Are you wondering why no one is reading your art blog posts? In this post, I am going to share with you some basic strategies on how to promote art blog posts so you can start building your audience quicker.
Art Blog Basics: How To Promote Art Blog Posts
Many artists believe that once they hit publish on their blog posts, their job is done.
I use to think the same way. In the beginning, I use to believe that once I hit publish everyone would stop doing what they were doing to read my article.
To my surprise, it didn’t work that way.
As time went by I started to become frustrated.
It seemed like I was only writing for my wife and friends.
Do you feel this way?
You might have heard me say in the past that writing never came easy for me, but I knew that if I wanted to continue to sell art online I would have to change the way I was marketing.
It was clear that the old ways of art marketing online have come and gone and content marketing (blogging) was becoming a new way to promote brands and build customer relationships between businesses and customers.
Looking back at the past few years you might say that I am happy that nobody read my posts.
To be honest, my writing was horrific.
Even though writing a blog post was painful when I started I knew that I had to spend time learning how to create posts that would provide value. If I couldn’t accomplish that goal, my sales would continue to spiral down.
Ann Handley gave me inspiration from her book Everybody Writes. In her book, she said that writing is a learnable skill just like playing a musical instrument and creating art. Reading Ann’s book gave me hope and inspiration.
I spent many hours learning everything about blogging from Darren Rowse and Leslie Samuel. While I was listening to their podcasts I started to research other resources. My goal was to become an expert at blogging so I could continue to build my online art business.
With all of the time invested in learning from other professional blogging experts and learning from my mistakes, I am able to continue to sell my art online and operate a successful online business.
I started exactly where you are now.
I didn’t know anything about blogging or content marketing, what to write about, art blogs, or how to write about art, but I was willing to learn.
As long as you are willing to learn and put in the effort, you will be able to reach your goals as well.
Blogging Statistics
Before we learn about promoting art blog posts, I want to go over some essential blogging statistics you will want to know.
- 24% of bloggers publish blog posts on a weekly basis
- Only 3% of bloggers create posts on a daily basis
- The number of bloggers in the U.S. is estimated to reach 31.7 million by 2020
- The average blog post is 1151 words in length
- The recommended blog post should be 2250 – 2500 words in length
- For SEO, the ideal blog title length should be 11-14 words long
- 77% of internet users read blogs on a regular basis
- The optimum reading time for a blog is 7 minutes
These statistics are courtesy of UK Web Host Review.
For more statistics, visit 54 Blogging Statistic To Amaze You And Your Readers In 2020.
How To Promote Art Blog Posts
Starting an artist blog will feel overwhelming at first but soon you will realize it is not difficult at all.
Related Post: How To Run A Successful Art Blog
The first few months of blogging will be challenging and the growth of your audience will be slow.
Why does it take the average blog 6 months to a year to build an audience?
Google’s mission is to provide the best information available to its audience.
“In the simplest terms, you could think of searching the web as looking in a very large book with an impressive index telling you exactly where everything is located. When you perform a Google search, our programs check our index to determine the most relevant search results to be returned (“served”) to you.” (Source: Google)
It is easily seen why it takes time to be ranked on Google’s search.
Google has to crawl through all of the content published on a daily basis and then rank them accordingly.
Even though it will take a few months to see organic traffic from the search engines there are strategies you can start implementing today that will help your posts gain some traffic while you are waiting for Google to index your posts.
Promote Art Blog Posts On Social Media
Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest (Pinterest is a search engine, not a social media platform) are great places for you to start promoting your articles.
Every time you publish an art blog post you should share it on all of your social media sites. This strategy will generate traffic to your posts while you are waiting for Google to rank your page. Your fans might even help you reach a larger audience by sharing your content with their friends and family.
Do not be afraid of promoting your post several times on your social media sites, most people will not see it the first time that you publish it.
Related Post: How Many People See Your Facebook Posts? Revised 2017
Develop a schedule for when you will be publishing on your social media business accounts.
Do not worry, this is easier than you think. Most social media sites offer different ways for you to schedule posts.
For example, Facebook allows you to schedule posts in advance right on their platform and there are social sharing tools available like Tailwind (affiliate link) that makes it easy for you to schedule Pinterest Pins and Instagram posts. (Tailwind has helped me to increase my Pinterest traffic by over 400%)
Once you have a schedule you will be able to schedule all of your social media posts in advance. I spend about 30 minutes each week scheduling posts for Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. That is all it takes, 30 minutes and I am done for the week.
Related Post: How Artists Can Save Time Scheduling Social Media Posts
Social Media Posting Strategies
Here is how I promote my blog posts on my social media accounts.
Like I have told you earlier, it only takes me about 30 – 60 minutes a week to promote on social media.
Keep in mind, your time is valuable. You do not want to be on your social media accounts all day.
Related Post: How to be More Productive Marketing on Social Media
Facebook – I use Facebook’s schedule post feature that they allow on their site. I have heard that Facebook does not penalize people when they are using 3rd party apps to schedule posts on their business page anymore. In the past, it was frowned upon.
I have gotten used to using Facebook’s schedule post feature. They have even made it more user-friendly to use now then it was in the past.
It is as simple as adding a date and time that you would like the post to go live and hit submit.
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase by clicking on an affiliate link, Nevue Fine Art Marketing may earn an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you. Affiliate relationships include, but are not limited to, Bluehost, Tailwind, Skimlinks, SareASale and StudioPress. To learn more visit Affiliate Link Disclosure Policy
Twitter – I manually tweet every post I publish with my Social Warfare social sharing plugin when I publish it.
All I have to do is visit the post I just published and click on the Tweet link. It is really that easy.
For older posts that I want to promote I use an app called Buffer. They offer free membership as well as a paid premium membership.
Buffer is very easy to use and will save you valuable time tweeting older posts.
I schedule the day’s tweets of older content in the morning then forget about it. The only thing that I will have to worry about is engaging with the audience during the rest of the day.
Pinterest – Pinterest is a search engine that could drive a tremendous amount of traffic to your artist blog and online art gallery.
When I started my Pinterest business account a saw a 300% increase in my blog traffic in just three months.
Today most of my traffic is coming from Pinterest and search engines.
The two tools that I have discovered that has helped me to build my Pinterest Business account are:
Social Warfare is a social sharing plugin for WordPress that offered much more than a social sharing button.
This powerful plugin allows you to build your brand with every share as well as hide Pinterest images from your posts.
Social Warfare allows you to pick what buttons you would like to showcase on your post.
You can also decide if you would like to have floating buttons on the top of the post or bottom of the post. This keeps the social share buttons on the page at all times making it more convenient for your readers to share.
There are also different button styles you can choose from.
My favorite feature of Social Warfare has to offer is the ability to create and hide social images from the posts.
When a reader clicks on a share button, the image and description you create with Social Warfare will appear on their newsfeed.
You have total control of what is being shared on social media.
Tailwind has made it easy for me to schedule pins throughout the week.
I spend fifteen minutes every Sunday scheduling pins for the upcoming week.
It is really that easy. The amount of time that I save login to Pinterest to manually pin is priceless.
Another feature that has helped me with my Pinterest strategy is its powerful analytics.
This allows me to know what is working and what is not performing well.
If you are planning on creating a Pinterest Business account you will want to take a look at Tailwind (affiliate link)
Related Post: How to Start Selling Art on Pinterest
Newsletter – I hope that you are collecting emails. If you are not I, strongly suggest that you start.
Having an email list is crucial for creating a successful business.
If you do have an email list, send out a weekly or monthly newsletter with links to your posts.
Related Post: Ultimate Email Marketing Guide for Selling Art Online
AWeber is an email marketing platform that has created a fill in the blank workbook to help you with your Newsletters.
If you struggle with writing newsletters take a look at Aweber’s free What To Write Workbook.
Link To Older Posts – Are you adding links to older posts in your new posts?
Links are a great way to keep your older material alive that will provide extra value to your readers.
If you are writing about a topic and you already have a post that will support your theory, add a link to that article.
Related Post: How to Insert Links on WordPress Blog Posts
Engage – The last tip that I want to share with you might be the most important. Engage with the audience that you already have.
If they are spending the time to write on your post, take some time and write back. Commenting back will build engagement for your site, and when people see others engaging, they will feel more comfortable commenting on your posts.
The people who you have left a comment for will be more interested in coming back to your blog for future posts. You will be building a loyal following.
Conclusion:
Your artist blog is the fuel that drives traffic to your art listings.
It will take a few months before you start to see traffic from the search engines from each post you publish.
Instead of publishing a post and forgetting about it, take action and get your new post in front of your audience.
Develop a marketing plan for your new posts.
With a little effort, you can help your new posts get noticed.
Art Blog Basics: How To Promote Art Blog Posts Overview:
- Promote Art Blog Posts On Social Media
- Social Media Posting Strategies
- Newsletter
- Link To Older Posts
- Engage
Popular Art Marketing And Sales Tutorials
Below are some of the most famous art marketing courses that will grow your online art business:
Most Popular – How to Make a Living Selling What You Make by Megan Auman
Most Popular – Build a Successful Creative Blog by April Bowles-Olin
How to Build a Business While Learning Your Craft by Megan Auman
Pinterest Marketing for Makers & Designers by Megan Auman
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