Are you thinking about selling your artwork online or would you like to make it easy for local people to know what events you will be attending in the near future? If your answer is yes to either of these questions you will want to consider building an artist website. In this post, you will discover the best tips for starting a new art website so you can start selling more art.
Best Tips For Starting A New Art Website
I decided to try selling my original art online over fifteen years ago.
It was a difficult challenge for me because I was not computer savvy and my friends didn’t know much about computers. I remember someone recommending selling my art on eBay and that is where my story began.
It took me about a year to figure out what I needed to know about online marketing, taking images of my art, how to write descriptions, SEO, keywords and the list goes on.
In about a year I started to see some success and I decided to have an art website that I owned. I just thought at the time that if I wanted to be taken seriously as an artist I should have a website where people could visit and make a purchase.
That was the best decision I could have made at the time. A year after launching my personal art website I saw my sales reach over six figures a year.
If you are interested in building an online art business you should seriously think about building a website for your business. It is much easier to build a website today and more affordable than it was when I had one built fifteen years ago.
To put it in perspective, my first website took cost me almost $5,000 and it took about a month for the web designer to complete it. Today I built this website for less than $200 and it only took me a few minutes to launch it.
I also have the flexibility to change the look and feel of this site (I use StudioPress Themes for WordPress (affiliate link). If I wanted to change my first website I would have to hire the web designer to make the changes I was envisioning.
You can easily have your website up in just a few minutes with BlueHost’s (affiliate link) one-click WordPress Installer.
All you have to do is purchase a domain name and hosting from BlueHost (affiliate link) and click the WordPress Installer and BlueHost will do the rest.
Below is a series of videos to help get you started.
Here are some WordPress tutorials I put together to help you become familiar with your new WordPress art website.
WordPress Dashboard Guide Ebook
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Best Art Websites
Even though it will take you a few minutes to launch your site, success comes from keeping your site up-to-date with fresh content.
The best art websites are the ones that the artists are regularly adding new material too and keeping up-to-date.
For example, more people are using mobile devices to surf the net and make online purchases. You will want to make sure you have a mobile-friendly (responsive theme) art website.
Most premium themes today are responsive. That means that they will look good on a PC, mobile device, and smartphones.
StudioPress Themes for WordPress (affiliate link) make it easy t build and maintain your website. They have a wide variety of themes to pick from, drag and drop capabilities, technical support, SEO optimized, secure and you can incorporate WooCommerce (an e-commerce solution that offers a shopping cart).
Writing art blog posts on a regular schedule will help you to drive traffic to your site.
Updating your events will help you to draw a crowd at your local events.
Your art website should become a part of your weekly tasks.
Professional Website Platforms
There are a variety of low-cost platforms available for building websites.
Some of the most popular website platforms:
WordPress.org (One of the most popular platforms used by online business and professional bloggers.)
There are many more platforms available but this list will be a good place to start.
I recommend WordPress to all of the artists I work with one-on-one. WordPress has been around the longest and there are many tutorials and forums available for support.
Website Requirements
Whether you decide to use WordPress or a different platform for your art website be sure to spend some time the services the platform and themes offer.
Here is a checklist of what you will need:
- Responsive Theme
- E-commerce
- Fast loading site, pages, images and videos
- SEO optimized
- You are able to modify and customize the appearance
- Secure themes
- Regular updates for the site, themes, and plugins
- Site Tutorial available
- Email or phone support
Conclusion:
If you are interested in selling your original art online for the long haul you will want to build an artist website where your audience can view and purchase your artwork.
After you have your site looking exactly the way you envision it, take some time to learn how to drive traffic to your new artist website.
If you want to speed up the growth of your blog take the 28 Day Blogging Challenge for Visual artists.
The 28 Day Blogging Challenged has helped over a thousand artists like you.
Best Tips for Starting a New Art Website Overview:
- Best Art Websites
- Professional Website Platforms
- Website Requirements
Here are some articles to help get you started:
- Increase Your Art Blog Traffic with Simple Pinterest SEO
- How Social Media Will Increase Your Art Blog Traffic
- Digital Content Marketing – What Artists Need to Know
- 5 Types of Art Blog Posts That Drive Traffic
- 5 Ways Artist Blogs Sell Art and Why You Should Start One
28 Day Blogging Challenge for Visual Artists
Are you ready to start building an online presence?
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The Productive Artist How to Live Your Dreams
The right mindset and time management skills are essential for any business. These topics are often not talked about but are key elements for your success. You will learn how to have a winning mindset and time management skills necessary for operating a successful art business.
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Get More Done in Less Time The Part-time Artist
Proven strategies that will help you to get more work done in less time so you can sell more art and earn more money.
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