Jump Start Your Art Business - Part II

by Kate Dardine

In my last blog I talked about how most artists – at least those trying to start or restart an art career – need a website. Today I’m going to talk about how to optimize your website to be searchable for engines like Google and Bing and create a good first impression once prospective buyers find you.

The most important thing to remember is this: just because you build it, doesn’t mean they will come! And the second most important thing: just because they come, doesn’t mean they will buy. So, how do you get people to do both things – come to your site AND buy?

First I’m going to start with what NOT to do.

1. DON’T load your site up with pretty to look at but useless for searching Flash functions. Flash is basically unreadable (for web crawlers) and can be slow to load.

2. DON’T put huge watermarks on your images to discourage people from “stealing” your images. Those who really want to steal the image know how to remove the watermark, wouldn’t have bought anything anyway, and are really just a tiny fraction of the people who will hopefully be wandering around on your website. Do you really want to send the people who are interested in your work and may purchase a signal that says, “I don’t trust you?” If you really feel you must watermark your images, choose a small watermark (perhaps a copyright symbol and your name) placed in the lower right hand side of the image.

3. DON’T upload huge files to your site, or have “pages” with hundreds of images on them. Both will take too long to load up and you will lose your viewer. A good rule of thumb for sizing for the web is 600 pixels per inch (ppi) on the long dimension, set at a resolution of 72 ppi.

4. DON’T use an obscure url for your website. For instance, I call my business “Painted Wind Studio” but my url is katedardine.com. Why? Because more people will know MY name than the clever but meaningless name I’ve given my studio. What if your name is a common one, or someone else (how dare they?) already has a website with your name? Try johnsmithstudio, or johnsmithart, or johnsmithpaintings, or artbyjohnsmith . Be creative, but get your name in there!

5. DON’T just load your site with images and no text. Text is what the crawlers are looking for, and what people search for.

6.) DON’T opt for a “cheap” website, like those offered by Go Daddy, UNLESS you possess the skills to make it look professional. Most web hosting services that are free are only free because you allow them to put banner advertisements on your site. You have no control over what ads appear, and what they look like. If you are going to take the time and put in the effort to build a web presence, you want one enhances your image…not something else.

And now, for things TO DO:

1. DO make sure your name appears on every page.

2. DO make sure the words that people would use to find you are on the pages where those things appear. For instance, the description of a landscape of the rocky mountains might be: “This beautiful winter landscape depicts the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, with the morning light casting deep blue shadows on the new fallen snow.”

3. DO make sure to use descriptive title tags on every page. Title tags are what show up as the description about a page when it comes up in a search. For example, the title tag on the home page of my website says "Land and Animal Spirit Paintings by Kate Dardine." Most template websites do this for you automatically.

4. DO use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to drive viewers to your website.

5. DO put your url on all your collateral materials (brochure, business cards, resume, etc.) as well as in your signature tag on all outgoing emails and in any print advertisements.

6.) DO subscribe to other people’s blogs and post comments frequently – of course entering in your website url along with your name.

7.) DO update your content frequently. Once a day is not too much (that is where having a website from a company like Fine Art Studio Online really comes in handy – with its self contained blog and easy to update pages, adding fresh content is painless!)

So this has been all about getting people to come to your site, wander around and look at all the beautiful images. Now, how do we turn lookers into buyers? Subscribe to this blog so you’ll know when I post the next segment of this continuing series of using a website to jump start your fledgling or flagging art business. Need marketing help? Check out our marketing tips, or subscribe to our monthly newsletter.

Jump Start Your Art Business - Part I

by Kate Dardine
During a recent marketing consultation, an artist asked me what he could do to revitalize his career. He’s been successfully selling paintings for nearly thirty years, but in the last two or three has seen his sales diminish. Rather than chalk it up to the sluggish economy, I asked him what he had been doing before that worked. He said he’d mostly sold through galleries and occasionally taught workshops. He also sold prints through a local interior design firm, and advertised in a couple of magazines. The gallery sales had sustained him – but after 9-11, he gradually lost six out of the ten galleries he was in. And of the remaining four, two hadn’t sold anything of his in over a year. His print sales had also dwindled. He was unable to afford print advertising. “Is anyone buying art anymore?” he asked.

Since he is a customer of Fine Print Imaging, I was able to take a look at some of his work. It was nice – easy to live with still life and landscapes with a slightly contemporary feel. But most of what we had on file was older work – nothing new within the past two years. So I decided to go to his web site to see what his newer work looked like. I googled his name and…guess what? A few references to his work came up, but no images. No web site. And apparently the galleries still carrying his work either didn’t have web sites or rarely updated them, because nothing came up on the first three pages of my google search.

“If someone is interested in seeing your work,” I asked, “how can they find you?” He realized then that the only way a potential client could find him is if they happened to walk into one of his four galleries – one in Helena, Montana, one in Portland, Oregon, one in Laramie, Wyoming and one in Denver, Colorado. He had totally relied on others to sell his work for him, and hadn’t prepared for the shift in how people find – and sell – art.

I advised him to get a web site. At first he resisted, insisting he didn’t have thousands of dollars to spend on a web site. I told him about Fine Art Studio Online, a web hosting service that is affordable and allows you to upload your own images and text. “I don’t know anything about computers!” he lamented. I asked him if he could email. He said yes. I asked him if he could find a file on his computer and send it as an attachment in an email. He said “sort of.” And I asked him if he could use word processing software, like MS Word, and he said he could. “OK then,” I said. “You have all the skills you need to start!”

One of the common themes I see with artists trying to re-establish once flourishing careers is that they know what worked before, and they know that isn’t working now, but they are afraid to venture out of their comfort zone in order to compete in the new marketplace. Like it or not, if you want to play the game, you need to have some skill sets.

Just like ten years ago when you needed to know what a transparency and a slide was, today you need to know what a JPEG and a TIFF file is. You need to know how to resize and format a file to enter art shows. You need to know how to find a file on your computer and upload it. If you can’t or are unwilling to learn how to do these things, you have to hire someone to do it for you.

Assuming you have basic computer skills, you can manage your own web site using a service like FASO. There are others out there, but to my knowledge none that comes out on top in all categories of: ease of use, quality of design, price, built in amenities ( blog, bulk email and e-commerce), and customer support. Plus FASO sends out wonderful marketing newsletters to their clients, helping them use their web sites to promote their careers.

Although having a web site doesn't guarantee sales, it does allow prospective clients to find you on the internet. According to an informal poll, 70% of shoppers do their preliminary shopping on the internet. And having a web site doesn't guarantee that people will find you - unless you or your web designer know about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), chances are the website you paid big bucks for still won't show up in searches. That is another plus for using a service like FASO - the SEO is done for you, behind the scenes.

Want to do some comparison shopping? Here are a few template style web sites to check out.
Fine Art Studio Online
Beautiful Artist Websites
Pro Artist Websites
Art Studio Online


In my next blog, I’ll address some of the ways you can jump start a flagging - or fledgling - art career using your website as an online catalog.