Business Cards Are Not Dead

Most of my blog posts from this point on will deal with how to promote your online marketplace.  The first thing you should do is inform EVERYONE you know that you've decided to sell your art online and how to get to your online storefront.

We’ll discuss all the ways to do this online in future posts, but don’t underestimate the power of informing people in person about your store.  Getting some business cards is a great way to start this process.

Vistaprint offers FREE business cards, and if you want to get a bit fancier than the free products that are available, you still can’t beat their prices.  It’s an easy process to create and order them online and they’re shipped directly to your home.

Make sure to include the website for your online storefront, as well as any other information you want people to know about your business.

Creating Products for Sale & Using Keywords

Once you've selected a venue for creating your online marketplace, the process of uploading your image files and creating your product pages begins.

As you go through this time consuming process, you’ll need to start thinking ahead… about promoting.

While you must create this online storefront before you can promote it, be mindful of keywords as you create each product.

From this point on, you MUST THINK LIKE A CUSTOMER!  For each product you create, think about what keywords you would type into a Google search in order to find it online if YOU were in the market for this item.  Then use those keywords repetitively in the product title, subtitle, description, category listing, and keyword tags.  That’s the first step towards having your products found by potential buyers.

Here’s an example…

I recently created an iPhone case on Zazzle with a skyline photo of Seattle.  If I were searching for this product online, I would type in “Seattle skyline iPhone case” into a Google search.  THESE became my keywords, which I used repetitively in the title, subtitle, description, category, and keyword tags.  Click on the phone to bring up the product page and notice how many times you find those keywords repeated.

Seattle Skyline iPhone Case by OriginalPerspective

Welcome & Intro to: Selling Art Online

Greetings and welcome to my latest blog... Selling Art Online!

I started selling artistic prints online in 2007.  Just five years later, I've become a "pro-seller" for one online marketplace by building a strong presence all across the internet, utilizing everything that I've learned these past five years about promoting an online store.  This has resulted in hundreds of online sales to people all over the globe, which has not only generated income, but created an international presence for my art as well.

This site will be used to recommend practices and techniques involved with making money online by selling your art in online marketplaces.  Numerous links will be included throughout this blog to various sites, each offering a helpful tool, templates, or lists of resources for artists wanting to sell their art online and make money.

Topics covered will include HOW & WHERE to sell your art online, the best places to PROMOTE your available products for sale, SEO (search engine optimization) tactics to get traffic to your online store, and tons of FREE resources readily available to artists online.

Of course, there is no way to include EVERYTHING there is to know about selling art online, but that's the beauty of the blog...  I'm depending on you, the readers, to add your comments, questions, suggestions, and own personal experiences to the mix in order to make this blog as comprehensive as possible.

If you're willing to put in the time to create AND promote it, you can have a successful online storefront like the one you see below.