Guest blogger: Whitney Zeldow

Recently, I went shopping with a friend of a friend.

After spending an hour in the SAME STORE, I finally burst:

“Oh. My. God. You shop so weird! You’ve looked at every piece of clothing on that rack, mulling over each one.”

“Well…yeah. That’s how I shop. What do you do?”

“I walk quickly through the aisles, look side-to-side and trust my subconscious to yell at me if it sees something it likes.”

These are two wildly different styles of shopping, and part of the reason there is such contradictory advice on what your artist website should look like is because both shopping styles occur among online art buyers. Slow scavengers get frustrated when they see websites that are designed to appeal to fast hunters and vice versa.

Alyson has given you advice on what appeals to art industry types who care more about the “feel” and “quality” of your work than anything else (slow scavengers). It’s hard to get them into your store, but once they are there, they will browse piece by piece.

The following advice is for artists who want to appeal to people who will buy right now (fast hunters). These people don’t particularly care who you are or what your overall portfolio looks like, but they are willing to go into anyone’s shop because they move quickly and only need to pause when there’s a show-stopper in your portfolio.

1. Beware of decision paralysis. When you display your images as thumbnails, quick browsers can better judge each piece by color, framing, and general feel. They can quickly judge which pieces they like best, instead of being enamored by all of your work (which you don’t want because it’s easier for them to decide to buy nothing than decide which one they like best!).

Important note: Make sure the thumbnails display the ENTIRE image, not a cropped version.

2. Not everyone is picky. Some of your customers will be looking for something vague, like a piece of art to hang on their wall. They don’t care if it’s a photograph, painting, landscape, or nude. A huge problem I come across when I look for art on the Internet is when artists over-categorize.

The quickest way to frustrate me is to force me to push the “back” button on my browser every time I want to look at a category of art (“New York Cityscapes,” “Portraits,” “Florals,” “Mixed Media”). I suggest adding an “All Artwork” category where someone like me can browse all styles at once.

But use your common sense! Just because Target sells Easy Mac and women’s size 12 jeans in the same store doesn’t mean it makes sense to display them next to each other.

3. Don’t be boring. Quick shoppers don’t read much, but they do occasionally read the first couple of sentences of your “About Me” page (it’s a popular page). Make sure these sentences are interesting and informative. Save the info about your art education and years of experience for later.

4. Curate your art. Never have one thousand or more pieces of art in your portfolio. And never (photographers, I’m talking to you) have side-by-side “experiments” where you take the same picture, edit it in two different ways via Photoshop, then put them both on your site. Your indecisiveness is equivalent to expecting us to do your job for you.

These four rules apply to your personal website and – because this is where the quick shoppers are – third-party sites where you display and sell your art.

And here is one extra piece of advice that applies to all shopping styles . . .

Learn from the corporations. Have you ever looked at a corporation’s email form and thought, “Yeah, I’m never gonna get a response if I fill that out?” The same goes for the email form on your site. You can keep the form on your site as long as you also offer an email address.

About the Guest Blogger

Whitney Zeldow runs a free email newsletter that aims to connect “regular people” with the best, most sale-able art on the web. She regularly hunts on the Internet for painters and photographers with show-stoppers in their portfolios that can be featured in her newsletter.

Wednesday’s post Make Room for Success was originally published in my newsletter on December 6, 2004!

Why Update and Republish?

You might update an old post because:

1. The topic is still relevant.
2. People are finding your old post in searches and you realize you need to give them fresher information.

How to Update an Old Post

• Verify that this is a subject that is topical.
• Change any dates and any mentions to the season.
• Look at the resources you provided in your post. Are they still offered and are the links working? Chances are that new and better resources have appeared on the scene since you first covered the topic. It’s also likely that your original resources are no longer available.
• Add any new thoughts on the subject. Surely you’ve learned something since you first wrote about it! There were 7 years in between my two posts. I would hope that I’ve uncovered some new ideas between now and then.
• Consider what has changed in the world since your original post. How has social media affected your subject? Is there any new technology that might be worth a mention?
• Get rid of extra words. To describe an action, cut the numerous words you’re using in half. It never fails that fewer words = a more powerful text.

Some subjects are always winners – they just need a little tweaking for today.

Yesterday I confessed that I have been less than inspired with my blogging lately. I gave you a list of 10 paths you can take to get out of a creative slump, but I thought of one more.

Make Lists

Maybe my blogging is uninspired because I’ve been lazy. Or maybe I’m not paying attention.

I try to listen to what artists are talking about because that’s where I get most of my inspiration. But sometimes I don’t always hear. It doesn’t always translate into a post – preferring to take the quick route through my brain maze. IF you know what I mean.

Instead of waiting for inspiration, I’m going after it. I’m making a list!

It’s not the first time I’ve done this. As reported, I keep blog posts ideas in Evernote and in my WordPress Editorial Calendar. I also have years of notebooks with content ideas scattered throughout.

The process I’m going through now is gathering the ideas, reviewing them, and freshening them up. Surely something will come of this process.

You can adapt my process to create a list of content ideas for your blog or newsletter. If you already have scattered lists, bring them together and update the topics. Maybe this list of blog post formulas might inspire you.

Blog Post Formulas

4 Ways to . . . (install a sculpture, typeset a label, piss off someone on Facebook)

7 Reasons to . . . (get into the studio, get out of the studio, be a mentor)

How to . . . (make art, converse with a collector, embarrass yourself at your opening)

Why You Shouldn’t . . . (weld naked, drink too much at your opening)

Why You Should . . . (negotiate, ignore Twitter, hang out at bookstores)

Uncommon Inspiration from . . . (interviews, advice, quotes)

The Best . . . (teacher, book, cure for the post-opening blues)

Most Popular Posts on This Blog (come up with a more exciting title than this!)

Go ahead. Make up your own list and don’t let the well run dry.

There’s more help on its way.

Join Cynthia Morris and me on May 5 for a teleseminar titled Stress-Free Blogging. The title pretty much says it all: We want you to have fun with content creation. That’s right: FUN.  Get more details.

The Art Biz Blog has a new feature that I hope you’ll take advantage of and, perhaps, install on your own blog.

First, a Review

If you’ve left a comment on this blog, you’ve noticed that some people have their pictures next to their comments and others don’t.

If you are one of those who remain faceless, it’s not because we want it that way. It’s not a secret society of blog commenters. Everyone (yes, even you) can add a picture to their comments.

All you have to do is sign up for a free account at Gravatar and upload your photo. Whenever you leave a comment on WordPress blogs that use avatars, your picture will show up along with your comment. The only caveat is that you must use the same email address with your comment that you use with Gravatar.

Go on, sign up.

Now, the Fun New Stuff

At least I think it’s fun.

I installed a plugin called Gravatar Hovercards. Whenever you put your cursor over an image next to a comment, the picture cocks to the left and his or her Gravatar profile appears.

You can read more about people who comment and find out how to connect with them further without leaving the page.

The reverse is also true. People can learn about you instantly – as long as you follow the directions below.

Complete Your Gravatar Profile

If you, like I, never completed your Gravatar profile, you’d better go do that. You don’t want your Hovercard to be empty!

Sign in to your Gravatar account and go to My Account/Edit My Profile. Fill out the short “About Me” blurb and add your links. While you’re there, tweak your Display Name so that your full, professional name shows up next to your comments.

All of this takes about 5 minutes.

Add This Feature to Your Blog

Hovercards come with the new Jetpack plugin, which WordPress has made available to self-hosted sites (previously only for WordPress.com users). To install this plugin, just go to plugins/add new plugin and do a search for Jetpack. Install and activate.

I hope you enjoy this feature on the Art Biz Blog. My favorite part of what I do is connecting you with other artists and I think this is just one more way to do that.

Have you found yourself doing some spring cleaning around the house and yard?

You can do the same for your blog—a critical component of your Web presence.

You instantly get a feel for Debbie Gonville Miller's art whenever you visit her blog.

If you want to feel a little more love for your blog, it’s easy to implement these five fixes.

1. Update your About page.

Add a fresh photo of yourself, tell a new story, or write the text in verse.

Your About page is often the first link people click on. If it doesn’t make you smile, it might be losing visitors.

2. Add more images of your art.

You probably have a blog because you want to share your art with more people. Why are you hiding it? Make sure your art is near the top of the blog at all times. Check out Debbie Gonville Miller‘s blog (pictured above) for a lesson in featuring your art.

Also, give us a way to look through a portfolio of images without scrolling through all of your posts.

3. Write better titles for your posts.

Titles show up in Web searches, in RSS feeds, in emails, and more. Titles are critical for capturing your reader’s attention. Don’t neglect the importance of strong titles.

By the way, “strong” doesn’t have to mean clever. “Strong” means it compels people to read your post.

4. Break up your text.

Long paragraphs are a convention of the past. Use 2-3 sentence paragraphs (max) in your blog posts. When called for, use bullet points, numbering, and bold text to make your blog more scannable.

5. Plan your posts in advance.

The best thing I’ve done for my blog in the last year is to install a WordPress plugin called Editorial Calendar. I can see all of my posts by date and plan future content accordingly. It’s one thing to keep a list of ideas, but quite another to see them on a calendar by date.

You can’t change your entire blog in one sitting, but any one of these fixes will bring rewards.

If your blog needs a little extra TLC, join us for the hands-on Blog Triage class, which begins April 13 – just one week from today. We don’t just give you lessons, we help you implement new ideas and review your blog changes as you make them. We support you throughout the process.

Breathe new life into your blog! Read the details.

Since lots of artists ask, I thought you might be interested to know what I look for when I visit an artist’s website.

Judith Barath, La Quinta Backyard. Oil on canvas. ©The Artist

What I Want to See

I want to see your art! Big and beautiful on every page. Don’t give me thumbnails the size of postage stamps. Knock me over!

I want to see you. I’m probably on your site because I came across you in an email, on Facebook, or online somewhere. I’d like to see a picture of you.

I want to read about you. What do we have in common? Why should I stick around?

I want to choose. Don’t make me sit through a long video or a flash show of your images. Don’t make me guess where I should click to find your art. I want to see what I want to see when I want to see it.

I want it to be easy. I’m busy. We’re all busy. Make it easy for me to browse, to buy, and to contact you.

I want to feel your passion for the work. I want you to inspire me. The reason I studied art history was because the artists’ stories and their connection to the larger world inspired me. Don’t tell me you’re passionate about art. Show me!

Along the same lines, I want to sense your confidence. It’s not too hard to detect a timid artist online. Be bold! Be confident in what you have to share with the world.

What I Don’t Want to See on Your Website

• Crappy images
• Bright colors that compete with the artwork
• Black backgrounds with white text (I may look at images, but I don’t read white text on black backgrounds – too painful on the eyes)
• Excuses or apologies

I have oodles of opinions about artists’ websites. I’ll share as much as I can in the Website Makeover class with Patricia Velte on March 29. Join us.

One of the most difficult things about blogging is coming up with ideas.

Sandhya Manne, Musical Tribe in Color - Nallamma. Watercolor, 14 x 11 inches. ©The Artist

Do you feel pressure to write the perfect blog post in a single sitting?

That’s rarely how good blog posts come together.

The secret to having a vibrant blog is to juggle a number of ideas for posts so that you’re writing a little bit at a time rather than an entire post at once.

The secret to coming up with these ideas in the first place is . . .  are you ready for it?

Listening.

The best blog content comes from listening – tuning in to what your readers are interested in. Are you paying attention?

• What questions are people asking you about your art? Take each question and turn it into a new blog post.
• What are people saying in their comments on your blog or Facebook page? What are people tweeting about on Twitter? Pull out the juicy ones and make them into blog posts.
• What ideas are engaging people on other blogs? What has your attention? Write a post about it!

By staying on top of current conversations, you are inserting your thoughts into the bigger dialogue. Instantly, your blog becomes more interesting.

To ensure a continuous flow of content, keep a number of ideas in the works. I do this in multiple programs on my computer.

The tools you choose are irrelevant. What is critical is that you capture ideas before you lose them.

After you’ve gathered your ideas, you can go back and add, delete, and move around content. By using this process, your ideas have time and space to percolate. The pressure of trying to write the perfect post in one sitting disappears.

Do you need more ideas to spiff up your blog? Take a look at the Blog Triage class. We help you fall in love with blogging all over again.

How do you develop your blogging ideas and juggle the drafts?

I scoured the 257 posts (to date) from 2010 and came up with a Best Of list.

These might not have produced the highest number of comments, but they incited discussion or had information that I thought was most relevant. And many did, indeed, have the most comments.

Here’s a look back.

15 Minutes a Day for Your Art

If you are one of the artists wrestling with a commitment to your studio, I have a solution: Spend just 15 minutes a day checking in with your art.

Artists’ Geography

Do you identify with being an artist of your region? How important is geography to your identity as an artist?

Marketing Lessons from a Hair Stylist

Marketing lessons are all around us if we pay attention. Guest blogger Michael Lynn Adams shares a personal experience with his hairdresser — one that taught him at least three lessons for his art career.

Implement a Postcard Strategy

Get offline from time to time and interact in the real world—especially when it comes to your marketing. Send postcards to your mailing list three to four times a year as part of keeping your name in front of people.

Get a Grip on Why People Buy Art

Your art isn’t for everyone. Once you understand this, you’ll have an easier time finding the people who appreciate your work.

5 Reasons to Title Your Art

Only one of the reasons to title your art is for search engines.

11 Fast Website or Blog Fixes

The title pretty much says it all.

Pricing for Art Consultants

Artists who sell art to art consultants are often asked to give their wholesale prices. This gives consultants a say-so in final pricing. Is that okay?

Turn Facebook Friends Into Fans

Seven steps to encourage friends on Facebook to become fans of your business page.

3 Critical Items on Your Facebook Fan Page

Artists with fan pages on Facebook should have a good description of their art, images of the art, and–something many forget–a complete credit line with each piece.

Old-Fashioned Marketing That Works

My sister-in-law, Shelly Lewis Stanfield, has sold hundreds of paintings without a blog or social media.

Should you give away your art?

David Castle shares his secrets for gaining raving fans and making extra sales. David has since told me that artists, in their enthusiasm for what he is doing, continue to contact him about this post.

What was your most popular or favorite post of 2010? Feel free to leave it in a comment.

Guest Blogger: John R. Math

Google Insights for Search (Google Insights) is a free tool used mostly by marketing and advertising professionals to research keyword and topic trends.

Artists can also benefit from using Google Insights. Let’s explore the advantages of Google Insights for marketing and promoting your art.

As an example, locate the Google Insights page and type in the search term “Abstract Art.”

Next, make this search for the Art and Humanities category, for the period of time of 2004 to the present (this time filter can be as short a span as the last 7 days).

The query (“Abstract Art”) reveals that the Top Searches terms are “abstract art paintings,” “abstract paintings,” and “abstract painting.” Further, this query also shows the top 3 Rising Searches to be “abstract painting techniques,” “abstract wallpapers,” and “abstract art definition.” (More on this below.) Google also provides, suggests, and ranks additional search terms for each of these search queries as well.

Google Insights allows you to compare these search queries by search terms, geographic locations, or time frames.

The search query can also be filtered and compared by:  1. Web Search. 2. Image Search. 3. News Search. 4. Product Search. Further, this information can be filtered by a Category Search or by All Categories. [See image #1.]

Google Insights #1: Various ways to filter your search

Uses for Google Insights

These filters provide detailed, up-to-date, and reliable search term information that can be compared and used for:

• Keywords for art websites
• Keywords for art blogs
• Art blog topics
• Keywords for title tags and page tags
• Topic ideas for article content
• Keywords for AdWords campaigns
• Keywords for press release content

Keywords Trends

As mentioned above, Google Insights provides you with the “Rising Searches” for a particular search term as well. Rising Searches allow you to determine whether the search terms, related to the keyword, are either rising or falling (noticeable over time) in interest. [See image #2.]

Google Insights #2: Rising Searches in the right column

The Rising Search term suggestions can give you an edge over your competition if you decide to tweak your keywords and eliminate those that are falling in interest.

Google Insights also shows a graph titled Interest Over Time. This information is based on how many searches have been done for a particular search term, relative to the total number of searches on Google over a specific period of time. [See image #3.] This information is an adjunct to the Rising Searches information and may be more relevant to an advertiser but you can still use this data to gauge interest and relevance in certain search terms and with potential content topics.

Google Insights #3: Interest Over Time graph

Overall, Google Insights for Search is a research tool that can help you to fine tune your keywords with Google’s results and with their suggestions. Google Insights gives you the data to optimize all areas of your art marketing and art promotion in terms of topics, keywords and title tags. Take advantage of this little known tool and stay ahead of the curve in your art niche.

About the Guest Blogger

John R. Math is a successful art photographer who sells his work through art galleries and to the corporate art market.  He is also an art marketing consultant and operates a successful online art gallery that conducts monthly themed art competitions for new and emerging artists. John writes extensively about the art business, art marketing and photography. He is a regular featured writer for ArtBistro.com and PhotoLicensingOptions.com and lives in Jupiter, Florida.

©2009 Giesla Hoelscher/Inkblots. Deep Six. Digital collage, inkjet printed on cotton paper & adhered to embellished canvas, 12 x 12 inches.

On November 30, 2004 I published my first blog post. Since I totally flaked acknowledging the 5th anniversary, I’m taking time out this year for a brief walk down memory lane.

In the beginning, this blog had the lame name “Art Thoughts.” It took me 6 months to realize I should be writing about the art business for the steady following I already had from Art Biz Coach and the Art Marketing Action newsletter. Duh.

About that time, I purchased the Art Biz Blog domain name.

To date, there have been 1,888 posts as best I can count. Some are better than others, but I’m confident they’ve improved greatly over time.

In the summer of 2009, I migrated this blog from TypePad to WordPress. Can you say “That made me happy!”?

I have featured hundreds of artists on this blog and given away tons of free content.

To this date, there have been 11,170ish comments. Thankfully, I don’t even need both sets of fingers to count the mean, snide comments.

At some point, I started re-posting the Art Marketing Action newsletters as blog posts rather than pages on my website. I’d tell you when exactly that happened, but it’s a convoluted mess. First, it was on a different blog (its own blog) and then we moved them over here, and, and, and . . .

At some other point, this blog became less of a broadcast for me and more of a community. I just can’t explain how cool that is for me.

I love all of your comments and your support of other artists who visit and interact here. Keep up the good work!

I’ve learned a lot about blogging over these six years.

Some of it went into my book, but most of it is updated and part of the Blog Triage Self-Study that I co-created with Cynthia Morris. If you find yourself struggling with your blog, check out the Blog Triage Self-Study.

In just 20 lessons your blog will be in tip-top shape.