What You Need To Know About Selling Art Online

Are you considering selling your art online but unsure how to start? In this post, I will share with you what you need to know about selling art online so you can start generating income from your creations.

What You Need To Know About Selling Art Online

How many posts have you read that make it seem like selling art online is easy?

You will often see new posts about selling art on Pinterest, the best Instagram strategies for artists, or how to get a thousand followers on Facebook.

These posts often make it seem easier than it is. Yes, there is some valuable advice you will want to look into, but the results you are after will not happen overnight.

Unfortunately, selling art online is not as easy as some posts might make it out to be.

Selling art online is as much work as selling your artwork at craft shows. Honestly, it might even be more work, but the results you can achieve are much greater.

Instead of just having a chance to sell your art to people walking past your table at a craft show, you can sell paintings, drawings, handmade crafts, and prints of your work to people worldwide.

It sounds exciting.

Thinking about selling your art to people worldwide, even while sleeping, is nothing less than exhilarating.

But for this to happen, you must be willing to do the work.

You have everything you need to build a successful art business right at your fingertips.

You can communicate and showcase your art to billions of people online.

Nobody controls your fate but you. You are in control of your career. Not galleries. Not art agents. Only you, and that is exciting to think about.

How To Sell Your Art

The first step you must take when you start selling art online is to know your objectives.

Below are some questions you might want to consider answering.

Are you going to sell original art?
Are you going to sell prints of your artwork?
Are you going to offer frames for your art?
Are you going to offer prints of your art on merchandise such as greeting cards, mugs, shirts etc?
Are you going to offer local pickup?
What shipping service will you be using?
Are you going to ship worldwide?

You can develop art marketing strategies that will produce actual results by clearly defining your objectives.

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Best Websites To Sell Art

Once your objectives are written, you can decide what platform you will use to showcase and sell your artwork.

Many options are available for you to showcase your artwork. You can choose from third-party platforms like ArtBoost , ArtFinder , Etsy , and Artspring, or you can your own website.

Are websites for artists important for artists to sell art online?

You need to have an online art gallery that will showcase the art you are creating while allowing potential buyers to make a purchase.

Is it essential for artists to own artist websites, or is ok to use a third-party platform?

I know many artists doing well working with platforms like Etsy, and there is no right or wrong answer. It all depends on what your objectives are.

For example, a third-party platform might be all you need if you plan on selling a few handmade crafts here and there. However, if you are planning on selling art both online and offline, a personal website you own is essential.

A website you own is a sign of professionalism and will separate you from the other artists selling art online.

When you own a website, you will have a unique domain name that will direct people to your site. If you are using a free third-party platform, your domain name will include the site’s name in the domain name, making it look less professional.

When you have a domain name that only includes the name of your business, it shows potential buyers that you have invested in it.

Not only will a unique domain name have you seen as an authority in your niche, but it will also make it easier for your buyers to find you online.

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Another reason to own an artist’s website is that you own it. There are no limits to what you can do with your site, which can keep modifying as your business grows.

It is also easier to build a unique brand with a website.

Related Resource:

Create an Artist Brand Workbook

How To Sell My Paintings

After you have decided what platform you will use to showcase your art online, you will want to have a way for your target audience to learn more about you, and you can do this by creating an “About Me” page for your website.

Your “About Me” page will be the second most visited page on your site, and it is easy to understand why it is. This is where a person can learn more about you before investing in your artwork.

Let’s face it, buying art is an investment and dishing out a few hundred dollars to someone you do not know is difficult.

You can sell your paintings or drawings better by sharing your story on your “About Me” page.

Now that you have a website and an “About Me” page let’s take a minute to talk about how to sell your own paintings and drawings online.

It all starts with creating landing pages for each art you sell.

A landing page is a page where a visitor goes to learn more about a product or service and an option to make a purchase.

The image of your artwork is the essential part of the page. The visitor will never read the art description if the image is unprofessional. Remember that a person’s perception of the quality of your crafts is based only on the image you share.

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After you have captured the viewer’s attention with a breathtaking image of your art, you will want to be able to connect them emotionally to your art with a well-written description.

Sell Your Art Online For Free

There is no way for you to sell your art online for free. There will always be costs like buying a domain name, hosting, monthly fees for a third-party platform, and selling fees.

However, if you make good decisions, the costs can be lowered. For example, purchasing hosting and a domain name from HostGator will cost you around $9.95 per month (regular prices may vary without notice). You can get great deals when you first start, so make sure you shop for the best price.

Monthly fees for a third-party site can range from $15 – $50 per month.

Yes, it is easier to start with a website builder, but as you can see, you can save a lot of money by building a WordPress artist website, and best of all, you own it.

You need to know exactly what your costs are going to be. Selling art is a business; you must treat it like a business. There has been no business that has started by saying we hope to lose money. The easiest way to not lose money is by knowing the cost of doing business.

You will be able to make a better pricing strategy once you know what your costs are.

Build An Email List

Let’s take a minute to recap what we have talked about so far about how to sell art online.

The first step is to know what your objectives are. You can not develop art marketing plans and strategies if you do not know what you are after.

The second step was deciding what platform to showcase and sell your artwork.

The third step was to write an about me page so your audience could learn more about you, and we also talked about some of the costs associated with operating a site.

The fourth step is collecting emails and developing a strategy to capture all the emails you can.

Growing your email list is one of the most important tasks you will be continuously doing for your online art business.

Your email list is similar to owning an artist’s website. You will have total control over your audience receiving your content via newsletters.

How To Drive Traffic To Your Artist Website

Along with working on growing your email list, you will also be working on driving traffic to your site. This job will take up most of your time and is very important to the success of your business.

You will not sell any of your art if nobody visits your artist’s website.

You will also want to develop strategies to encourage your visitors to keep coming back.

How do you get people to your site and have them return regularly?

An artist blog will take care of both of those tasks for you.

Every blog post you publish will create a different way for people to find you through search engines.

People will want to revisit your site if you publish new content regularly.

You can also see great success by posting your new blog posts on your social media sites. One post can go a long way.

Make A Presence Every Day

Lastly, I would like to talk about being consistent with your efforts.

Create a social media calendar for when you will be posting on all your social media accounts promoting your art.

I want to mention that focusing on one or two social media accounts is better than spreading yourself too thin on multiple platforms.

Many tools are available to help you share content on social media platforms.

For example, I only spend around 30 minutes a week pinning on my Pinterest boards with the help of Tailwind.

As long as you put a little effort every day into art marketing, you will start seeing your art business grow right before your eyes.

Conclusion:

You now know what it takes to start and grow an online art business.

It is your turn. Take action now by writing down your objectives so you can decide the next best step for you.

Dedicate about an hour a day for the next couple of weeks, and at the end of the second week, you will have a platform where you can sell original art online.

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What You Need To Know About Selling Art Online