Artful Links:
Greetings, Merchants of Grants Pass,
also Gallery Operators,
Artists, and other interested parties:
If you're searching for a better way to promote your First Friday Art Night activities on
the web, then look no further, because this is where it's happening!
If you haven't yet seen Rogue Planet's Art Night pages, here are links to two (2) pages, which also link
to each other of course, and to many MANY other pages. Check it out! Visit the site and click your way around.
- The Art Walk Map at RoguePlanet.net
The master homepage to a multiple-domain local site network. This page features a really nice Google map
highlighting all the current venues, each with a location photo plus address & phone info in the sidebar,
and clickable links to pop-up windows in the map with even more info, another photo, and a link.
- First Friday Exhibit Listings
Here we have a sequential listing of stops on the art walk, presently beginning
at The Firehouse Gallery and proceeding more or less logically to minimize wear
and tear on the knees and ankles. Future versions will allow website visitors to
select the section of town where they'd like to park and get started, then serve them a
custom map in which the logical ordering of exhibits will be different.
You'll soon see that there is an entire semi-custom webpage for each and every exhibit, as well as pages for
viewing additional photos, if the participating gallery or venue chooses to upload them (sometimes we also
add photos after Art Night if you haven't, but if you don't like those posted for your venue you can delete or
replace them.)
Soon we'll be allowing registered site users to upload their photos too, as well as to comment upon and possibly even
rate the art shows. Similarly, if you will register and then provide us with your First Friday Art Night information via our
handy online forms, then the web pages that mention and/or feature your venue, exhibit, and any other scheduled
events (arts and otherwise), will all rewrite themselves per your simple form-filled directives. If you add even more
info, the pages will expand (both in size and quantity!) to accomodate however much information you and
your artist(s) provide. LOOK!
Next on the agenda is providing more comprehensive coverage for the artists themselves, not only on this website
but also on both the Southern Oregon Artists and Art of the Rogue websites, currently under construction. We'll be
giving away specially designed multi-page web suites to local artists, with tools for blogging their studio & en plein air
activities, posting their profiles & portfolios, and displaying their artwork online in some really cool ways that
no one else seems to have yet thought of. And of course there is work to be done in the Rogue Planet members area,
which when completed should help facilitate better communication between merchants and artists,
while also helping the Rogue Planet keep the art-loving public better informed!
If you'd like to participate in this online endeavor, using these free online
tools to promote your own business while helping further the interests and reputation of our local Arts Movement
(and by the way, THANK YOU for all you've already been doing!) then we welcome you to The Rogue Planet!
Before we can start, however, you'll need to be registered on the network so that when you log in we'll know who you
are and which files to open. We're pretty secure about things like that, so if you haven't already registered,
please do so here:
>> Rogue Planet Passport ~ Registration Desk
With this much accomplished, you'll now want to access your Venue Admin Tools. They're
pretty simple, and if you can capitalize on that by getting someone else to do it all for you,
so much the better! In fact we have a "helper" feature by which you may grant access to your admin area,
while still retaining separate and equal access via your own password — this way you can see what
your helper is doing, and maybe do a little editing if they start coloring outside the lines. You might even get
together and collaborate — indeed, SOME of the exhibit info forms allow as many as FOUR collaboraters
— you, your helper, your artist, and your artist's helper!)
If you have been given a Venue Access Code and/or if you would like to assign helper status to a friend, partner,
employee, or whatever, then you need to go to your Rogue Planet Passport Concierge (a.k.a. "the clipboard") and open
your "Site Tools" tab. Scroll down to "add a Helper" and/or "Stake Your Claim" and
you'll find form-fields with easy to follow instructions.
If you're already registered, logged in, and with your venue code already submitted, here is the
link that will take you to straight to your First Friday dashboard:
>> Venue & Gallery Admin center
Hi! I'm John Granacki, and I have been proudly delivering honest-to-goodness local Grants Pass
content to the World Wide Web since 1996. That's when I began posting schedules for any First Friday Art Walks in which my
own artwork happened to be featured. Originally a [free] "Geocities" member site, in 2002 the Rogue Planet Network was
solidified into a multiple-domain portfolio of local-interest Internet
sites, on which could be found local arts information, including First Friday schedules, including
reviews and photographs, regardless of which artists and whose art was being featured!
Speaking of Art, I think I have one of the most aesthetically appealing sites on the Internet. I kind of thought
that might be appropriate for a website that focuses mostly on art, so I went the extra mile! (What do you think?)
As for the Arts of SEO — Search Engine Optimization — I'm happy to report that
this website has become THE most successful one of its kind with the major search engines. See for yourself.
If you "Google" the words FIRST FRIDAY ART NIGHT you can see how many hits you get, and it's a lot.
You can see how many First Friday Art Night celebrations are observed nationwide, and there are a lot of them
— and of course you'll also see that Grants Pass is #1 on Google's list, thanks to Rogue Planet. It's been that way
for a few years now, but now that we've gone fully interactive the site promises to be even more effective in
promoting not only our regional arts scene and our artists, but also our local merchants who support the arts!
Advertising & Design Services
Although most any type of premium service you can imagine is always available for a fee, I'm trying to manifest
the Rogue Planet Experience into an advertising-supported venue with as many free-for-local-members features as can be
justified in light of revenues. Alas, Google Ads have failed, on this and pretty much all websites serving specific geographic regions
It appears that if all the ad clicks on a site come from within any such locality, the folks at Google get uptight and
cancel the website's Adsense account. So, if you've been trying to adverise "locally" with Google based on MY advice
and strategies, you have my profound apologies; I now advise you to stop (unless you have something of true World-wide interest to
promote, in which case Adwords works great!)
I've also been embellishing these and some of my other pages with local banner ads for folks I've done
other Internet-related business with — supporters of this network whom I cannot thank enough.
(if you're reading this, "Thanks" again!)
If you'd like such a banner ad for your business, the quickest way to get on the rotation list is to simply become
one of those people with whom I've done such business, and the quickest/easiest/most-effective way to do this is with my
Internet Presence Express service, which for $150 includes a webpage forever*, plus I'll come to your
business to take photos,plus collect all the vital informision about your business for uploading into Google's local
business directory (all for about a third of what Soup-or-Pages charges, and they don't do photographs!)
Either way its a win/win because you need my skills and I need the work.
Still not convinced? WAIT! It get's deeper!
Grab a shovel and
Click Here for my resumé!
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