Author:
Kristin Royce

As an artist, the key to selling more artwork is maximizing its
exposure. The internet is an increasingly popular tool for
promoting original art, and if done properly, can be quite
profitable.

One of the most effective (and free!) online marketing tools for
artists is the blog. Artist blogs provide an easy way to display
your art, discuss your creative process, post exhibition
announcements and more. Best of all, blogs require no working
knowledge of HTML and the search engines love their dynamic
content.

What is a blog and how will it sell my art?

A “blog” is a web-based diary or journal. The author of a blog,
also known as a “Blogger”, publishes content on a regular basis
about a focused topic. These regular postings typically provide
a “community” feel by allowing site visitors to post feedback to
your journal entries. This mode of communication can deepen
relationships with potential art buyers, leading to increased
sales.

Blogs also have the ability to archive all of your previous
posts, dynamically creating an individual page for each journal
entry. The feature is great for art buyers using search engines
to find original art. For example, if you have a blog post
describing a painting that you just completed of the Golden Gate
Bridge at sunset and an art buyer in Florida goes to Google and
searches for “painting of Golden Gate Bridge at sunset”, there
is a very good chance that your blog entry will appear pretty
high in the rankings.
Cha Ching!!

Many artists have felt the pain of email marketing losing its
effect due to spam filters, junk email overloads and virus
paranoia. Blogs provide a new way to communicate with clients,
fans and industry professionals. This trend can support your
email marketing efforts by allowing blog subscription options
for site visitors so that they are notified whenever your blog
is updated along with providing a permanent place on the web for
all of your postings as opposed to newsletter emails that are
typically deleted.

How to start a blog

Blog Publishing Tools

To begin, visit some of these free blogging sites, all offering
unique template options that even an artist can appreciate,
image uploads and syndication ability.

Blogger.com
(Simple
to set up and multiple authoring ability)
MSN Spaces
(Create your own
mini site, with an exceptional blogging feature)
Live Journal
(Requires a
bit of ‘blogging knowledge’ to get it set up)
Blog Drive

If you’re interesting in reviewing additional blog features,
these sites require a small monthly fee to maintain.

Typepad
(starts at
$4.95/month)

Tripod Blogs
(starts
at $4.95/month)

Note to artists with MySpace accounts:

MySpace
provides members personal blogs, but it is important to know
that MySpace blogs are not currently listed in search engines,
which as noted above, is one of the main reasons to get a blog.
While MySpace works to remedy this issue, it is recommended that
you blog using a tool that is accessible to search engine
spiders.

Decide on a title for your blog

The title of your blog should be brief and to the point. You
can get creative with your language in the blog description /
tag line. A focused title will help with higher search engine
rankings and make it clear to visitors what the blog is about.

For example, the title for ThePauper.com blog is ”
Diary of a
Pauper
. The blog description is Rants and raves about the
careers and lives of starving artists.” The title is concise,
stating exactly what it is, while the description is a bit more
creative.

Blog theme

It’s important to establish yourself as a professional working
artist if you want to use your blog as a vehicle to sell your
art. Blog theme involves the layout and color of the page,
quality of the artwork images displayed and verbiage used for
blog postings. Select your blog template carefully and make a
habit to review your blog from the perspective of a potential
client. Is the page visually appealing? Do the images of your
artwork provide a link to an extra large version to see detail?
Does your content have a consistent theme? Here’s a good example
of a working blog by mix engineer, Ken Lewis:

http://protoolsmixing.
com/blog.html
The content theme is exceptionally consistent,
plus the colors and page layout match his website.

What to write

What’s beautiful about blogs is that there are no rules on what
to write, but if you want to attract and keep an audience, you
might consider some of these suggestions.

Keep your posts creative and interesting. Move and inspire your
readers by being completely honest about your creative process.

Use keywords in your blog title and post.
Using the
example mentioned earlier – if your post is about a Golden Gate
Bridge painting, be sure to use that exact phrase in the title
and body of your blog. Think about what people might type into
search engines to find your content and then use those keywords
in your blog. This technique will help increase the ranking of
your web page on search engines.

Post daily
, or at least twice a week. If you publish blog

entries frequently, you will see more return visitors,
subscriptions to your blog and comments from site visitors.

Proofread and preview your blog
entries before posting.
Some blog HTML editors have a way of creating weird symbols out
of certain characters and a quick spell-check never hurts.
(Note: be sure to create your blog entries using Word or some
other text editor. Many blogging tools tend to “time out” after
a certain amount of time and you could potentially lose hours of
work.)

Publish your blog
Finally! Your blog looks great and has
unique content. Now, depending on the blogging tool that you
selected, follow the steps to publish it to the World Wide Web.
Test the live URL that now houses your blog. If all of your
graphics appear correctly and the copy is flawless, then you
want to make sure that you promote your blog on your personal
website, in your email signature and by word of mouth.

Using the tools you already have to spread the word while
testing your dedication to frequent posting is the best way to
get started. Part 2 of will unveil tons of ways to promote your
blog online

About the Author:

Kristin Royce is a search engine optimization and online
marketing professional contributing online marketing and
promotional content for artists to The ARTrepreneur
E-Zine. The ARTrepreneur offers articles helping artists
focus on proven techniques to accomplish any goal. Read
More:
http://www.theartrepreneur.com

Article Source:
ArticlesBase.com
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Why Every Artist Needs a Blog & How to Create an Artist Blog