image by Matti Mattila

There is a whole system of exchanges that happen on the web based around one of the most valuable marketing commodities out there. People pay for them. Corporations pay for them. Google crawls all over them (as does Bing and Yahoo). There are special codes written for them, and secret websites based on getting them.

What are they?

Links.

Yup. Links.

Why is a link so important? Because if someone links to your website, that’s like someone voting for you, saying, “Hey, I like this person and you should take a look at what they are doing.” Search engines count those votes. People discover new things by clicking on links.

Your artist website will live and die by getting links.

Here’s the deal: I want to help you get some links. If you want some links to your website, I’d be willing to do that for you. In addition, I’ll display some of your artwork.

Displaying images on TheAbundantArtist.com

I’d like to promote artists who are savvy about the Web. If you give me an image of your work, whether it’s a painting, sculpture, or performance, I’d love to display it here with full credit and a link back to your site.

I can only display so many images (one per blog post), but if there are more than I can use, I’ll favorite them on my Flickr page (you should add me as a contact there) and add a Flickr slideshow widget to the sidebar here so people can see my favorites.

What do you get for displaying your images on TheAbundantArtist.com?

Links. Remember? Those are important. It’s like a vote for your site. You’ll not only get a link from me, you’ll also get links from people who blog about this site and your images.

Viral sharing. Occasionally posts on this site become really popular on StumbleUpon, Twitter, or other social sites. When lots of people see those posts, they see your images. Good, yes?

Learning. You’ll start to learn which images do well online and which ones don’t. After a few weeks, I’ll start sharing traffic stats on images so you can see which images are making their way around the web.

Exposure. The more people that see your images, the more likely you are to make a sale. If you’ve got a store, I’ll link directly to the sales page on your site.

How do you get your images to me?

Drop me an email, Tweet, share the image on the Facebook Fan page, share it with me on Flickr. Any of those work. I’ll take the images that are the best fit for the blog posts that I’m working on, and give you full credit.

I have a lot of artists email or call me about what they can do to get started online. I think answering their questions is one of the best parts of doing what I do, but I don’t always have time to answer all of those questions, especially not at the depth that the questions deserve. I frequently have to direct people back to the blog for a fuller answer.

When I first launched The Abundant Artist I did a couple of group coaching sessions that ended up going pretty well. I’d like to do one again, but I’m going to approach this one a little bit differently.

I’m going to offer a group coaching session starting at the beginning of April. That course is going to be a little bit different, however.

The content will be decided on by you, dear reader.

Now of course, there are a range of topics that we could cover.

• Building websites – what goes on a good site?
• Email marketing & newsletters
• Social Media
• Search engine marketing

I’m going to leave this post at the top of the blog over the next few weeks while we gather input from the readers on what you’d like to have in a group coaching session.

Why let us decide on the content?

Great question. I know what questions I have about internet marketing, and I know what some of you have asked, but I don’t always know when I design a course what the reception of the course will be. With the interactive nature of the web being what it is, I figure I might as well let all ya’all help me help you.

You already know that I provide a lot of useful content, and I can ramble on and on about selling art online – but what do you really need to know?

So, what do you say? If I were going to do another group coaching session, what would you like to see?

Ever looked for a comprehensive guide that you can use as a checklist to know what you should be doing to sell your art online? Here you go. This is a living list. As new techniques are added this post will be updated. Be sure to bookmark this post and come back often to make sure you’re covering every aspect of online marketing.

Keyword research. Before you build your website do some research to see what people are typing in to search engines when they’re looking for work like yours. You should be able to build a list of ways to describe your art that will attract buyers by matching what they’re searching for. Check out this post on how to do keyword research using Google’s Keyword Tool.

Pick the right domain. When starting out, most artists are only going to be known by their name, if known at all. You should pick a domain that matches your name exactly or is a close approximation to your name. If the .com version of your name is taken, you might try the .net, .me, or a country variation.

Write descriptions of your images on your site. I see a lot of artists who put their work on their site but don’t put up any descriptions. People want to know how big your art is, whether it’s on canvas, whether it’s oil, watercolor, and any other description you can give them. If your site is built on Flash you’re going to have a hard time doing this. In addition, the text on your page will help search engines know what your images are all about. Take advantage of image titles and Alt tags. Before you upload an image to your website change the name of the file to some sort of descriptive text. If you can edit the Alt tags of your images make sure you use descriptive keywords there as well.

Use high quality images that download fast. This is a slight oxymoron as high quality images have larger file sizes and take longer to load. You’ll have to experiment with what works best. If it takes longer than a second to download your page, however, be aware that potential buyers will move on to another site. Attention spans on the web are fickle. In addition, Google announced last year that they are taking load times into account when determining which sites come up in the search results.

Put up prices. This is especially true if you are selling reproductions. Everywhere you display a piece of art you should display a price. Even if your shopping cart lists a price after someone clicks through you’ll find that you get more sales by helping customers know everything they need to know before they click.

Be social w/ social media & bookmarking services. Social media is the best thing that ever happened to art marketing. I know I sound like a raging fanboy, but I firmly believe it’s the truth. Art is sold on emotion and the more people you can form connections with the more opportunities you’ll have to affect them. In addition search engines are using social media to decide what ranks high in search results. Check out this post on how to sell art on Facebook, Twitter, Digg & more.

Create an email newsletter. I’ve written about email newsletters a lot. Your list is the most important thing you have as an artist. They’re the ones who care about your work. They’ve already told you so by signing up for your list. Contact your list each month with your progress on new work and potential opportunities to buy your stuff.

Blogging & guest blogging. Writing about your art helps you get clarity on how to present yourself, and it also gives you a place to talk about who you are and why you do what you do. In addition, if people like your stuff (or if they hate it) it will get shared around the web, giving you a wider reach and voice. Guest blogging on other people’s sites is an amazingly effective way of reaching a new audience. My email list increased by 30% by doing a guest post on IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com. Check out Why Are Artists Bad With Money.

Advertise (online and offline). This is obviously for artists who have a little bit of money, but advertising can be potentially lucrative if you have the right product and you know how to position it. Knowing what makes your art different and interesting is key to advertising. Investigating pay-per-click on Google, Facebook ads, or banner ads on niche sites are all methods I have seen work for different artists.

Tell them how to buy (Paypal, credit card processing). This may seem dumb, but telling your audience what to do is really important. If you get someone to your page, they need to know where to go. If you want them to buy your art, tell them to click here and state that they can pay via Paypal, Visa, Mastercard, or in some other way. Simply adding those buttons can increase your sales, even if you don’t change anything else.

Contact information. If people have questions about the payment process or about a specific piece of work then they’re going to want to talk to you or to one of your representatives. Make sure that your contact information is on your home page, a footer, or that there’s a contact page in your navigation.

Try lots of different websites. There are literally hundreds of websites where you can sell your art online. I see new galleries cropping up every week. Find the one that fits your personality and makes you feel comfortable – but don’t get attached. Different art sells well on different sites, so test for a few weeks and if it doesn’t work, move on to another site. Here are 15 sites that you can use to sell art online.

Team up with other artists. Just like guest blogging, teaming up with other dedicated artists is a great way to extend your marketing reach. Do shows together, host a web video series together, share each other’s work via social media & newsletters. It’s often easier to promote someone else’s work than it is to promote your own. Check out my blog post on Imagekind about forming mastermind groups with other artists.

Persevere. Sometimes you may be doing everything right and it’s just not working…yet. Your marketing takes time to mature. Your reputation will grow. Sometimes things that didn’t work before will work better at a later date or done in concert with someone else.

Did I leave anything out? Let me know in the comments.

Click to play

Matthew Ebel blew me away when I heard what he was doing with his online music sales. He’s becoming a force of nature and a model for how other musicians can support themselves full time without signing a deal with a major label.

MatthewEbel.net is a site where fans can pay a monthly fee to be a part of Ebel’s ongoing music development. His fan base is relatively small, but very loyal and they promote his work like crazy. He gets real-time feedback on his work and thus knows what his audience likes and what they don’t.

Visual artists you should listen to this as well. It’s fairly short (about 20 minutes) and there are plenty of good ideas for you here as well. Enjoy!

Hi there! If you got here by reading my guest post on IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com, I’d like to welcome you to the site. Like I mentioned in my bio, this site is about dispelling the myth of the starving artist. I teach artists (painters, crafters, sculptors, performers, musicians) how to sell their art online independently, thus making more money and building up their own prestige and reputation.

If you are not an artist, you may be interested reading about some of my freelance SEO & Social Media work at CoryHuff.com.

Tell me about your site.

First of all, you’ll want to check out the Art Marketing by the Numbers email course. It’s 10 videos, delivered to your email inbox one at a time for 10 weeks. You can get access to the course by signing up for the Abundant Artist Email Newsletter.

If you want to get a good idea of what this site is all about, here’s a list of my most popular posts.

1. 15 Ways to Sell Art Online – Curious about which sites you can start with? Here are 15 places you can sell art online that don’t take much up-front money.
2. 10 Best Day Jobs for Actors – For actors & dancers, it’s important to have a survival job while hitting the audition circuit. These jobs are all things that lend themselves well to the flexible schedule of a performer.
3. Imagekind Power Selling Tips – Imagekind.com is a very popular online gallery. Guest writer Tim Aldridge talks about his success in using Imagekind to sell his work.
4. An Interview with Christy Klug – handmade metal jewelry artist.
5. Artists Marketing Directly to Fans – a profile of artists who are doing an amazing job of building up their fan base and marketing independently.

Interested in selling more art?

Click on the Sell More Art link at the top, or click here to find out more about how I help artists Dispel the Starving Artist Myth.

I’m curious to know what you thought of the guest post at IWTYTBR. Let me know in the comments below.

image by Stefan Baudy

Artist Julie Martin wrote in with the following question:

I am thinking of having prints made of some of my watercolor paintings and selling them on sites like Etsy. I’m not sure how to go about having prints made, as far as making it profitable. Any suggestions?

This is a great question Julie. Pricing is really tough, but you can figure it out!

I’ll try to break it down to its basics. Here’s what you need to consider.

1. Costs. You need to make back what you spent in making the art. This can include fixed costs like your office space, lighting, heating, etc. These costs must be spread out among the number of pieces you plan to sell on a monthly basis. For example, if your studio and rent together cost $1000 per month, and you plan on selling 10 prints per month, then you have $100 in costs for each print, before you ever count anything else. If you think you can sell 20 prints each month, then it’s only $50 per print.

Then there are your costs per painting, or variable costs. This includes your canvas, brushes, the paint you used, and the time you spent (yes, your time is a cost, unless you are working for free). These will vary based on how much paint you use, how big the canvas is, etc. These will be calculated on an individual painting basis.

How much is your time worth? How much do you want to make? If you make $20 per hour, that’s about $40,000 per year. (Hint: You’re worth more than that.)

2. Goals. What are your painting goals? Are you trying to appear like you care what the art world thinks, or are you creating art for your buyers?

Also, how much money to you want to make? If your basic cost per painting is $50 for fixed costs plus $20 for materials, then you add the 10 hours that it took you to paint the piece, then that’s another $200. How many prints do you want to sell before you make that back? 20 prints? That’s $90 per print. (Then you sell the original for gobs of money.)

3. Research. After you know your costs and goals, find out how much it costs to buy other artists’ work. Not just any artists, but look at artists who work in similar styles to you. Look at watercolors that are for sale on Etsy and see what the high, middle, and low prices are. Where do your paintings fit in? Is your work more like the high end or low end of the pricing structure?

4. Test. Pricing is as much of an art as it is a science. There’s no right or wrong way to do it, as long as you are making money. Price out a few pieces at a few different levels and see which ones sell the most or which ones end up being the most profitable.

Let me know how it goes! If anyone has had great experiences with pricing their art prints, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Did I leave anything out?

I’ve had some really great opportunities to interview a lot of artists over the last six months. I’ve been talking a lot about what I think you need to know when it comes to selling art online. Now I’d like to know – what questions do you have?

Ask your question in the comments below, email me at Cory [at] TheAbundantArtist.com, or on Twitter @agoodhusband. I’ll respond to as many of your questions as I can in upcoming blog posts.

Best question before the weekend is over gets a free 30 minute consultation on how to sell art online (we can talk about your website, email marketing, social media, whatever).

You’ve seen buttons like the ones above on websites all over the place. If you don’t use them, you are part of a rapidly shrinking group.

The rising generation of Internet users understand that these social bookmarking buttons are there to make it easier to share content.

What is Social Bookmarking?

It’s a fairly simple concept: see something you like, share it by clicking on a button that sends that content to other people. Among the millions of websites out there are sites that are specifically devoted to sharing interesting or useful tips for certain communities. There are sharing sites for all sorts of interests, and each one has its own culture and own set of rules (written & unwritten).

The shared content arrives in different ways, depending on the site. Stumbleupon has a toolbar you can install on your browser. Twitter has a real time scrolling page, as well as dozens of third-party applications that deliver your Tweets to your mobile device or computer. Other sites send you an email or text message. Facebook made a big splash at the beginning of February when they surpassed Google News as the biggest traffic source for breaking news.

How to Promote Art with Social Bookmarking

Really any increase in traffic is a good thing, so adding these buttons to your site will give you an opportunity to have people referred to your site. There are a few things you can do, however, to give your work a better shot at getting in front of the right audience.

Promote to the Right Audience. While it’s great to share your art on Deviant Art and Flickr, there are other social bookmarking sites that may be more productive for you. Find some sites where your target collector is hanging out. If your ideal client is 35 – 45, high income, and is really into technology, then Twitter or Digg might be good places. If your target audience is mothers over 40 then you might check out CafeMom.com. There are endless sites that you can specialize in. There are social sites for just about any demographic.

Make the sales pitch. Just by putting these buttons on your site you are making that invitation. You can take that one step further however, by asking your readers to bookmark a blog post or a particular piece of art. You can email friends and ask them to bookmark something for you. You can also ask your followers on Twitter, Facebook, or other popular networks to bookmark your stuff.

Monkey See, Monkey Do. If you are an active contributor in a community, people will begin to know, like, and trust you. They’ll be more likely to retweet, bookmark or Digg your stuff if they know you. Comment on other people’s content. Share really good things you find. As you make friends you’ll see more success.

I don’t have time for this!

Believe, I understand the need to focus on your work. You can be an active social media participant without too much effort. Schedule 15 – 20 minutes in the morning and again in the afternoon. Don’t let anything distract you. As you do this, you’ll eventually build up a respectable following and see some great traffic to your site. Remember what I said about Facebook? They are sending more traffic out than Google! This is the trend of the Web. This is how information gets shared. If you aren’t participating, you’re missing major opportunities.

Protip: Promote your artist newsletter through social media. You need to get people from the social sites to your list so that you can promote to them regularly.

Do you have any favorite niche networking sites where you’ve had success promoting your art? Let us know in the comments.

image via immike.net

Most Flash based image galleries are terrible – especially the free ones. Here’s why.

Your website crawls like a 6 month old. Google recently made a major update to their search algorithm. That update, called Caffeine, takes into account your website’s load time as one factor in your site’s rankings in the search results. Flash, as it’s normally used, is slow. On top of the search engines disliking it, how many times have you wanted to kill companies whose websites have load times measured in minutes?

Your landing page is more like a trampoline. If you are tracking your websites statistics, there’s a really important statistic called Bounce Rate. If your site has a Flash landing page, your bounce rate is probably really high. Flash landing pages were cool in the 90’s when they were novel, but now they just make web surfers annoyed and they click off to another site to find what they want.

Flash is like a file cabinet organized by Amelia Badelia. Most pages built on Flash are built as one solid website without individual pages. This is horrible organization for several reasons. Chief among these reasons is that each of your images will end up being on the same page as your home, contact, and artist bio pages. How will the search engines find your stuff if it’s so disorganized?

What does your page say? Ideally, you’ll have a short paragraph describing each piece of art on your website. After all, you’ll want each customer to know how big the piece is, what it was made on, and any other relevant information, yes? Unless you know how to work in Flash, you won’t be able to do this easily, and quite often, the search engines won’t be able to read it (note, with newer versions of Flash, the search engines can read text, but it’s still not easy to work in).

Flash is going out of style like your grandpa’s blue ruffle prom suit. It’s been building for some years, but Flash is quickly becoming a dated technology, and Adobe’s stranglehold on the market is being broken. Microsoft spent millions developing Silverlight, an alternative product that many companies are using. In addition, the iPhone doesn’t support Flash. With over 20% of the smart phone market share, that’s a lot of devices that don’t use Flash. Apple’s new iPad will also not support Flash. Using web standards like html and php will ensure our site plays well with newer technologies.

Shopping Carts. If you want to sell your work on your site, you’ll need to have it presented in an organized way with an easy button that allows someone to purchase your work right there on the same page as the art. Flash only makes this harder.

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Today we’ve got something a little bit different. This is a recording of an interview that I did with Laura Bergman, founder of Bottled Up Designs.

Laura makes jewelry from reclaimed glass. It may be a buzzword to say “upcycled,” but that’s what Laura’s been doing for years. My favorite part: listening to how Laura overcame her mistakes to grow her business, and how she grew her business by picking up the phone to sell her work.

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