Serious about winning the attention of a good art gallery or dealer? If so, you need to understand the core common elements that successful art gallery directors and art sales people look for when they visit and review your artist website.

In our experience Galleries, Art Dealers, and Art Buyers have as many views of how work should be showcased online as there are stars in the sky. The wonderful thing is that these skills and preferences have been developed through the process of actually buying and selling art. Don’t ever under-estimate the experience and skill required to do this consistently – at Art Marketing Secrets we take our hats off to good art salespeople – and you can learn a lot from them.

In the last five years we’ve talked to a lot of galleries and dealers and we’ve found there are common elements which most agree on regarding what they like to see when they visit artist websites. Here is a snapshot for you to focus on:

1. You might only have a few seconds to make an impression! Art dealers are business people who need to sell to survive and prosper. While they may love art, their primary focus is the business of art. If the first impression from your website doesn’t get their attention you’ve lost them. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Who needs an artists website?

Not everyone! If you are currently exhibiting in multiple high-end galleries and
making a handsome income, a website may not be for you. In fact, it might actually
work against you – some galleries may not like the perceived threat of you showing
your work independently on the internet. Better to make use of your gallery’s
websites.

On the other hand, any artist who can classify themselves as either “emerging” or
“mid-career” will probably benefit from having their own website to promote their
work. At this stage of your career it is important to be able to have a place where
anyone in the world can easily access and view your work. It is also important that
your work looks as wonderful as you know it is!

2. Who are you trying to impress?

Are you trying to engage a Soho gallery to sell your $20,000 paintings or sell $5
prints to children in Korea? “Art” encompasses a huge variety of media, audiences,
and budgets, and you need to be very clear about who you are targeting with your
site. That Soho gallery might not be impressed when they see your online-store
selling prints and art cards – but on the other hand, you could make a very
handsome living if you really knew how to market those art cards. If you want to
have multiple marketing strategies, you might even need to think about more than
one website and maybe using a non-de-plume. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re like most artists with a website, you started out with a dream that collectors would actually find you through search engines. But the reality for most artists is:

Your website floats alone in cyberspace with almost no visitors!

Read the rest of this entry »