Jane Appleby has been an artist on MyArtClub.Com since the spring of 2000. Jane's site has consistently attracted high numbers of visitors each month. So we sat down with Jane for an in-depth discussion on her approach to her website, and her thoughts generally about promoting her art successfully. On websites and promotion by artists MyArtClub: You have a lot of visits to your website. Do you feel you benefit from having this regular traffic? In what ways? Jane: The regular traffic is a benefit not only to me but to other artists I figure. Having the site helps people know that I have been producing new work and am taking my art career seriously. Also anyone going to MyArtClub.Com may venture to find an artist they like and that's always a good thing. If you don't have your own unique work to start with than I guess you may be worried about other artists taking customers away. I don't worry about that too much as art has more to do than just one painting that sells well. It has much more to do with how you connect to people and who you connect to. I believe it's good to let past customers or people interested in your art be remembered at different times of the year like at Christmas Holidays, Summer, Spring Break and the like. There is something special about an artist's connection with the people that admire their work. It's more personal than providing a necessary piece of home improvement. After all much of the time people connect to the artist as much as the artwork. I want to keep that connection going. MyArtClub: What feedback do you get from your website visitors? What feedback do you get on the emails that you send out? Jane: Actually I do not get many reply emails (less than 5% respond back) from my outbound emails from MyArtClub.Com. People are aware it's a group send out and even though I encourage feedback, I do not expect it. However I do not take this to mean that "my fans" so to speak do not like the piece or my work, or me as a person. The few emails I do get are mostly encouraging and kind. That keeps me sending more out. So thank you to those of you that have responded because art can be lonely without input. The fact that you can get feedback at a click of the mouse is great. A little goes a long way. All you need is one person saying "Hey that's the best piece you've done yet!" and you have enough motivation to do another (whether it sells or not). Others point out spelling errors and offer words of advice and that is also helpful. I make sure I respond back to thank them. Misspelled words and other errors seems one of the surest ways to look unprofessional so I really try to avoid that now. I keep the site updated with new images perhaps once a month or so. I try to keep the emails short, polite and informative with a personal little update or hello. I try not to send more than one or two [email] per month. It gets boring having to click to delete email too often. On top of that there is always an option to unsubscribe, so I do not worry that my emails are intrusive. Just the fact that people actually haven't opted to be deleted off the list of fans says quite a bit. In Part 2 of the article, Jane discusses how she generates traffic to her site. About Jane Appleby Jane Appleby has been an artist on MyArtClub.Com since spring 2000. She is program coordinator and past president of the Burnaby Artist Guild, as well as active member of the Federation of Canadian Artists, Artfully Yours and the Burnaby Arts Council. Our thanks to Jane Appleby for her valuable contribution with this article. This article was first published in the My Art News Letter #9 read more ...

Jane Appleby has been an artist on MyArtClub.Com since the spring of 2000. Jane's site has consistently attracted high numbers of visitors each month. So we sat down with Jane for an in-depth discussion on her approach to her website, and her thoughts generally about promoting her art successfully. On websites and promotion by artists MyArtClub: What ways do you get customers to come to your website? Jane: By handing out my card to anyone that might be interested-even the milkman. (He actually came to one of our shows). When people ask what I do I say, "I paint..." Usually they want to know more because they are not sure what I paint so when they ask I explain briefly and mention "MyArtClub.Com" -and I offer my card. If I feel it appropriate to ask for their email I do but otherwise I leave it up to them. When I invite people to my shows I include the web site address on the invite (in bold or some other colour to make it stand out). People that cannot make it might like at least to view some paintings over the web. Many like to preview some of the show and actually ask if they can see the painting before the show. I find it easier to promote MyArtClub.Com as it is a site of many artists and I mention that often. I may say something like: "You know there are a number of wonderful artist on the site my work is on that you may enjoy". I expect not everyone will like what I do so I invite them to view others work. And I truly do like the work and calibre of artists that I "share the site with" so am happy to promote it. Furthermore, I think it is important to provide opportunities for people to learn about art, and that it can be something fun to view or to take part in. And heck people love talking about the latest site to visit so why shouldn't it be MyArtClub.Com or ApplebyArt.Com? Part of really promoting is talking about what you do to as many people that are interested. And because I not only sell art but I also teach that opens up the discussion to almost anyone that may be interested in taking up a creative outlet. In that way I have been able to get many people visiting my site. MyArtClub: Do you use other ways to promote your art? Jane: Word of mouth has seemed to work the best for me so far. But I highly regard the galleries, offices, restaurants or any other location that an artist hangs their work at as one of the most important ways to promote work. Not to mention the people that work there. I always try to respect what they do and I am thankful for their support. MyArtClub: If you had 2 or 3 suggestions for artists to raise their profile or visibility, or to increase website traffic, what would they be? Jane: Hang your work to show!! It's a lot of work but worth it even without sales. What job doesn't have its brunt of grunt work? Of course include your web site on the cards that describe the painting or have business cards available there for people that may want one. What an artist have a "Business card"? Absolutely!! And many of them! MyArtClub: Time spent promoting takes away from time creating art, how do you balance this out? Jane: I work fast so that helps. It has been interesting to find out about running a business and learning as I go. I do not have a business background (it's actually in Biology) however getting a degree prepared me for perseverance in completing tasks. Much of my time creating inspires me to want to share my work with others and thus gets me to the computer to upload images and post updates. I have a digital camera that I like because I do not have to take a whole roll to developed them so when I finish a painting I feel it gets it's little showing right away as I put it on the web. It may take much longer for me to actually frame it and get it to a gallery so I guess I like that initial landmark of at least getting my painting on the web. And it's important to pat yourself on the back once in awhile! In Part 3 of the article, Jane discusses the benefits of having her site. About Jane Appleby Jane Appleby has been an artist on MyArtClub.Com since spring 2000. She is program coordinator and past president of the Burnaby Artist Guild, as well as active member of the Federation of Canadian Artists, Artfully Yours and the Burnaby Arts Council. Our thanks to Jane Appleby for her valuable contribution with this article. This article was first published in the My Art News Letter #9 read more ...

There are lots of easy ways to increase your traffic and build your customer base. Your own traffic building efforts will guarantee a huge difference to your site visits. Here are 6 top ways: Add more artwork. Most artists with more hits have more art on line. If you have unused art space on your website, fill it up, and enjoy more traffic. If you are not sure what to do, especially newer artists please don't hesitate to email the [email protected] for assistance. You can add more art at any time, and even add more art spaces as needed. Keep your art work current. Active artists change some of their images and information at least every couple months. It does not take long to keep your content up to date and the payoff is great. Visitors will return often to your site for more when they find it is changing! Invite your fans to see your work on line This is one of the key ways to increase your traffic, especially to easily keep in touch with your customers. After you load or reload an art work, use our "Notify Fans" feature to send an email with your personal comments and a direct link to the art image just loaded. Got some news you want to share? Let your network know! Update your mailing list. Your customer and network list is gold for you. If you send out emails (the fastest and least cost way to keep in touch) you need to keep your email list current. Load up your email list to your website by logging in to your site then click on "Market your artist site", then click on "Maintain your mailing list information." You can load up your email addresses either one at a time or in bulk. Contact us if you need any help. Use your web address. Three ideas for showing your website address (shown on your webpage, i.e. www.MyArtClub.Com/Joe.Smith): 1) at the bottom of all correspondence and email, 2) on all pamphlets or business cards and 3) on any listing of you as an artist, or art group. List your web page with search engines and directories. Listing your website and art work can increase your traffic especially for new customers. MyArtClub.Com has links on line to several free search engines and directories sources. Click on our "Links" page which is found from the main MyArtClub.Com page, on the right hand column under "Resources". This article first appeared in the My Art News Letter #12 read more ...

The way Google, Yahoo, AltaVista and other search engines review the artist and art pages is constantly changing. Google recently added a new process whereby the artist and art pages are presented in an XML format referred to as a sitemap. This sitemap provides Google and other search engines with a speedier way to find and catalogue your website, access all the links on your site and track the last time site pages were updated. MyArtClub.Com is pleased to advise you we have added this enhancement for all the artist, group, art and blog pages within MyArtClub.Com. We feel it is important to constantly update your site with these new methods so your website pages are most easily found by all those searching for you. This article was first published in the My Art News Letter #21 read more ...

Who are these people? This is a question every artist website owner asks, as the number of hits grows. Let us try to look into how Google can help. Most web services offer rudimentary hit or page counts. But there are many more statistics about your visitors beyond counts. Google has tackled this issue head on, and provides a free but very sophisticated tool called Google Analytics. You might wonder why Google provides this for free. By helping their clients know how to improve their site, Google knows their paying advertisers will increase their advertising spend. So Google Analytics tries to provide everything you need. Google Analytics is easy to install. All you have to do is sign up and paste some code on your website. Some artist website services such as our site, MyArtClub.Com make this an easy one step thing to do. Analyzing site traffic is a great way to see what your visitor is doing on your website. You get to follow what your customers are doing online. You win by learning from them, and adapting your website to take maximum advantage. This article will not describe each feature and how to use it. Google does a good job of course on their resources pages. See the brief product tour for an overview Here are couple of good overviews written for artists of the basics of Google Analytics related to marketing art Marketing Art Online: Using Google Analytics and Why all online artists and art bloggers should use Google Analytics Cutting to the chase, here is how you can use this powerful tool to augment results for each of the three main goals of an artists websites: to show, connect and sell. (Click here for a discussion on these goals) Showing your art - Google Analytics helps here to: Know your customer. You can count your traffic, break it down by geography, and where the traffic came from. Action: Based on where it is coming from, or what search terms attracted the traffic, you are encouraged to do more of what worked, less of what did not. Judge your content. Take a look at this artists report in the illustration below, it shows percentages of who clicked where on the page. Interestingly, the first and last positions have higher numbers of clicks. Action: Experiment with moving art pieces around to see if traffic moves with the piece or with the positioning. This is useful, as it shows which art attracted most interest. Can you add more art like the ones of most interest? Connect to your customer - Google Analytics helps here to: Measure the results of your promotions. When you invite your mailing list to view your latest works, or send out a newsletter, you can see how the number of visitors is affected over the next few hours and days. Action: Experiment with tracking the effect on your traffic of different types of promotions, such as emails or newspaper articles, or mail pieces, even handing out flyers at an Art in the Park event. Follow these events to see what creates more traffic. Sell to your customer- Google Analytics helps here to: Measure the sales you get. When clients visit your site see how many enter the sales process pages. How many complete that process? Were there steps on the process where more exited the sales process than on other pages? How might you adjust the ordering pages? Action: Experiment with different types of sales pages or page content, such as varying the sales story, trying special offers, etc. Your goal is to see what works better, and keep improving and tweaking your sales approach. Caution: Measures of traffic and attention mean nothing. You want to meaningfully expand your audience and build their trust. Audience: Just measuring Google page view counts and traffic increases does not mean you are developing an audience or growth in the community that you wish to serve. Measure growth in your mailing lists, or interactions from your audience (interactions like comments on blogs, emails to you, etc) to show progress with your art marketing. Trust: Just measuring attention your website gets in traffic and time spent, does not mean you are building trust. It is trust that truly defines the digital connection you have with your audience. Building online trust takes a lot of time. Be authentic and deliver value consistently to your audience to build trust. The bottom line: What then exactly is the value of Google Analytics to artists?!?! Answer - a general indication of your marketing efforts, and a way to identify potential changes to make. Try the actions suggested above, prioritized depending on your artist website goals. Take an interest in learning more about your customers by following their activities on your site, you may be in for some surprises! Set up your Google Analytics, wait a week, and see what your biggest "ah-ha" may be. What did you find? read more ...