As an artist, your main goal will be to get as big a following as possible to enable you to sell your art for the best prices so that you can be self-sufficient on your art alone. Of course there are many types of advertising but some can be quite costly. Thankfully the internet has opened up a lot of free and low cost ways to reach the masses without breaking the bank. You don’t need to be rich to reach a wide amount of people; you just need to have time to be able to promote yourself and your artwork.
Start an art blog or website
The best place to start if you want to showcase your artwork and let people know more about you as the artist is to start a blogor create a website. If you are not tech savvy you may need a little help but there are lots of templates and tutorials online to help you along the way. By having your own blog or website you will be able to not only sell your art and promote yourself but also offer customer service and get feedback quickly. You can sell your art directly from your site or blog by adding a payment platform such as PayPal so you are not limited to only local buyers.
Once you have a blog or website you will need to get people to visit which you can do by optimizing the content. You can do this yourself by researching keywords or if you have the finances get a professional to optimize your existing content so that it can be picked up easily by search engines.
Rather than just thinking about using keywords such as your name you should think about what you would put into a search engine if you were to look for an artist yourself. Adding tutorials and tips is a great place to start.
Social Media
Most people and businesses now have a social network they use to promote themselves. Do not use your personal existing pages but set one up specifically for your artwork. Join groups for artists and buyers and be sure to add your link. You could also include tutorial videos in your post for people to use and share, greater increasing your reach. To make this venture successful you will need to communicate regularly to keep your posts relevant and increase your following.
YouTube Videos
As much as people like to use social networks people also use YouTube which is now ranking at number 2 for search engines. To take advantage of this create videos letting people know about you, showcase your art and show others how you get certain effects to keep them coming back for more. Each time you make a video be sure to not only upload it to YouTube but also post the video link to your social networking sites and blogs.
Guest posting
As you start to make new friends in the art world who also have blogs you could guest post on their blogs and let them do the same for them. This can help both of you to reach more people and costs nothing. As well as guest posting, find the most popular art bloggers and be sure to comment on their blogs. Many give you the option to leave links to your own site too so make whatever you post relevant and engaging.
Article directories
Another great way to get found is to post your articles onto article directories. They are usually broken down into certain niches so that it’s easier for people to find you. This amazing article about marketing yourself as an artist was written and produced by City and guild art school - http://www.cityandguildsartschool.ac.uk/. For newbies Cityandguild Art school is the premier art school in the United Kingdom. Seen as the top academic art school and based in the CBD of London. I you like this article then visit the website for more information.