site necessary for an artist?

Please feel free to add your opinion. I am just giving you information to think about.
I am right 95% of the time, so there is always a small chance that I could be wrong about something,somewhere, at some time.

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I just think that with the advent of blogs, the necessity to have a web site has been lessened.
The whole point of a website is so that people can find you and your work. Right!
Two weeks after I started my blog, my search position on Google catapulted. I can be found much easier now that I have a Blog, than when I had a Website.

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I had a website for ten years and never had a sale on it. I wasn't really trying to sell on the Internet. My web site was really targeted toward the customers that I had at my art shows. Everyone at the show wanted to know if I had a website, but none of them ever bought anything from my website. They wanted to see the art in person, that's why they go to art shows.
After a website has been there awhile and not updated, it gets down graded by Google.

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The Pitfalls

It is possible to have a kick butt website, that is not SEO friendly. Each page of a Website has a title. The person that builds the site needs to manually give each page a title, and add a description of that page ,using Keywords that describes your product. Will the person that builds your site, know what words are the best keywords for your product? Did the person that built your site do this? You'll probably never know. This is done in the background of the programming, it's not something you can see.

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Is your site really fancy, does it have music, scrolling pictures or words, or other such niceties.
These fancy professional looking things, all slow your website down, and frankly are totally unimpressive to most people. They are to busy being annoyed that the page won't load, to notice how impressive your site is. Goggle downgrades sites like these,precisely because the pages load too slow.

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If you have a website built, what are you going to do when you sell, and your Website becomes outdated. How are you going to add new work to your site. This is the problem you will have if someone else builds your site. If it needs changed a lot. It could be a money pit.
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Online Stores

Are you selling your work on some of the online stores like Ebay, Etsy, Yessy , etc. ... If so, I don't see the point of having a website where you are selling the exact same product. If you are selling totally different products then that makes sense.

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The good thing about the on-line stores is that they are already optimised for SEO. After all, if people can't find your work there, you will leave, or you won't sell, and they won't get a commission.

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The second thing, is that it is easy to add new products and revamp your store whenever you deem it necessary.

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Thirdly, the on-line stores already have shopping carts. There is absolutely reason to have a Website that doesn't have prices and a shopping cart. That's just making it too difficult for someone to purchase from you.
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Using Your Website as a Hub

Why?

If your not actually selling from a Website, why have it?

The number one, easiest way to be found on the Internet is a Blog, not a Website.
Because you update a Blog often, and because it is already optimized for SEO,(Keywords).
If you are using your Website as a hub, just to point people to all the places you can be found on the Internet, why not use a free blog instead.
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But I want to keep my name.

www.I'm famous.com

I commonly hear people say that they have a web URL that they want to keep so that people can find them. At one time would have agreed with that. My old site was artistderek DOT com. I gave up that name and someone else has it right now. I just Googled Artist Derek. I came up in the number 2,3,4,5 position on the first page. Nowhere on the first page was the person that has the URL , artistderek DOT com. So who is better off? Every day a couple people find me by searching for Artist Derek Collins. That's the goal, so you can be found. I just Googled Artist Derek Collins, there are 9 spots on the first page, I had every spot but 1. Do you have a website? Google yourself, how easy or hard you are to find?

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What should you do?

1. Start a Blog today
a. A hub to send people to all the places you sell art
b. so your customers can get to know you.
c. It will elevate your search status.

Website?

1.Use one of the online stores as a website and drive traffic to it with a Blog and whatever else.
2.Use one of the services that will let you build your own Website, like Godaddy, then use a Blog and whatever else to drive traffic to it, so that you can update it and have full control over it.
3 Already have a website? Then start a Blog and drive traffic to it.