When taking the plunge and leaving a large organisation like the BBC, where at least you have the certainty that you’ll be paid that month, for consultancy career … one thing you need before you go is a client …
Which is why one of the best phone calls I ever received was from Andy Ellis the CEO at ArtUk wishing me luck and asking me to lunch.
ArtUk is a brilliant digital resource, they’ve digitised more than 200,000 publicly owned artworks in the UK and the number is growing all the time.
While the site performed well in Google and there was a lot of traffic to the home page Andy wanted to improve traffic from the front page to content deeper in the site.
The new homepage has just been launched picking up on some of the recommendations I made and it will be interesting to see if traffic improves.
Briefly my recommendations were around the following themes:
- The internet is a ‘live’ medium, Art UK should feel ‘live’. The homepage should change regularly and reflect the outside world – but still be relevant to the site’s overall purpose
- Find ArtUK’s editorial voice based on what makes viral content work – dynamic language, using emotional triggers etc etc
- Lots of calls to action
- Tell people what they can expect when they click a link, then give it to them
- Give the audience something they can do, they can take away that makes them feel good
So, I’m off to read up on Dorothea Sharp, https://artuk.org/discover/artists/sharp-dorothea-18741955 … I like ‘Where Children Play and Seagulls Fly’
