Selling Art Online – Tips for Taking the Independent Route

Bodies (2009) by Kyla Art

If you’re looking to try selling art online independently here are some tips that will help you get started and hopefully help you to continue to successfully sell your art online. 

There are a number of techniques you need to be aware of in order for your art to be found on the internet and to encourage people to buy from you time and time again. There is even the potential to turn your customers into collectors if you are able to market your art well online.

The first place to start is to decide whether you want to try to sell through your own website or through an online auction site like eBay or etsy. There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods, however, I personally recommend setting up your own art website to start selling art online. This is because you will have more flexibility with the content of your website and how your art will be presented.

For many artists this initially won’t be a viable option. The advantages of using a third party auction site is that your work will gain immediate exposure through the catalog and will mean potential customers will find your art online much more easily. This is a great option to start with and when you find you’re easily selling art online, it would be a good time to start looking into developing your own artist site.

Another reason I recommend developing your own art website for selling art online, is that it will be much easier to establish ways to collect the details of people who visit your site. You can offer for them to sign up to a quarterly newsletter. You can then use the newsletter to promote any new collections or pieces you have made available. This is a great method for getting return visitors to your art website as well as enabling you to create collectors of your art.

Selling art online is also about more than establishing and maintaining an art website and an email list. You also need to be able to make your art website more visible on the internet. This is done by associating related keywords to your website to ensure your art website comes up in search engines when people are looking to buy your type of art.

Promoting your art website to increase your ability to continue selling art online is not an overnight process. You need to be committed to continually maintaining and promoting your art website so that it is kept current and maintains a high listing in the search engines. A great way to help you do this is by using social media tools like twitter, facebook and youtube to promote your art and to increase the status of your art website.

The rewards for setting up your own art website for selling art online can immensely outweigh the work involved in establishing your site. It is quite clear that in order to be able to successfully continue selling art online you need to be committed and smart with your online marketing work.

To find out how to start selling art online in an easy step by step method you must check out this site http://sellingartonline.info

Sell Artwork Online – E-Commerce for Artists

If you actually take the time to sit back and think about it, it’s really amazing how much the internet has developed over the past 10 years and what’s even more amazing is how you can take advantage of it to help you sell artwork online.

The internet has developed an entirely new world of commerce for both buyers and sellers. There’s the benefits of ease of use, convenience and a marketplace that’s open 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Through the internet you will also have access to an international marketplace that can help you to spread your work across countries and continents.

So how exactly can you use the internet to sell artwork online?

When you first start looking into the different opportunities to sell artwork online you will undoubtedly be overwhelmed by the number of different strategies and tools that are available. Many artists sell artwork online by displaying their art on free blogging sites like Blogger or WordPress. While others may set up their own website and promote it through social media sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. You can even put together videos and post them on YouTube.

All of these methods are widely used by artists and internet marketers alike and all are proven and successfully used to sell artwork online. However, there is a catch...

How to best use the internet to sell artwork online

What happens far too often is artists try to take advantage of every avenue to sell artwork online. They set up their free blog portfolio site, they get a twitter and facebook page and they post videos and articles to directory sites. Then they sit back and wait for the sales to start rolling in... Well, at least something along those lines.

However, as these artists will generally find, each of these avenues can be very time consuming, it requires a lot of maintenance to keep each site current and up to date. And then there’s the issue of trying to drive traffic to each page to sell artwork online. As with the many artists beforehand who have tried to have their ‘finger in every pie,’ you will surely become burnt out very quick and disillusioned as to whether you can actually sell artwork online.

This is why it is best to focus on one particular area in which to sell artwork online. Decide which method best interests you or suits your artistic style and stick to only one online marketing method to start. You may like to set up a free blog site as your main portfolio page with your email address for orders and enquiries. Or if you feel you have more to say, set up a twitter, facebook or myspace page to promote your art.

There really is a limitless number of ways in which you can sell artwork online, so before you decide make sure you thoroughly research them all. Then decide which method best suits your style and excites you. As you work on your first online marketing avenue, you will also come across other tips and tricks to help you increase traffic and make more sales. This knowledge will then enable you to move on to set up other sites more effectively, thus maximising your opportunities and successes to sell artwork online!

For all of the tips and information artists need to know to sell artwork online visit and bookmark this site http://sell-artwork-online.com

How to Sell Your Art Online in 5 Simple Steps

Art Online

Selling art online can be somewhat of a misnomer if you don't know where or how to start. But at the same time, it can seem quite simple - find a good auction or sales site, post your art and hope for the best? You never know, you might get lucky!

What I'd like to share with you are some strategies that will not only help you to sell your art online, but also enable you to sell your art online over and over again.

Now, don't think that I'm completely discounting online auctions and sales sites, these can be an incredibly useful tool. However, in order to regularly and successfully sell your art online consider the following 5 steps:

1. Commit to Selling Your Art

This is one thing that a lot of hobbiest artists don't fully consider - do you really want to sell your art? Selling your art online can be a bit more of an emotional process than you may have initially considered. What I mean by this is when you're so close to your art you may struggle to actually part with it for money.

Before you commit to selling your art online, consider that you are ready and completely prepared for the sale of your particular pieces of art. If you're not, you may find that you have either priced yourself out of the market or turning down reasonable offers giving vague reasons. Nothing can be more frustrating for potential buyers and this can seriously impact your chances for future sales of your art online.

On the other hand, if you are completely committed to selling your art online, then you will be a much more appealing artist and salesperson to deal with. A lot of your sales success will depend on your ability to rationally evaluate the place of your art in the online market.

2. Create a Consistent Portfolio

The best way to start out selling your art online is with a complementary and consistent portfolio of work. I would highly advise against starting out selling only one piece of your art online. Instead put together a collection of 10 to 15 pieces all of which are centered around a common theme or central approach.

This is something a lot of beginner artists do not consider when it comes to selling their art online. Take the opportunity to present your art online as a complete portfolio of works, one that represents the core of your approach or inspirations in art. This way your potential buyers immediately get a glimps into yourself as an artist and the range of work you have to offer.

3. Keep Your Sales Page(s) and Copy Professional

As an artist I have no doubt that you will be able to write sheets and sheets of information on your art, what your inspirations were etc. While this is all very interesting and inspiring, keep it to a minimum when marketing your art online. You want to give just enough insight to entice potential customers, but don't give everything away.

Keep your blurbs short and professional. Offer a snippet of information on the piece, yourself as an artist and specific details of the art work. No more, no less. If you feel your customers need more information on you and your art online, then direct them to your artist website (see next tip).

It should also go without saying that you need to always have professional high quality photos of your art online. Selling your art online becomes so much more successful when your able to represent your art work as closely as possible online. You need to be able to sell your work through these digital images so extra investment here will never go astray.

4. Create a Separate Artist Website

One of the best marketing tools you can have to sell your art online is your own dedicated artist website. Personally, I'd recommend using this space to present your work and information on yourself - don't try to sell on this site. There are right and wrong places to try to sell your art online.

This dedicated artist website should be established as an information only forum, of course you can direct people as to where you can buy your art, but don't try to blatantly sell. You should keep a sleek and professional approach, and invest in adding some good gallery pages to best present your work.

This doesn't have to be a costly exercise, it's very inexpensive to create and host your own website these days. Or you can even convert a simple blog site (such as wordpress) into a dedicated artist website to present your art online.

5. Sell Your Art Online

Before you actually get to the point of promoting and selling your art online, it's essential you ensure you have completely considered and actioned the first four steps outlined above. To be quite honest with you, anyone can put up a piece of art online to sell. In order to really separate yourself from the rest, you need a well thought out and established artist presence online.

There are a number of sites like eBay or Amazon where you can promote and sell your work yourself, there are also a lot of independent sites that will promote and sell your art online for a commission. If you're looking to start out selling low priced art online, I'd recommend using the generic sites like eBay initially. However, if you're looking to sell higher priced, more exclusive pieces, you'd be better off to seek out well established commission sites.

Initially reasearching and looking at what other artists are doing will give you a good idea of how you can best price and advertise your work. Keep an eye on what other artists pieces are selling for, how long they're taking to sell and what price points seem to sell the best online.

In order to start out selling your art online may take a bit of trial and error. The important thing to keep in mind here is that you don't give up! It can be quite discouraging having a piece of art online for sale for a couple of months, but as long as you continue to work at it, speak with potential customers, you will find a successful marketing mix to work for you.

Articles

• Creating Collectors of Your Art Online
• Connecting Your Art Business and the Internet

The Thriving Artist Review

Learning to sell and market your art should be an ongoing process, especially when your looking to sell your art online.

The Thriving Artist is such a course that is designed to teach you all of the art marketing skills you never learned at art school (but probably should have!). By integrating both online and offline art sales and art marketing techniques and including idea generating strategies that will enable you to create profitable series of art works time and again - you too can be the successful artist you always knew you could be.

There really is nothing more satisfying than being able to sell your art in order to make your living doing what it is you love most. That in itself is a true blessing all artists must behold!

• Read In Full - The Thriving Artist Review