Why Every Artist Needs A Blog & How To Create An Artist Blog
By Kristin Royce, Sat Dec 10th
As an artist, the key to selling more artwork is maximizing itsexposure. The internet is an increasingly popular tool forpromoting original art, and if done properly, can be quiteprofitable.
One of the most effective (and free!) online marketing tools forartists is the blog. Artist provide an easy way to displayyour art, discuss your creative process, post exhibitionannouncements and more. Best of all, require no workingknowledge of HTML and the search engines love their dynamiccontent.
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 regular basisabout a focused topic. These regular postings typically providea "community" feel by allowing site visitors to post feedback toyour journal entries. This mode of communication can deepenrelationships with potential art buyers, leading to increasedsales.
Blogs also have the ability to archive all of your previousposts, dynamically creating an individual page for each journalentry. The feature is great for art buyers using search enginesto find original art. For example, if you have a blog postdescribing a painting that you just completed of the Golden GateBridge at sunset and an art buyer in Florida goes to Google andsearches for "painting of Golden Gate Bridge at sunset", thereis a very good chance that your blog entry will appear prettyhigh in the rankings. Cha Ching!!
Many artists have felt the pain of email marketing losing itseffect due to spam filters, junk email overloads and virusparanoia. provide a new way to communicate with clients,fans and industry professionals. This trend can support youremail marketing efforts by allowing blog subscription optionsfor site visitors so that they are notified whenever your blogis updated along with providing a permanent place on the web forall of your postings as opposed to newsletter emails that aretypically deleted.
How to start a blog
Blog Publishing Tools
To begin, visit some of these free blogging sites, all offeringunique template options that even an artist can appreciate,image uploads and syndication ability.
Blogger.com (Simpleto set up and multiple authoring ability) MSN Spaces (Create your ownmini site, with an exceptional blogging feature) Live Journal (Requires abit of ‘blogging knowledge' to get it set up) Blog Drive
If you're interesting in reviewing additional blog features,these sites require a small monthly fee to maintain.
Typepad (starts at$4.95/month)
Tripod Blogs (startsat $4.95/month)
Note to artists with MySpace accounts: MySpaceprovides members personal blogs, but it is important to knowthat MySpace are not currently listed in search 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 thatyou blog using a tool that is accessible to search enginespiders.
Decide on a title for your blog
The title of your blog should be brief and to the point. Youcan get creative with your language in the blog description /tag line. A focused title will help with higher search enginerankings and make it clear to visitors what the blog is about.
For example, the title for ThePauper.com blog is "Diary of aPauper". The blog description is "Rants and raves about thecareers and lives of starving artists." The title is concise,stating exactly what it is, while the description is a bit morecreative.
Blog theme
It's important to establish yourself as a professional workingartist if you want to use your blog as a vehicle to sell yourart. Blog theme involves the layout and color of the page,quality of the artwork images displayed and verbiage used forblog postings. Select your blog template carefully and make ahabit to review your blog from the perspective of a potentialclient. Is the page visually appealing? Do the images of yourartwork provide a link to an extra large version to see detail?Does your content have a consistent theme? Here's a good exampleof 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 is that there are no rules on whatto write, but if you want to attract and keep an audience, youmight consider some of these suggestions.
Keep your posts creative and interesting. Move and inspire yourreaders by being completely honest about your creative process.
Use keywords in your blog title and post. Using theexample mentioned earlier – if your post is about a Golden GateBridge painting, be sure to use that exact phrase in the titleand body of your blog. Think about what people might type intosearch engines to find your content and then use those keywordsin your blog. This technique will help increase the ranking ofyour web page on search engines.
Post daily, or at least twice a week. If you publish blogentries 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 outof certain characters and a quick spell-check never hurts.(Note: be sure to create your blog entries using Word or someother text editor. Many blogging tools tend to "time out" aftera certain amount of time and you could potentially lose hours ofwork.)
Publish your blog Finally! Your blog looks great and hasunique content. Now, depending on the blogging tool that youselected, follow the steps to publish it to the World Wide Web.Test the live URL that now houses your blog. If all of yourgraphics appear correctly and the copy is flawless, then youwant to make sure that you promote your blog on your personalwebsite, in your email signature and by word of mouth.
Using the tools you already have to spread the word whiletesting your dedication to frequent posting is the best way toget started. Part 2 of will unveil tons of ways to promote yourblog online.
About the author:Kristin Royce is a search engine optimization and onlinemarketing professional contributing online marketing andpromotional content for artists to The ARTrepreneurE-Zine. The ARTrepreneur offers articles helping artistsfocus on proven techniques to accomplish any goal. ReadMore: http://www.theartrepreneur.com
