As an artist, the key to selling more artwork is maximizing its exposure. The internet is an increasingly beloved tool for promoting traditional art, and if done properly, can be quite profitable.
One of the most productive (and free!) online marketing tools for artists is the blog. Artist blogs furnish an easy way to display your art, discuss your creative process, post exhibition announcements and more. Best of all, blogs want no working knowledge of Html and the hunt engines love their dynamic content.
Blogger Template
What is a blog and how will it sell my art?
A "blog" is a web-based diary or journal. The author of a blog, also known as a "Blogger", publishes content on a quarterly basis about a focused topic. These quarterly postings typically furnish a "community" feel by allowing site visitors to post feedback to your journal entries. This mode of transportation can deepen relationships with potential art buyers, foremost to increased sales.
Blogs also have the capability to archive all of your old posts, dynamically creating an private page for each journal entry. The feature is great for art buyers using hunt engines to find traditional art. For example, if you have a blog post describing a painting that you just completed of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset and an art buyer in Florida goes to Google and searches for "painting of Golden Gate Bridge at sunset", there is a very good occasion that your blog entry will appear pretty high in the rankings. Cha Ching!!
Many artists have felt the pain of email marketing losing its succeed due to spam filters, junk email overloads and virus paranoia. Blogs furnish a new way to report with clients, fans and industry professionals. This trend can sustain your email marketing efforts by allowing blog subscription options for site visitors so that they are notified whenever your blog is updated along with providing a permanent place on the web for all of your postings as opposed to newsletter emails that are typically deleted.
How to start a blog
Blog Publishing Tools
To begin, visit some of these free blogging sites, all contribution unique template options that even an artist can appreciate, image uploads and syndication ability.
Blogger.com (blogger.com) - uncomplicated to set up and many authoring ability
Msn Spaces (spaces.msn.com) - originate your own mini site, with an exceptional blogging feature
Live Journal (livejournal.com) - Requires a bit of 'blogging knowledge' to get it set up
Blog Drive (blogdrive.com)
If you're moving in reviewing supplementary blog features, these sites want a small monthly fee to maintain.
Typepad (typepad.com) - starts at .95/month
Tripod Blogs (tripod.lycos.com) - starts at .95/month
Note to artists with MySpace accounts: MySpace provides members personal blogs, but it is foremost to know that MySpace blogs are not currently listed in hunt engines, which as noted above, is one of the main reasons to get a blog. While MySpace works to remedy this issue, it is recommended that you blog using a tool that is accessible to hunt motor spiders.
Decide on a title for your blog
The title of your blog should be brief and to the point. You can get creative with your language in the blog article / tag line. A focused title will help with higher hunt motor rankings and make it clear to visitors what the blog is about.
For example, the title for ThePauper.com blog is "Diary of a Pauper". The blog article is "Rants and raves about the careers and lives of starving artists." The title is concise, stating exactly what it is, while the article is a bit more creative.
Blog theme
It's foremost to design yourself as a professional working artist if you want to use your blog as a car to sell your art. Blog theme involves the layout and color of the page, capability of the artwork images displayed and verbiage used for blog postings.
Select your blog template considered and make a habit to report your blog from the perspective of a potential client. Is the page visually appealing? Do the images of your artwork furnish a link to an extra large version to see detail? Does your content have a consistent theme?
Here's a good example of a working blog by mix engineer, Ken Lewis: http://protoolsmixing.com/blog.html
The content theme is exceptionally consistent, plus the colors and page layout match his website.
What to write
What's beautiful about blogs is that there are no rules on what to write, but if you want to attract and keep an audience, you might think some of these suggestions.
Keep your posts creative and interesting. Move and inspire your readers by being wholly honest about your creative process.
Use keywords in your blog title and post. Using the example mentioned earlier - if your post is about a Golden Gate Bridge painting, be sure to use that exact phrase in the title and body of your blog. Think about what people might type into hunt engines to find your content and then use those keywords in your blog. This technique will help growth the ranking of your web page on hunt engines.
Post daily, or at least twice a week. If you release blog entries frequently, you will see more return visitors, subscriptions to your blog and comments from site visitors.
Proofread and preview your blog entries before posting. Some blog Html editors have a way of creating weird symbols out of inevitable characters and a quick spell-check never hurts. (Note: be sure to originate your blog entries using Word or some other text editor. Many blogging tools tend to "time out" after a inevitable whole of time and you could potentially lose hours of work.)
Publish your blog
Finally! Your blog looks great and has unique content. Now, depending on the blogging tool that you selected, succeed the steps to release it to the World Wide Web. Test the live Url that now houses your blog. If all of your graphics appear correctly and the copy is flawless, then you want to make sure that you promote your blog on your personal website, in your email signature and by word of mouth.
Using the tools you already have to spread the word while testing your dedication to frequent posting is the best way to get started. Part 2 of will unveil tons of ways to promote your blog online.
Why Every Artist Needs a Blog & How to generate an Artist Blog
Thanks To : free template for joomla blogger wordpress