9 Reasons Why Blogs Are Good For Artists

I just read today’s post on the Art Biz Blog and Alyson was sharing an email that she received concerning her recent four-part series on the benefits of blogging for artists. This particular artist was stating her skepticism of about how blogging could benefit her art…

“You have been spending much time on blogs and I have to admit , I still don’t get it!!!!! If blogs are just to have artists spend time, a lot of time, chatting, is this really a smart use of our time/energy? I am already plenty busy DOING art, and trying to sell it , tell me again what good blogging does? I’m just not convinced that it either helps you make better art, or sell that art. If it doesn’t do those things, why are you pushing it? Just because it’s cool?”

I’m quite sure that this artist isn’t alone when it comes to her opinion of blogging…and she’s right on many points. Yes, artists are plenty busy doing art, trying to sell it and promote it and the last thing that we need is something else to do.

But blogs aren’t just some flash in the pan, gee-whiz technology that’s going to go away next week. Trust me, when major media outlets like CNN start paying attention to bloggers, it’s not something people are doing just to be cool. So for all you skeptical artists out there, here’s 9 reasons why blogs are good for you:

1. You attract more engine traffic- Search engines love content…they especially love new content. On a static web site, they’ll visit a couple times and if things on your web site don’t change much…they’ll stop visiting. If you’re updating your blog once a week, that encourages search engines to visit your site more, which makes your site more likely to show up in search engine search…which means more people will be visiting your site. You can even set your blog software up to notify search engines and blog directories automatically every time you update your blog, so search engines will visit your site more often.

2. Your customers love new content- Your current and potential customers are a lot like search engines…they love content, especially if it’s new. If you don’t have anything new on your web site, there’s really no reason for your customers to return. Give them a compelling blog to read and they’ll return again and again to see what’s new.

3. Links to your site will travel far and wide- Bloggers are a yappy bunch. If they find a newspaper article or a blog posting or a web site that they like…or dislike, they’ll blog about it because they are always trying to find something new to post about for their readers. The most popular post I’ve written for this blog “How to Change Your Email Address?Painlessly” was written back in the beginning of February and I’m still getting traffic from all over the world because of it. Several other blogs linked to that post and I’m getting a steady amount of traffic to that particular post months later…and it shows no sign of letting up. In my jewelry blog, I wrote a guide about many different types of craft shows called A Savvy Field Guide to Craft Shows and it was the shock of my life when a someone visited my booth a couple months later and said, “Hey I read that guide you wrote on your web site and showed it to my friend.” Apparently she was doing a search for craft shows, came across that particular blog posting and then looked through the rest of my web site. When she saw that I was going to be at a show in her area, she decided to stop by…and ended up buying two pairs of earrings.

*And to further proof a point, Alyson linked to the web site of the artist that sent the email, and I’ll do so as well because she does beautiful work…which may never have seen…had I not read about her in Alyson’s blog. Link

4. Blogs make you human- People love buying from artists because they are buying you as much as they are buying your work. While a static web page can be designed to reflect your artwork and your personality, a well-written blog can bring your work and web site to life through little glimpses into your life as an artist. I’m not suggesting that you blog about what you had for breakfast this morning, because your customers will probably find that as boring as you do. But there’s plenty about what you do as an artist that’s just fascinating to your customers. Your work process, how you develop new work, how you come up with ideas, news about what you’re doing next, where you or you work is going to be, and a whole range of topics. If you’re stumped for what you should write for you blog, check out Chris Garrett?s free ebook on how to create killer content for your blog.

5. Blogs are free and easy to set up- There are plenty of ways to promote yourself that costs money…but blogging isn’t one of them. You can get a free blog at Blogger or Wordpress.org and be set up and ready to blog in 10 minutes…for free. Even if you don’t know HTML, you can still easily set up a blog.

6. The people that read blogs are a good demographic for artists- In her four part series, Alyson quoted some conclusions from a 2005 survey of blog readership. In general, the folks who tend to read blogs also tend to be wealthier, tends to surf more online, and tends to buy more online. What artist wouldn’t want to tap into that demographic?

7. Blogging is only as time consuming as you make it- Some people spend 10 minutes a week updating their blog while others spend hours. How often you update your blog and how long you spend on it is entirely up to you. While posting to your blog once every couple of months is not a good idea, once a every couple of week is a good starting point…once a week is even better. If you get into a time crunch and have to put posting to your blog off for a couple of week, you can easily get back on track when you have the time.

8. Building a blog is cheaper and easier than building a web site- Want a web site without the hassle of building one? Want a web site but don’t know the first thing about how to do it? Build a blog instead! Blog services and blog software makes it easy for an artist to start building a presence on the web without having prior knowledge of web design or HTML. If you want to test out the web for selling your work, do what many other artists are doing. Get a free blog from a service like Blogger and then open and account on eBay or Etsy for selling your work. You can start to get the hang of this web thing without forking over a lot of money and without a lot of expertise. Once you start becoming more knowledgeable about the web, you can transition your blog into a full blown web site if you wish.

9. Blogging makes you smarter, more creative, and better looking- Okay, so the better looking part isn’t true, but a side benefit of blogging is often more knowledge and creativity. I read Luann Udell’s blog on a regular basis and I recently interviewed her for my upcoming podcast. When I asked her about her blog, she said that she found that it sometimes helped her solve out creative issues in her work and her business. I find myself reading more blogs and finding out things that I would not have otherwise found had I not been blogging and exploring other people’s blogs such as news about new shows, new galleries, exhibitions, new products, and all kinds of information. And remember that blogging is not a one-way street. If you allow people to leave comments, you may find that some of your visitors may have useful things to add to your posts.

I’m sure that there’s plenty of benefits that I’ve missed, but 9 is a good start. Now you shouldn’t get the impression that if you build a blog it means that an army of paying customers are going to beat a virtual path to your web site…although that’s isn’t entirely impossible. Blogs are just one of many tools that artists can use to promote themselves and their work and there are many potential benefits. If you don’t have a blog already, you should take some time to check it out.