The little art studio built on a mountain of dreams and rivers of vision.

How art marketing changed in the past years can be considered somewhat crazy. Especially true when the global pandemic kicked in. A secure and inspiring online presence as an artist is vital. In this post, the artist's website will be the topic.

For me, it was developing an online presence plan or outlay. I did A lot of brainstorming to create a workable plan.

Key points;

•  An online plan that fits within the budget parameters we set.
• Achieves all goals for collectors to discover us.

If the online plan works accordingly, the collectors will find us. And we will not need to search for collectors. The main goal is to spend more time in the studio creating and creating fresh content online. With this thought process, the collectors will discover us. 

What are the benefits of having an online presence as an artist?

Selling art is not the only thing you want to accomplish online. You want to create a community. With this community, you want to develop an artistic friendship. You want to have goodwill, closeness, trust and, authenticity. 

In a recent episode, American Idol, Katy Perry told a singing artist you need to put in the work. With regards to an online presence for a visual artist, it seems a constant work in progress. 

How do I show my art online?

• Build a compelling website.
• Create a social media strategy.
• Use media creativity, video, and art photography.
• Paid advertising.

In this blog post, I will give my thoughts about generating an artist website. Show how to develop a compelling workhorse that sells you as an artist. And this coming from the view of the artist. And as an artist, I view the website as my online art gallery. 

I also take great pride in our artist website. Like walking into an admirable art gallery in an arts district, I want that feeling with our site. The only thing missing is the Merlot and five years aged cheddar on opening night. I have been digging the vibe of a Pinot Noir lately. 

How do I make an artist website?

Finding a website host can be a daunting task, one that professionally portrays and sells your art. 

Here is a sample of possible hosts:

• FASO.
• Squarespace.
• Wix.
• Shopify.
• WordPress.

Each vendor has its strengths and weakness. 

Some seem a bit pricey. Is the value there? 

Some are relatively low in price. But are they worth your time? 

A lot depends on your goals. 

Some options to look at are:

• Can you sell your art from it?
• Is it a safe platform? Does it have secure site options?
• Do you need a blog?
• How is their support if you have an issue?
• Is it geared for the artist?
• What are the reviews?
• How is the mobile view? Up to 50 percent of traffic can be cellphone views.
• Is the platform built around an artist community? 
• Is the platform easy to use? Is it painless and smooth to upload art pictures and create new pages?
• How does the platform help market your art? Do they offer an integrated marketing platform to advertise?
• Does the platform offer marketing tips for artists?
• Does the platform make it is easy to add your social media accounts and integrate them into your site?
• Do you want to use your website for an online portfolio for Gallery interviews or curated shows? 
• Is there an integrated newsletter option?

It is a lot of information to take in. But if you want to appear as a professional artist, you need your website to look professional. 

Do you need a website as an artist?

You could use a vendor such as Etsy to help market your art if you consider your art a hobby. Keep in mind that you are at Etsy's hands. It seems Etsy is constantly changing things. Especially in the site's search algorithms. Some sellers do well with them. 

But if your goal is to be a professional artist and not a hobby for you, yes, you should have a website. Especially true if you want to be in galleries and curated shows. I had my portfolio looked at online several times by a gallery owner and curators. 

Meta tags for artists. 

I recently Googled my name with "artist" included. And to my surprise, I forgot to update the meta tags on my artist landing page. So it was a quick trip to the meta tags for that page and got them fixed. 

Most platforms have meta tag options. A meta tag provides a title and description for a web page. With this information, search engines like Google can make the web page easier to find when search. 

How long is a meta tag description?

It is recommended by Google, between 120 to 160 characters for the description. And between 50 to 60 characters for title tags.  

Generally, if you exceed the character length, Google will cut it off. 

With that, it can look funny if the search results show up on a Google search. Here is my example that I wrote for my landing page. 

Title tag;

Kevin Doberstein, artist. Contemporary Abstract Sculpture.

Description tag;

Dimensional wall art. Abstract 3d contemporary sculpture artist. Kevin Doberstein Artist.

The title tag has 58 characters, and the description tag has 90. It also has some search terms included in both. Also, I would consider those long-tail search terms. 

It is getting increasingly difficult to find search terms that you can interject in your website. Browsers now offer safe searching to help protect web searchers. I believe it was a ploy for Google to force small website owners to use their advertising services. 

Website types and purposes.

When I was still working a 9 to 5 job, one of my duties was to manage the City's website. I found it fascinating to study analytics from it. The web traffic was incredible every day. The hot pages were the municipal swimming pool, public library, and the Utility bill pays. 

I would post the City's Council Meeting and Agendas in the blog feed. And those pages would get a steady flow of visits. 

There was no need or discussion about advertising or promoting the site beyond posting new items. There was no need to discover search terms to use. Google would visit the site and add new content to their search. Another interesting item was traffic from the swimming pool and library was very high in mobile traffic. And traffic visiting the Council meeting minutes and agendas was generally desktop. I would believe this shows the demographics a bit using the site. 

I kept thinking if only I could get this volume of traffic on our art site. 

But you have to remember the City website is a need and has very little if none of a competitive market. 

The art website is a want and has a lot of abundances. And what I mean by that, there is a lot of artist websites out there. That is why the artist community is needed that comes with some website hosts. That means being online with artists helping each other with marketing topics, website thoughts, and sometimes just encouragement. 

Recommendation: 

For me many years ago, my art started as a hobby. Not sure where it was going, I stayed with Etsy. And it was a great company. Then things began to change at Etsy. For instance, like the search algorithms. It seemed no matter how we changed search terms and, titles it wasn't helping. And you were limited to what you could do on an Etsy site. 

Is Etsy worth the trouble?

Quite simply, if it works for you, stay, especially if you are making sales. Keep checking the statistics that Etsy provides. You can get a lot of long-tail search terms there. It is hard to gain traction with high-volume items with lots of search results. Abstract painting in the Etsy search bar had over 733,000. Also, Etsy's staff could keep better tabs on some Etsy shop owners. There seems to be a lot of Black Hat use or keyword stuffing for items. 

We were looking for a new home.

I felt at this time to move on an upgraded platform. One that has more features to help develop our brand. Because we no longer looked at our art as a hobby. We wanted to get into galleries and start with curated shows. After a less than stellar attempt with a Wix site, we decided to use an artist-built platform. That being a FASO site. 

We kept our Etsy site as well. It was still somewhat active. 

We want to build our online presence by adding fresh content to our main website. We will be adding subject matter containing creative information, inspiration, and freshly created visual art. 

Conclusion:

Well, that was fun. Nothing like an artist discussing the economics of scale in long-tail marketing to get you excited. Such a dry subject. Like my tax professor would say, you could spit, and it would never touch the floor.  

It is funny to think when I was doing art as a hobby. I would love to go into magic land and create. And escape the crazy real world of the 9 to 5.  

And now I am talking about the business of art in a dry real-world way. 

I hope this article helps someone with their artistic pursuit. 

I would enjoy hearing your comments about this subject. Here are some pondering questions. 

• Do you struggle to add fresh content to your site?
• Are you satisfied with your current artist website?
• Did I miss something above?
• Are you making sales online on your site?

Until next time amigo, 

Kevin.

Creative Sources;

Holistic SEO for Heart-Centered Artists: Beginners Guide by Thea Fiore-Bloom, PhD

An Interview With Diane Gilleland: How to Build an Online Presence for your Art By Alyice Edrich