20 Smart Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Art Website

By Carolyn Edlund

Artists, want to increase visitors to your site and gain visibility? Here are just some of many techniques you can use get more exposure for your work by attracting traffic, spreading your influence, understanding your audience and analyzing your statistics.

Promote other artists. The art community works best when we support each other. Give praise (and links) to those who deserve it. And respond to others linking to you!
Link to your Twitter profile and your Facebook fan page on your site. Make sure you have an RSS feed which people can subscribe to so they know when you post and add to your blog. You can also send your RSS feed to your FB fan page to create updates.
Prominently feature your website address on your business card.
Add a “Like” button to your website. When readers click this, it sends a link back to their Facebook feed page, letting their friends know about your site. Find out how to do it here.
Open a Google Analytics account and put this system on your site (instructions are easy). You will be able to track your visitors and find out which referring sites they are coming from, what keywords they use and where they are located. Find out who your audience is, and play to your strengths.
Open a Feedburner account and start an email mailing list. Each time you add a post, they will be notified. Track your stats and your readers.
Connect with social bookmarking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit.
Offer a tutorial, special event such as a giveaway, contest, poll or guest blogger. Promote them on your Facebook page, and Twitter.
Send out tweets about your site, but not too many. Tweet about others 3-4 times more than promoting your site. When you do, use hashtags – #art, #photography, etc., whatever applies. This spreads the word farther.
Want to spread your tweets? Simple. Send out a tweet and mention “Please retweet”. Find out more on the science of Retweets from Dan Zarrella.
Write about events. Have an upcoming gallery opening? Mention, and link to the event. Keywords about those events will bring up your site in a search.
Write an article about your expertise – you can submit it to EzineArticles, GoArticles, ArticleDashboard, Squidoo, and others
Join groups which promote blogs such as BlogCatalog, Blogged. They have communities which discuss and promote each other’s blog sites.
Join and become active in artists’ communities online and gallery sites, such as Wet Canvas.
How-to articles are great. Check out Lori McNee’s Fine Art Tips website and Miranda Aschenbrenner’s Learn to Art site for great examples.
LinkedIn discussion groups are a terrific source of traffic. Join in the discussion and use links to your website in them. You can join as many as 50 groups. You can also answer questions in their Answers section, and link to your site there.
Start an email newsletter to your visitors and your customers. Once a month is fine, do it consistently and not too often. AWeber and Constant Contact are good companies that can help you maximize your email marketing.
Join Facebook groups and post your links on those pages. Create a fan page for your work or an art topic you are passionate about, and invite your friends. Join other groups, make friends there and get them to recommend your page to their friends. Do the same for them.
Visit Craigslist in your area under “Communities”, look for the “artists” community, where you may find opportunities to network and spread the word.
Write a guest blog for other art websites. Fine Art Views, for example, solicits guest articles. If you can write well, take advantage of the publicity.