Name of your website?Visual Arts Cork: Guide to Irish Art
Your name?
Karina Collins
Your Location (city, etc)
Cork, Ireland
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Visual-arts-cork.com is a not-for-profit website, owned and run by a small Cork-based group of amateur Irish artists and art-lovers. It includes biographies of famous Irish artists and up and coming artists. It includes easy to understand articles about art, art movements and the history of art. It's meant to be a fun resource for anyone interested in art and specifically, Irish art.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
To promote Irish art, within the context of beautiful paintings from artists around the world. Under no circumstances do we claim to be world-experts. We simply wish to provide a simple introduction to the visual arts of Ireland, together with biographies of famous artists and basic information on painting and sculpture. Thus we apologize in advance for any inadvertent errors.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
This was our first website, and it was launched in April, 2008.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
We played around with a few titles, obviously we were limited to what was available. But we definitely wanted a .com, as they are still the most desirable form of url.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
We are completely independent, and are not associated in any way with any commercial body, or any official arts body. Our site is comprehensive, and becoming more so every week as we add more articles and fresh content. We are not selling anything, but simply want to bring the beauty of Irish art to the world. We have no other hidden agenda.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
To become one of the most informative sites on Irish art on the internet.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
It is early days yet, and to a certain extent this is a labour of love.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
I would commission respected art critics to write articles on a regular basis. Perhaps spend some money on internet advertising, to make people aware of our site.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
As we are not 'selling' a product as such, the only issue with extra visitors is bandwidth - and yes, it would be no problem to upgrade.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
None so far.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Writing, writing, writing. All our articles have been created specifically for this site, they are original and up to date. This requires alot of time investment, and will continue to do so. But as I mentioned before, this is a labour of love!
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
We haven't promoted it yet, but we are hoping the search engines will eventually rank us highly, so that will take care of the promoting.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
Not really. It is hard work, it does require committment to quality if you want to produce a good website. Not for the faint-hearted.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
We have been running for one month, and aim to keep it running longterm. IF we don't enjoy big traffic after 3 years, we will reassess things then.
What is your website address?
Visual Arts Cork: Guide to Irish Art
No trackbacks.
Comments