The 2026 Artist Website Study

What 107 Artists Told Us About Their Websites

 

About the Study

In July 2026, Artsy Shark invited artists to submit their websites for a complimentary professional review. As part of the process, 107 artists answered two open-ended questions: “What are your biggest art website challenges?” and “What do you most want your website to accomplish?”

We analyzed their anonymous responses. Clear patterns emerged around sales, traffic, collectors, presentation and the role an artist website plays in building an art business.

What Do Artists Want Their Websites to Accomplish?

One result stood well above the others: artists want their websites to help them sell their work.

But sales aren’t the only measure of a productive website. Artists also want to attract collectors and buyers, reach galleries and other art professionals, generate inquiries and commissions, build their email audience and present their work professionally.

Artists Want Business Results

The responses show that artists don’t necessarily expect their websites to function simply as online stores. Some want direct sales. Others want a collector to contact them, a designer to discover their work, a gallery to consider representation, or a prospective client to inquire about a commission.

A successful artist website should be built around the action the artist wants a qualified visitor to take. For one artist, that may be clicking Buy Now. For another, success might mean an inquiry, email signup, commission request or professional opportunity.

Where Are Artist Websites Falling Short?

The most frequently mentioned challenge was traffic and discoverability. Artists struggle with getting found, attracting the right visitors and increasing their visibility online. But bringing people to a website doesn’t guarantee results.

More Traffic Alone Isn’t the Answer

Some artists told us they already receive website visitors, but those visitors aren’t becoming buyers. One respondent reported more than 1,000 website visitors without generating a website sale. Another artist said, “I get visitors, but hardly ever any sales.” And a third described the issue as simply, “Getting visitors to it who turn into buyers.”

These are actually different business problems. An artist who isn’t attracting visitors needs a strategy for discovery and marketing. An artist who already has visitors but isn’t receiving sales or inquiries needs to look at what happens after someone arrives.

Is the artwork presented effectively? Are prices and purchasing information clear? Does the site establish confidence in the artist? Is there an obvious next step?

What Did the Professional Website Reviews Find?

The questionnaire told us what artists believed their biggest website problems were. But each artist had also submitted a website for a professional review by Artsy Shark’s website expert Hallie Edlund.

We analyzed the findings from 52 of those reviews to see which problems appeared most frequently on the websites themselves. The results revealed an interesting difference between what artists were concerned about and what the reviews actually found.

The Most Common Problems Found on Artist Websites

The professional reviews repeatedly identified these issues:

1. An unclear path to buying or inquiring. This was the most consistent problem. Interested visitors often had to work too hard to determine what was available, what it cost and how to take the next step. Common problems included missing prices, no inquiry button next to individual artwork, available work mixed with sold work, hard-to-find shops and purchasing instructions that simply told buyers to email the artist.

2. Artwork descriptions were missing or too limited. Many artwork pages included a title, medium and dimensions, but little else. The reviews frequently recommended adding information about inspiration, process, materials, subject matter or the story behind an individual piece. This type of content can help potential buyers connect with the work while also providing useful text for search engines.

3. Pricing was missing or unclear. Potential buyers often couldn’t determine what the artwork cost. In some cases, pricing was available only after several clicks or required contacting the artist. When exact prices cannot be published, providing price ranges, starting prices or an obvious way to request pricing can remove some of that uncertainty.

4. Homepages weren’t directing visitors. Many homepages looked attractive, but didn’t give visitors clear choices about where to go next. A homepage can direct people toward available work, collections, commissions, an online shop, email signup or other areas that support the artist’s particular business goals.

5. Navigation made the website harder to use. Artists with long careers, several bodies of work or multiple income streams were especially susceptible to this problem. The issue wasn’t having variety. It was presenting so many choices that visitors had difficulty determining where to go.

6. Contact pages didn’t encourage contact. Many sites had a contact form or email address, but gave visitors little indication of what types of inquiries were welcome. A few lines inviting questions about available work, commissions, pricing, studio visits, gallery opportunities or other relevant subjects can make the next step much clearer.

What Artists Thought vs. What the Reviews Found

This may be the most revealing finding of the study. Artists identified traffic and discoverability as their #1 website challenge. But the professional reviews most consistently found problems with what happened after someone reached the website.

Visitors couldn’t always tell what was available. Prices were missing or difficult to find. Artwork lacked descriptions. Inquiry paths weren’t obvious. Homepages didn’t direct people toward the artist’s business goals. Hallie’s reviews repeatedly found this disconnect. Artists who wanted more traffic often also had website problems that could prevent additional visitors from becoming buyers, subscribers or inquiries.

More Traffic May Not Be Your First Priority

If your website receives 500 visitors and very few take action, bringing another 500 people to the same website may not change the result. Before concentrating entirely on increasing traffic, look at the experience you’re giving the visitors you already have.

• Can they quickly tell what you sell?
• Can they see what is available?
• Can they find prices or easily request them?
• Can they learn something meaningful about individual works?
• Do they know how to buy, inquire or stay connected?

Those questions shift the focus from simply getting people to your website to making the website more useful once they arrive.

The Art Wasn’t the Problem

There was another encouraging pattern in the professional reviews. The artwork itself was frequently considered strong, distinctive, cohesive or professionally presented. In many cases, it was the strongest element of the website.

The problem was that the website didn’t always support the way people actually discover and buy art. Artists didn’t necessarily need completely new websites. Many needed strategic improvements to the websites they already had.

What Can You Do About It?

The professional reviews generated many individual recommendations, but several appeared repeatedly.

Make buying or inquiring easy. Every available work should have an obvious next step, whether that’s Buy Now, Inquire About This Work, Request Price or another appropriate action.

Give individual artworks more context. Go beyond title, medium and dimensions when there is a story, inspiration, process or other information that can help someone understand the work.

Make pricing clear. Show prices when appropriate. If you don’t, make the process for requesting pricing easy to understand.

Put your homepage to work. Use it to direct visitors toward the parts of your website that support your goals.

Simplify choices. Organize collections and navigation around what visitors need rather than trying to put your entire career into the main menu.

Review the small details. Broken links, outdated copyright dates, poor image crops, typos and empty pages can make an otherwise professional website feel unfinished. These seemingly minor trust issues appeared more frequently than expected in the reviews.

Need Help With Your Own Art Website?

If some of the challenges in this study sound familiar, Artsy Shark’s website expert Hallie Edlund works one-on-one with artists on professional websites and practical art marketing strategies.

Whether you need a new website or want to improve the way your existing site supports your business, Hallie can help you clarify what the site needs to accomplish, present your work effectively and develop a marketing strategy for reaching the right audience.

What the Study Tells Us

The 107 artists who participated in our survey clearly want their websites to accomplish business goals. Most of all, they want them to help generate sales. They also told us that getting traffic and being discovered is their biggest challenge.

The professional reviews add another dimension. They suggest that attracting more visitors isn’t always the first problem an artist should solve. A website must also be ready to help an interested visitor understand the work and take the next step. A successful artist website doesn’t need to be complicated. It needs to answer the questions that matter to the people the artist wants to reach: What is this artist offering? What is available? Why should I be interested? And what should I do next?

About the Research

The 2026 Artsy Shark Artist Website Study combines two sources of information. First, 107 artists who requested a complimentary professional website review answered two open-ended questions:

1. What are your biggest art website challenges?
2. What do you most want your website to accomplish?

Their anonymous responses were reviewed and categorized according to recurring themes. Individual responses could be included in more than one category when they clearly expressed multiple challenges or objectives. For this reason, percentages do not total 100%.

We also analyzed findings from 52 professional website reviews completed for participating artists by Artsy Shark website expert Hallie Edlund. This analysis was used to identify recurring problems observed on the websites themselves.

Because the professional review analysis is based on 52 websites and some findings were recorded as approximate ranges, we have presented those findings as recurring themes rather than percentages.

Source: Artsy Shark, 2026 Artist Website Study