Art Sales Success Online

Online Art Rule #1: A poorly presented website will scare off collectors and dealers faster than you can click your mouse. This email will give you the scoop on what arts professionals look for when they view your website.

Welcome and thanks for signing up to receive our email series "6 Steps to Art Sales Success Online".

Success in any business in the 21st century depends on having systems in place to take care of the repetitive tasks. This series will be a short and sweet primer on how to build a solid foundation and system for art sales that will leave you more freedom to actually be an artist!

Stage 1: Showcase Your Work Beautifully and Professionally

More and more arts professionals are looking to the Internet to review the work of emerging and mid-career artists. Why? Because it is simpler than dealing with large volumes of paper-portfolios. It's also better for the artist as there is considerable cost and time involved in sending out large numbers of paper and slide portfolios to galleries and dealers.

So, what is important in a website? What do arts professionals look for?

Remember the times that you've visited a really top-notch art gallery or museum? You were probably aware of a feeling of beauty and elegance and found that the art really captured your imagination or provoked a strong feeling in you.

Did you realize that only a part of the reason you liked the art was the art itself? The other part of the picture that your subconscious drank in while you were enjoying the champagne was the subtle work of the Curator. Curating is an art form in its own right: look more closely the next time you are in a fine gallery.

It's no different when you showcase your work online. A really excellent artist's website will create an ambiance of beauty, elegance, or mystery around the work. It may shock you or bring a feeling of harmony. It might make you feel energized. How is this done?

It's simple. A good designer has many of the same qualities as a museum curator. There are things that your eye won't see on the website, but your subconscious will - subtle choices of color, layout, font, kerning, and structure all build to create an ambiance for the art.

Designers and curators know how to do this from years of training and experience, together with talent! Here are some points to consider when you are planning the visual design of your website. Designers often use these themes as a starting point.

- Keep it simple and elegant

- Keep the focus on the art itself

- Use neutral background colors that compliment the work. Good choices are black, charcoal, white, and off-white shades. Other colors can look good depending on the art. Avoid bright colors which draw the attention away from the work

- Don't overpower the look of the art or distract with a site that looks too "busy".

- Don't have ads all over your site - it cheapens the art and your image. We recommend that you have no advertising on your website, or if you must, it should be confined to a section focused on resources or links.

- As a general rule, we recommend against having large numbers of art-works on your website. Choose your very best work, just as you would choose slides for a regular portfolio, and add new work as it becomes available. Some portfolio websites will allow you to put up as many as 100 pieces of your work, but we think its too distracting. Many of the sites we design have 20 or fewer works on display. Think about this: when was the last time you went to a high-end gallery that had hundreds of pieces showing?

- Avoid designer-ish effects such as flash movies unless they are executed very efficiently and really compliment the art. In the time it takes to play your exotic flash-based entry page your visitor may have moved on.

If you follow these simple guidelines, you will be well on the way to a good artists website.

A good website should also showcase the artist herself. Selling art is about someone buying your art AND the image they feel from you as an artist. A well executed website may never replace a meeting with a collector or dealer, but it can be the key factor that piques their interest and results in the meeting. The value of that is priceless.

Your artist's website is the foundation on which you will build your complete online-marketing strategy. Every marketing tool and program will seek to draw attention to your website gallery. It's worth putting in the investment in time, thought, and money to make it great!