How to Best Sell Your Art Online

Selling art online has become an important source of income for visual artists. In today's challenging times, developing an online presence that generates steady sales has become essential in the marketing mix for most artists.

Difficulty:

Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Computer
• Web site
• Blog software

1. Decide whether to sell originals or prints, such as giclees, or both. You will also need to know if you are going to make prints on paper or canvas or both. Do the research so you know what sizes and prices are best for your art.

2. Get a domain name for your Web site. As the artist, you are the brand, so use your name in the domain name, e.g., www.lindasmithfineart.com. Only use dot com. Registrars such as GoDaddy.com will give you a free email address with your domain registration. Use it instead of a free one like Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, etc. Those make you appear unprofessional.

3. Mian Situ's Web site powered by Fine Art Studios Online

   Get a Web site. If you can build your own, that's great. But, there are many Web site providers that specialize in sites for artists. An example is: www.fineartstudios.com. Google "websites for artists" and you will find many others who work with artists. Ask other artists for their personal recommendations. Ask the Web site service to allow you to talk with its customers.

   Alternatively, you can use a site builder program available from many Web hosting companies. GoDaddy.com has one that is affordable and easy to use. The trade off is you still have to take the time to learn the how to use the program and maintain it. I like GoDaddy because it offers free live 24/7 tech service on all its products.

4. Figure out if you are going to sell the art yourself from your Web site, or if it will be an informational site to drive traffic to other sites where the work will be sold. If you are going to sell it yourself, you will need PayPal or Google Checkout to process credit cards. If you have many products, you will need a shopping cart and a merchant account. These latter items add expense to your online marketing and are best suited to established artists with a following.

5. Boundless Gallery Home Page

   Decide whether to let sites print and fulfill your work. Sites such as www.boundlessgallery.com, www.EBSQart.com and www.yessy.com market and sell your work for you. You do the fulfillment. Sites such as www.imagekind.com and www.artistrising.com will do the printing along with marketing and sales for you.

   Of course, there is eBay. At one time, it commanded much more traffic from artists using it to sell their work. Because of rising prices and other changes, it is not as popular with visual artists as before. With its huge traffic, you should consider it.

6. Do your research. Check out artist's discussion boards such as www.wetcanvas.com. There you can find a community of artists to pose questions to about their experiences selling online. Do search the discussion threads first. It's likely you will find an answer to your question without having to start a thread. Another useful online community is: www.onlinevisualartists.com.

   Subscribe to art business blogs such as: www.artprintissues.com; www.artbizcoach.com; and www.emptyeasel.com. You will find them to offer a treasure trove of useful information.

7. Start a blog. I suggest you use Typepad or GoDaddy's Quick Blog Cast as opposed the free services such as Blogger. If you are tech savvy or have help that is, then WordPress might be your best. When you use a free service, you never own the domain or URL, it belongs to the provider. In other words, www.yourname.blogspot.com is not your intellectual property.

   The blogs in the above step all have great advice for starting and maintaining a blog. Blogging makes your site dynamic by supplying it with a steady stream of fresh content. Search engines are attracted to new content and regularly refreshed content. Your blog adds a conversational dimension to your Web site and will help you grow an audience of potential and devoted collectors, and it will help your search rankings at the same time.

   There is more to it than these steps, but following them will give you a great start on selling your art online.

8. Decide if you can afford to use Pay-per-click advertising as with Google Adwords. Optimize your site. Have unique descriptions, titles, meta tags and keywords for each page. Submit your site to all the search engines. Go to the site and search for "How to Submit to site". Leave appropriate comments on pertinent blogs with your URL in the comment. Ask for link exchanges when possible. Submit to all the local Yellow Page and other local directories.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't under price your art. Making a profit is crucial to your success.

• Don't overprice your art. Know what the market will bear and set your prices in line with your peers.

• Only use the highest quality professional scans to create your prints. You can't get great results with a mediocre or poor quality digital image.

• Don't compete directly with other sources, such as galleries, that are selling your work. Use different images, or at least different substrates or sizes.

• Don't undercut your other sources. Online sales may be your future, but it is bad form, bad karma and bad business to not maintain pricing integrity.

Resources

• Art Biz Coach
• Art Print Issues.
• Wet Canvas
• Empty Easel
• Fine Art Studio Online
• Online Visual Artists
• Artist Rising
• Image Kind
• GoDaddy.com
• TypePad
• WordPress