1. Make better art descriptions
Selling is all about letting people know what they’re in for. Think of your product description as a sort of elevator pitch. You’d want to let your audience know what you and your art are all about and at the same time you’d want to keep their attention focused on you as much as possible.
Making better descriptions will not only help with your interactions with people, it can also determine how optimized your page is for the Google Rankings. SEO—or search engine optimization— is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. In other words, a better optimized page will give you more traffic and more traffic means more sales.
There are a lot of things you can learn about SEO and the concept is somewhat complex, however, if you start giving more time and thought to your descriptions, you’ll be in a better position than before.
Since one of the components in SEO is all about the “keywords” and “descriptions”, the best thing to do when writing the aforementioned descriptions is to focus on one major thing and write as if that big thing is the reason why people should buy your product. Selling art can be quite challenging, and the challenge of selling starts here.
2. Give Credit to Other Companies
It's no question that you didn't get where you are—artistically—on your own. We all know that we almost always get help. The help can be in the form of materials, lessons, or anything that made your art happen.
Mentioning those things in your social media with tags or website links can help you generate more traffic. We can always extend more of our reach just by simply thanking those who help us along the way.
In the complex world of SEO, mentioning other websites or companies will give your own website more traffic and it can ultimately put your product in an advantageous position online.
3. Have a Social Media Presence
Nowadays, social media is more than just a medium of catching up and posting photos. Social media has become the epicenter of marketing and sales. With that being said, whatever platform you’re on, you have to be consistent and engaging. Consistent in a sense where you post as much content as you can to bring in more people to see what you’re offering. Engaging in a way that people will treat your content as something worth their time.
There are a lot of ways in which you can improve your social media presence, but the one thing you have to keep in mind is that you have to be professional. Since a certain level of professionalism can make your audience think that you’re for real, it is important that you keep your presence at a competent level.
4. Work with online galleries
For a long time, artists have been following the more “traditional” way of selling art. This is because just like other things, art solely relies on the medium of distribution we have today. Think about it, a couple of decades ago, music was sold by distributing CD’s all over the world. But now, artists post their songs online for people to stream.
It’s no different when it comes to painting. Back then, painters would rely on galleries for people to see their art. Now, painters migrated into a more digital space.
Online galleries are widely available and joining them can be of a great advantage to the artists. Just like regular galleries, online galleries will assess your work for you and will do most of the tedious tasks when it comes to sales. If you are an independent artist, the entire amount comes to you. That would be the better option. However, if you really consider the commission system, you would realize that your earnings as an artist would be close to that of the individual sale. Not only that, if you join an online gallery, you will have more time to do what you love—making more art.
5. Create a Website
Since having your own website generates more traffic, it can lead to more sales. And the easiest way to make your work available to potential buyers is by putting it up on your own website.
However, owning and operating your own website can be a challenge. But if you know what to post and when to post them, you'll do fine. Think of your art as a tangible product that you want to showcase online. The best way to sell that tangible product is to not sell the product itself, but rather the benefits.
What I mean by that is instead of solely focusing on what your product is all about, use the opportunity you get by having a website to let your audience know what's in it for them—why buying your art will put them in a more advantageous position.