7 Features Every Art Blog Must Have

There are 7 features every art blog requirements for SEO, customer satisfaction and monitoring the growth of your online art business.

Original Pastel Painting by Dave Nevue

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7 Features Every Art Blog Needs

Why should you have an art blog?

• Blogs are an excellent way to connect with the world and grow your art business.
• They help you reach a whole new audience, and they give your audience a way to get to know you and your artwork.
• A blog will help you build a community around your art business.

All of these are important for growing your online art business and developing your artist blog following.

7 Features Every Art Blog Needs

• RSS Feed
• Contact/About information
• Comments
• Archives
• SEO plug-ins
• Social networking and bookmarking features
• Google Analytics

RSS Feed

We are living in a fast-paste world.

People are busy and many will not remember to visit your site daily or weekly.

One way to make sure your content gets to your audience is by having them subscribe to your blog.

When they subscribe to your blog, they will have every new post you publish delivered directly to their email inbox.

Here is a step by step guide on how to set up an RSS Feed and install it on WordPress.

HOW TO ADD RSS FEED TO A WORDPRESS BLOG

 

I do want to mention that people are more opt to subscribe to a newsletter than an RSS feed.

I offer both to my audience so they can decide what option is best for them.

For more information on growing your email list visit Ultimate Email Marketing Guide for Selling Art Online.

 

Contact/About information

Have you ever visited a blog and thought, “I wonder who this blog belongs to? Where are they located?  Who are the writers are?”

Readers also want to know who you are.  

If they can’t find out information about you, determine your credibility or make some connection, they’ll move along.

It is easy to retain your visitors by sharing a bit of information about yourself including a means by which they can contact you. This is also said to help with SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Contact and About The Artist sections are more important for artist blogs than most blogs because art collectors want to get to know the artist.

Most sales come after an artist builds a potential buyer’s trust.

For more information on contact forms, visit SHOULD BLOGS HAVE CONTACT FORMS.

 

Comments

Some blogs intentionally do not allow comments, and while they have their reasons, most people like to be able to leave a comment if they have something to say.

If you’re considering not allowing commenting because you want to avoid spam, then check out a few of the spam blockers like Askimet, which is available for WordPress blogs.

People like the interaction, and it draws more readers to your blog.

Blogs are an excellent way to build a relationship with future customers.

A person will feel more comfortable purchasing your artwork when they get to know who you are.

Even though comments might not drastically increase PR (PageRank) it doesn’t hurt.

Google wants to provide the best content that relates to a query.

If Google sees that there are a ton of comments on a post, Google will think that the post is what people are looking for.

That would be another reason why your post should rank higher in the search results.

 

Archives

Popular posts, popular comments, tags, and other associated identifiers are helpful to keep your readers on your blog.

People search and read blogs differently.

Some simply read the most recent post and move on while others search by category or tag.

Some people will want to read the most popular posts, and others will want to sift through your archives post by post.

Provide some options for your visitors to search for what they are looking for on your blog.

The longer you can keep your readers on your site, the more authority your site will have in Google’s eyes.

Make it easy for your audience to find the content they are looking for.

 

SEO plug-ins

One of the excellent features of a blog is that the search engines welcome it due to frequent and easily indexed content.

That being said, there is an abundance of quality search engine plugins, particularly for WordPress, which makes optimizing your posts for the search engines quick and easy.

I use Yoast SEO and am very happy with what it offers.

You do not need to be an SEO pro to rank high in Google search, you just have to know more than your competition.

Here are some SEO posts you will want to read:

• WordPress SEO: Optimize Your Artist Website for Search Engines
• SEO Checklist for Artists Selling Art Online
• SEO Basics – What Artists Need to Know

 

Social networking and bookmarking features

With Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Reddit, and other social networking and bookmarking sites growing in popularity, it pays to include options on your blog.

Everyone has different social media sites that they prefer. Offer as many to draw traffic and generate subscribers.

I use Social Ware Fare WordPress plugin for my social share buttons.

For more information about Social War Fare WordPress plugin visit:

Social Warfare Review – The Ultimate Social Sharing WordPress Plugin

How To Install Social Warfare On WordPress Art Blogs

How To Hide Pinterest Images In Blog Posts With Social Warfare

 

Google Analytics

You want to know how many people are visiting your blog, where they’re coming from, how many posts they read and how long they stay on your site. 

Google Analytics will tell you all that and more.

To make good decisions about how to grow your blog, it pays to have the kind of information an analytics tool can provide.

This is very powerful information for your marketing strategy.

Blogging is extremely popular and useful, and along with this popularity comes a large assortment of useful tools.

Take advantage of these tools and resources to grow your subscribers, profits, and art business.

 

Art Blogging Made Easy

Many artists struggle when it comes to marketing and blogging. I struggled in the beginning too. I have spent many hours over the last 17 years learning about digital marketing and content marketing to help me grow my online art business.

My mission is to help all artists reach their dreams so I have decided to write an eBook that will make blogging easy for you. All you have to do is follow the daily tasks.

I am sharing with you the key elements that will help you build a successful art blog. In no way am I saying that it is going to be easy, but I will say hard work always pays off. Because I know your time is valuable as an artist I wanted to give you all of the resources needed to help you grow your online art blog.

 

I have published many blog posts and wrote 28 Day Blogging Challenge for Visual Artists to help you build your art business faster with an art blog. In the posts, I share with you everything that I have learned about operating an art business for the past 20 plus years.

USE COUPON CODE – 28DAY to save $10 off 28 Day Blogging Challenge for Visual Artists eBook.