SELL YOUR ADS HERE

Make Your Artist Website Sell!

Summary

Here's the scoop on what you must know when designing a website to showcase your art, impress galleries, and win over collectors. Learn how to avoid the mistakes most emerging artists make when creating their online portfolio.

1. You need an artists website

Any artist who can classify themselves as either "emerging" or "mid- career" will definitely benefit from having their own website to promote their work. At this stage of your career it is important to be able to have a place where anyone in the world can easily access and view your work.

2. Know who you are trying to impress

Are you trying to engage a Soho gallery to sell your $20,000 paintings or sell $5 prints to children in Korea? That Soho gallery might not be impressed when they see your online-store selling prints and art cards – but on the other hand, you could make a very handsome living if you really knew how to market those art cards

3. Make your website fit with your overall art marketing strategy

A website is most effective when it is part of a larger overall marketing strategy for your art. This includes mailings, lots of in-person gallery visits and presentations, regular (physical) showings of your work, and developing relationships with the art world. An effectively planned website can greatly compliment and simplify your other marketing efforts.

4. There is a real market for art on the internet

The internet is quickly becoming an accepted place to showcase your art to collectors and arts professionals. They might still want to see your work in person before they buy, but the fact remains: they saw it first on your website! Having an online art presence is very important at this time.

5. Have your own website and a website portfolio service

A website portfolio service (e.g. www.absolutearts.com or www.art-exchange.com is like an online slide registry. For a fee you can upload images of your work together with a bio, artist statement, and resume. They have many visitors and are a convenient way to make your work accessible to potential clients. The down side is that they don't display your work well, and there is little flexibility in how the art is showcased.

Your own website, on the other hand will require more work to promote, but you'll be able to present the work in the most beautiful way. Remember the times you've been taken into the dimmer room in a commercial gallery? How that art which looked fairly good on the main gallery wall suddenly became something you had to take home? That's how a good artist's website should showcase your work.

We recommend both options – they are a perfect compliment.

6. Have a website that collectors and art professionals will enjoy

Here are some common elements which most dealers and galleries would agree on for your website design:

• Keep the site simple and elegant with the focus on the art itself and don't overpower the art with a site that looks too busy
• Avoid advertising such as banner adds or sidebar adds. If you must have them, put them in a separate "resource" section
• Avoid complex effects like flash movies. In the time it takes to play your exotic entry page, your visitor may have moved on.
• Include your bio, artist statement, resume, contact information, gallery(s) of your work, contact information, and a pricelist.

7. Showcase your work beautifully

You need to have visual design skills to create a beautiful artist website. Here are some points to get you started:

• Most Important: Use high-quality, professionally-photographed images. Excellence in, excellence out!
• Keep the website simple and elegant with the focus on the art.
• Create multiple galleries to compliment the work – just as a good physical gallery would do.
• Choose colors that compliment (not overpower) the work. Think of the colors you would use in a physical gallery to showcase your work – neutral colors like crème, white, gray, and good safe choices.
• Think "minimalist" not "busy" for the layout.
• Keep your copy (text) brief. Let the art speak for itself!

8. Bring collectors and galleries to your website

Its no use having that stunning website sitting in hyperspace. Make it work for you! Here are the ways to bring quality visitors:

Search Engines: If your website has been well optimized for search engines, a search on your name or your style of art should bring up your website in the first few pages of results.

Letters of Introduction: A letter of introduction sent to a gallery or dealer is a very effective way to bring a qualified visitor to your website. Better still is to include a brochure or postcard of your work with the letter.

Advertising online or in magazines: For example, if your art is minimalist and modern in style, a banner add on an interior design website focused on the same minimalist ethic could draw a lot of traffic to your site.

9. You need to be able to sell your work on the internet.

But there are many ways to do it. More important than anything is that you have clear and up-to-date contact information on your website. If a buyer likes your work enough to bring out their checkbook, they will normally be happy to call you to close the sale.

It's also handy to be able to sell directly from your website, especially if you sell lower-cost reproductions. There are simple and cost-effective ways to do this.

10. Think again before designing your own website

Have you really added up the total cost? Here are some questions to consider before you start designing:

• Do you have visual design skills/training?
• Can you wait several months for the site to be ready?
• Can you afford to give up a month or more of your valuable artist time?
• Do you have all the computer software and the relatively-new computer needed to build a high-quality website?
• Are you fully trained in your design software?

Can you answer "Yes" to all of the above? If so, you might think about doing it yourself. Otherwise, hire a designer!

11. Choose your website-designer thoughtfully

The most important thing here is to remember what you are trying to create – a beautiful online gallery space to elegantly show your beautiful work – this is very different from building a high-volume website selling printer ink cartridges and paper rolls!

Look for the ability to design a space to present your work. One way to do this is to find artist websites that you like and then contact the artist to get the name of their designer.

12. Know what you should pay

Artist's website development prices range from a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars. Typically, bigger design firms have larger overheads and will be significantly more expensive. On the other hand, Joe down the street can probably build you a website for $200 – but you probably don't want that website!

At Beautiful Artist Websites we have packages ranging from $700 to $2000 for simple elegant artists websites with different levels of functionality. We can also develop fully customized sites to your specifications with prices based on requirements.

© Josse Ford and Daniel Tardent. Josse Ford and Daniel Tardent are the founders of Beautiful Artist Websites. We design cost-effective artist websites that showcase and sell your work to arts professionals. Visit our articles page for effective art marketing tips and sign up for our free report: 6 Steps to Easy Online Art Sales.

Work at Home, Mom!
Bach Flower Essences
Alzheimer Disease Advice
Bach Flower Essences Shop (German)
Where to buy Original Bach Flower Remedies
Bachblüten Doc Nature
How to use Bach Flowers
J-5 WebKatalog - Web Catalogue
Living after Divorce

MORE ARTICLES:

Is it a Good Idea to Sell Your Home Yourself?
Are you thinking about selling your home? Have you been thinking of selling it by yourself instead of hiring a real estate agent? There are several advantages of selling your home yourself, but there are disadvantages as well. To make it easier for you to make a decision find the most important pros and cons below.

Learn How To Sell Products You Don't Have To Create And Still Keep All The Profts
How would you like to be in a business that allows you to keep one hundred percent of the profits with very minimal overhead and all you have to do is own a computer and have an internet connection. Well that is just what resell rights for digital products provide for you the customer as well as the seller. So if this sounds good to you then read on if not you may be missing out on a proven money making opportunity that many people are cashing in on. In this article you will learn all about resell rights for digital products and how you can cash in on this great money making opportunity.

Ten Ways To Sell Your Ideas To Anyone
You have a great idea you know is a winner. All you need is support from some key people.

GoFish Partners With adap.tv to Deliver Integrated Online Video Ads: adap.tv to Insert Contextually Relevant Ads Into Online Video on the GoFish Ne
GoFish Corporation (OTCBB:GOFH), the leading Internet Video Network showcasing original, Made-for-Internet ('MFI') programming, today announces a strategic partnership with adap.tv, an in-video advertising network, to insert third-party ads within video clips shown on the GoFish Network.

Embedded Ads In MP3s? Apple?s New Marketing Ploy
The Internet has definitely revolutionized our lives. From shopping to communicating to the way we listen to music ? all these aspects of our lives have changed dramatically due to the Internet. It has been said that music is the universal language. It is probably more so now, as music can easily be shared all over the world, transcending traditional geographic barriers.

Sharing the Reins: 10 Reasons To Sell Your Company To Your Employees
In 1987 I sold my business, South Mountain Company, to my employees (and myself). My sole proprietorship became an employee-owned cooperative corporation.

Where Is The Best Place To Sell Websites For Profit
Selling Websites is one of the fast emerging occupations in the virtual world. There are talented individuals gearing up to take the virtual world by storm and make some really cool cash by cashing in their talent. The Internet has provided a global exposure to companies. An attractive website is sure to propel the business pursuits of firms to a whole new level. The websites are the storehouse of information regarding the companys deals and also it is visible to the millions of users around the globe. The more the visitors in your website, the more money you make. The advertising is easy through the Internet and hence creates avenues in an explosion in the demand for the companys goods.

So, Can You Really Sell EBooks On EBay And Make Cold Hard Cash?
Selling eBooks on eBay, and making any worthwhile profit from doing so, is becoming more and more difficult.Gone are the days when you could sell someone else's books on eBay, and it's becoming considerably more difficult to sell ebooks that you might have written yourself or via Public Domain Publications.

How To Join The 5% Of Internet Business Real Money Making Pros Regardless Of The Products You Sell
On the Internet business world today, you've probably heard that only an estimated 5% of netpreneurs, webmasters, or affiliates, are making any real money. If you're not one of them, then read on and learn how you can make it too.

Sell Yourself to Be Successful in Life
If you want to be successful in life, business, or relationships, you must learn one simple secret. That secret is .

Going for Sell and Rent-Back: What You Should Know
Despite the growing popularity, a Rent-Back isn?t everybody?s best option. This article aims to give all the facts and information one needs to make the decision that?s best. Here we address your concerns; explain the plan details, including its advantages and disadvantages.

Sell Affiliate Product? Lets Change The Odds
An affiliate is simply an individual or business who signs up to promote someone else's product or service for a share of the profits. It's one of the most popular ways of starting an online business.

Earn Extra Pocket Money: Sell Old Cell Phone Handsets For Cash
If you are like so many people out there, you probably have all of your old cellular phones hanging around your house in a variety of drawers, or perhaps you have an old box of them. Why do we seem to hold onto these things long after we have decided that there is a better product for us on the market? For many of us it simply does not dawn on us that we could earn a bit of pocket money and sell old cell phone units for cash. The fact of the matter is that many of those telephones that we have in drawers and boxes can make us an extra bit of pocket money.

Best Ways To Promote And Sell Your Ebook
You may have written your own original ebook, used another or a series of articles as a base to rewrite your own or hired a pro to write it for you However you produced your ebook you now need to get it on the web, expose it and either establish your name and build a list by giving it away or make sales