Website Traffic is a must if you want people to see your art online. How can you sell your online art if nobody sees it?
Not only do you want more traffic but you want quality traffic.
Quality traffic will be the people who are interested in your artistic style. For example, I would not do well marketing to people who love vibrant colors because I am a graphite artist. My art would not be something they would want to purchase for their home. I need to market to people who have a passion for grayscale art.
Website Traffic Generating Tip
Many artists do not have a background in marketing. In fact, most artists hate the word marketing.
I can understand this but I want to tell you it is not as hard as you think it might be.
In order for you to build an online presence, you will have to concentrate on a few areas. First, you will need to upload images of your art to a platform where people can visit. Second, you will have to develop a strategy to attract people to your site.
I told you it was easy. Upload images of your art and attract people to your site.
In this post, I will be covering some basic strategies you can use to drive traffic to your artist website.
Before I go into that I do want to disclose that building an audience does take work and it will not happen overnight.
The successful artists you see online have been doing this for some time and have become masters at online marketing. Simply put. They have put in the time.
What does this tell you?
This shows you that it is possible. You can be successful selling art online. You need to be willing to put in the work.
Plan for Success
Everything starts with a plan. In order for you to see your traffic grow, you will want to know what type of traffic you would like to attract, where your target audience hangs out, and how you can grab their attention.
You will hear me talking a lot about “your target audience” in upcoming posts. Your target audience is basically the people who are interested in your artistic style. Those are the people you will want to be focusing on.
Let me give you an example. If your target audience is people who have a passion for nautical decor, you will not want to target people who love winter sports. You will be wasting your time. Instead, focus on your niche. Those are the people you will be able to convert into buyers.
You need to have a clear vision of your goals before you can start planning. You can not take a family vacation if you do not know where you would like to go. Of course, you could get in the car and just start driving, but the end result might not be too rewarding.
Take some time to ask yourself, “What would I like to achieve?”
Do you want to sell art online?
Do you want to make enough money selling art to be able to afford yearly vacations?
Is selling your art going to be a part-time job or would you like to make a career of it?
It doesn’t matter what your goals are, what matters is that you know what they are.
I have worked with so many artists who have a hard time writing goals, so I decided to create a free video course to help them out. I am offering this course for free because it is so important for your future. I want you to build a solid foundation so you can live your dreams.
If you struggle writing goals, take my course. You will be happy you did. How to Write Goals.
Now that you have your goals written down let’s look at some different ways you can start generating website traffic.
7 Tips to Drive Traffic to Your Artist Website
#1 PPC ads – Of course, not all PPC ad campaigns generate targeted traffic. You have to study your prospects and design keyword-specific ads that send traffic to a web page related to the ad. For a website about buying paintings, you do not want to have ads for art. That is too broad. You want to target your niche. If it is still life oil paintings, you want to advertise still life oil paintings. If you are too broad in your ad, you will be throwing your money away.
#2 Classified advertisements – Use the same advice and strategy as with PPC ads above.
#3 A squeeze page – opt-in list and targeted email messages. A squeeze page is essentially a way to capture the email addresses of people who are interested in receiving your information. True, they may be after your giveaway, but that’s okay – they’re still a qualified prospect. Once you have their email address, you can begin sending them informative, entertaining and slightly promotional messages, all of which are designed to send them directly to your website – targeted website traffic.
An email list is one of the most beneficial lists you will have to build your business.
#4 Article Marketing – Article marketing is one of the most effective ways to generate targeted website traffic. When you publish quality content, and it gets published online on article directories and republished on other websites, you’re reaching a wider audience. The link(s) in your article and your bio box can all send targeted traffic right back to your website. The more articles you publish, the more targeted traffic you generate. It’s a simple equation.
#5 Blog and guest blogging – Use the same advice and strategy as with article marketing above.
#6 Social Networking – Social networking can send tons of traffic to your art website simply because people are curious about you and your art. However, if you’re strategic about your social networking strategy, you will occasionally include links to your website with attention-grabbing posts or headlines. The result: targeted traffic. Be careful not to just post selling ads on social media. That could give you a negative outcome.
7 REASONS TO START YOUR FACEBOOK ARTIST PAGE
10 REASONS TO HAVE YOUR ART BUSINESS ON TWITTER
#7 Comment on blogs and forums – On most forums and blogs when you participate and comment you can post a link to your website in your signature. This does generate curious folks who just want to know “who said that?!” However, when you participate in forums and blogs that are relevant to your website and industry niche, you’re sending targeted traffic to your site.
The longer you have your artist blog and art website up, the easier it will be to generate traffic. After a while, Google and other search engines will see you as an authority in your niche and will rank you higher in the search.
At first, you will have a difficult time generating traffic because your sites will not be ranked in the search engines. In order for you to generate traffic, you might want to consider purchasing some ads and spending a lot of time promoting on social media sites.
Your end goal is to rank in the top three search results for the keywords you are focusing on.Click To TweetYour end goal is to rank in the top three search results for the keywords you are focusing on. When you reach that level you will get a ton of organic traffic and you will not have to pay for advertisements anymore.
How to Generate Website Traffic Extras
- You can also try unique approaches like posting reviews on sites and directories for products related to your art style and include a link to your website in your review profile, for example reviewing on Amazon.com.
- You can post answers on Yahoo! Answers.
- You can post videos and add a link back to your website. or podcasts on directories and drive traffic to your site much like you would with article marketing.
- Start a podcast and drive traffic to your site much like you would with article marketing.
How to Increase Website Traffic for Free
Nothing is free. Somethings might not cost money but you will pay in other ways.
For example, blogging will increase website traffic for free, but it will cost you your time. You will have to spend many hours writing posts and promoting the posts.
Anyone who says blogging is easy is lying. It is work, but the rewards you get from your efforts are well worth the time invested.
Another way I get a ton of free traffic is by marketing on Pinterest.
My Pinterest account drives more referral traffic than all of the other social media sites I am on combined. Again it takes work and time but the traffic I receive is well worth the time I spend on it.
Online marketing is constantly changing and it changing fast.Click To TweetHere are some Pinterest posts that will help get you started:
- Create a Pinterest Business Account Step by Step
- How To Create a Pinterest Board
- Optimize and Hide Pinterest Images in a WordPress Post
- How to Sell on Pinterest Tips for Artists
Best Pinterest Marketing Books
Online marketing is constantly changing and it changing fast. If you do not want to be left behind you have to stay on top of all the changes that are occurring around you.
Here some of my favorite Pinterest Books.
Pinterest Marketing: An Hour a Day by Jennifer Evens Cario (Amazon Affiliate Link)
Pinfluence: The Complete Guide to Marketing Your Business with Pinterest by Beth Hayden (Amazon Affiliate Link)
Pinterest Power: Market Your Business, Sell Your Product, and Build Your Brand on the World’s Hottest Social Network by Karen Lacey (Amazon Affiliate Link)
Pinterest for Business: How to Pin Your Company to the Top of the Hottest Social Media Network by Jess Loren (Amazon Affiliate Link)
Social media is another great way for you to build an online presence. Your strategy should be to generate traffic to your website. This can be done by providing links to every post you publish.
If you are not careful you could find yourself wasting valuable time on social media sites. Take advantage of all the social media tools available.
Conclusion:
Generating more website traffic is something we are all seeking. It doesn’t matter how much traffic we are receiving we want more.
You know the more traffic your artist website receives means the more chances you will have to sell your art.
If you want to sell art online you will have to work every day on generating traffic to your artist website.
Give your traffic a boost with ads while you are building your artist blog, social media accounts, and Pinterest account.
You might also be interested in:
- Digital Content Marketing – What Artists Need to Know
- How to Sell on Pinterest Tips for Artists
- Top 7 Social Media Marketing Apps for Visual Artists
- 9 Social Media Marketing Tips for Artists Selling Art Online
- How to Be More Productive Marketing Art Online
Graphite Art by Dave Nevue
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