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I have been reviewing several websites that artists have been submitting to me for review and I have some suggestions in general for everyone reading this.
Consider not having a flash video on your opening page. I use broadband to connect to the internet and still have to wait almost forty seconds for a full flash video to load. Now that may not sound like a long time, but for someone visiting your site for the first time...if they wait, they're gone. I went to look at the submitted sites so I waited for the videos to load, but visitors may not. This is probably something your web designer suggested you to have but from a marketing point of view it gives people reason to leave.
Most of the sites that I went to had no method for capturing visitors names and e-mails. This is what we do immediately when someone visits my site in order to have the opportunity to market to them in the future. They may not be interested in buying something today but by keeping in touch with your visitors they may buy in the future. Consider having a guestbook where people could sign in at your site and in return give them some images of your work that they could download for "wallpaper" for their computer. This not only gives them a reason to give you their name and e-mail but keeps your art in front of them when they work on their computer. The images you give could have your name and contact information on the bottom of the image to keep your contact info in front of them.
Following up on my last comment you are probably saying that you offer a newsletter to people who leave their e-mail. I would suggest you "sell" the newsletter signup with the items I mentioned in number 2 above. Furthermore, capture their name. When I send out my e-mails it is thru an auto responder. If you are not familiar with what that is...it is an automatic e-mail that takes information that people give (name, e-mail, etc.) and plugs it into e-mail template being sent out. I have thousands of people in my database, I would never be able to send out each and every e-mail one at a time to everyone who signs up for my course. By being able to send out an e-mail that is personalized to your visitor will keep you in their consciousness.
These are just but a couple of suggestions that I have for you. I am going to recommend you to take a look at either my complete advance course at the link below or if you like I will be breaking out a special section on "Selling Your Art Online" from the course within the next week. That section will be available in a downloadable format and is extremely thorough on strategies to make your website profitable. I will be e-mailing my entire list when this section is available. The advance course has this section and 26 other sections. I hope the points I made above help you.
Steve Popkin, a veteran glass artist, makes it easy for artists to become successful. Learn the secrets most artists and craftsmen will never know about selling artwork in his complimentary e-course just visit http://www.thethrivingartist.com
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