This is not the first time, and probably not the last time, that I have talked about it. I am building a website for the paintings and pyrography that I make. But that is not all, my partner's woodworking also needs to be included, and in addition, there needs to be a webshop so that interested people can buy it right away. And well, while you are at it, a blog in which we can tell about the how and why of the art creations is also useful. It is good for SEO to be found, and another outlet for me. Now this sounds like a simple plan, and if you set it up very simply, it may be simple. But the way I have it in mind, then nothing simple remains.
Why On Earth Do We Need A Website?
Of course, there are many reasons to think of, but the most important reason is probably that we want to bring our works to the attention, that we want to offer people the opportunity to buy them, and yes of course we also hope to create an extra income stream with that. Each of our works is unique, handmade with love and care. It is not mass production. Every piece we make has feelings in it, there is a story behind it. You will not find it on every street corner and it does not come from a factory where 1000 of them are made per hour. No, none of that! What we want to offer involves hours of work and every product is made with a lot of care and love. With every piece of wood, we thought about how we could make this piece of wood look its best. And in every painting I make there is a piece of myself. The wood we use is carefully searched for, selected with love, obtained responsibly, and treated with the respect that wood deserves. We want to show all of this on a website. And of course, we want your website to stand out among the billions of websites that already fill the internet. It also has to have a professional look and not just look like another hobby website. We don't want to sell for a song at the first flea market. Websites like Etsy are fun, but people will hardly find you because of the algorithm used, and on top of that, such websites also take a nice commission from you. Why would we do that? Then we can better make a website ourselves. And well, that's where the fun really starts of course.
I'll Do This!
Let me start by saying that this is not the first time I've made a website. So I'm not a complete novice at it either. In the distant past, I even took a course in web design. So yes, I know my way around HTML a bit, and I don't even shy away from a CSS stylesheet, WordPress makes it a lot easier these days. And before you know it, you have something that looks like a website. But is it what I want? No, not at all. So a delete, and a restart. And it's been like this for a few times now. The layout is still not easy for me, because every time I think "Okay, this is it!". Then it turns out not to be what I want and I discover again that it has to be different for my feeling. And then I haven't even mentioned the webshop. That sounded so easy in my head. Just upload a product photo, type a description, and be ready to go! Ready to sell. Spoiler, that's not how it works! Have you ever heard of a SKU? If your answer is "Yes", then you are wiser than I was. I didn't know. Now it turns out that I don't need it that quickly on my website, we only have 1 of each product because we make everything manually and don't have mass production. Okay, pffffeww, relief. So I don't have to worry about whether I use it correctly. But shit, the next question is already presenting itself. Do we only go within our country, or do we also go internationally? And if we are going international, then of course the website also has to be bilingual. And how do you calculate international shipping costs? In short, the project "website" that I thought, "I'll do that", turns out to be a much bigger project if I want to tackle it properly and not something that I can do just like that. I haven't even talked about SEO yet, but this is also a very important part that I will have to delve into very deeply if the website itself is to my liking. And given my attitude, "I'll do it right, or I won't do it at all", it won't be online that quickly.
Partner Ideas
Now this last one may not be such a big drama, because, of course, I'm not alone in this. My partner is also there, and he also has his ideas. Although we already have enough things that can be photographed to get their place in the webshop, there are also enough things that we don't have yet, and that therefore have to be made. The idea that we got is just starting to take shape. And of course, we want to start with a filled webshop. That part gives me some peace of mind, I can now mainly worry about the website being well-organized, that everything looks nice and professional, that everything works, and when the products we want to offer are there, it is a matter of photographing everything, adding it to the webshop and then putting the website online. But precisely because I can do it all more calmly now, I also have too much time to change everything 1001 times because I think it could be just that little bit better.
Lack Of Space
The disadvantage is of course that the website will not be online for a while, but that also means that my paintings will stay here for a while. To be honest, I have been painting for a few years now, but storing about 40 paintings does take up quite a bit of space. Yes, of course, I have given one away here and there. But there are many ... and at the moment I have reached a point where I think, "Hmmm, should I paint something new now that I am already running out of space?" It's a thing, I want to paint, I want to Woodburn... but where should I put everything? So at the moment, I am not painting, and I am also not woodburning. Well, the fact that I am not woodburning also has another cause. I don't have any suitable wood to burn at the moment. I have not yet found what I am looking for. It will come!
Writing!
So what I am doing now is writing the blogs that will soon be published on our website. Of course, I want to share our stories, about what we make, why we make it, and the emotion behind our works. And just when I think that this has worked out well, I am faced with a technical error that completely pulls me out of my inspiration. Then I have to try to crawl back into the role of IT'er and see that I solve whatever the problem is.
Coffee As A Lifesaver?
Now I'm not the most patient person. My focus can always fly from left to right and back again. But now my patience is starting to run out. Both with the problems I encounter while creating the website, and even more with myself. Why can't I think of something once and stay happy with it, instead of changing it every time? And I don't even want to talk about the nightmare of the many WordPress plugins. Which one do you need and which one is really good? I'll have to persevere for a while, and sometimes I'll be at my wits' end. I might have a few gray hairs before I have this online properly. I'll just grit my teeth and continue with good courage ... well, good courage? Normally I'm not someone who drinks a lot of coffee, in fact ... I usually only drink a cup of coffee with my partner on the weekend. Now you also get why I threw a photo from Pexels in this blog! I don't even have a good coffee photo! Lol. But I can tell you that while working on the website nightmare I discovered coffee. That caffeine boost is really necessary at times to keep me sharp when the website doesn't do what I expect, doesn't look like I hoped, or when a term is thrown at me that makes me think... "Huh, wtf?".
So you get it, while I'm working on this job, I need a lot of breaks. Between all the frustrations, I'm going out for a breath of fresh air with Skipper, then making a cup of instant coffee and one more. In the end, if I can keep my focus for long enough, eventually, a website will be created.