Share Your Blog Experience!

I use blogger and have just revamped the site to better reflect not only my photography, but my career as a teacher as well. http://www.kerrimortenson.com/

Nice blog, Kerri! I like your curling plant picture as well as the whirlpoo!

How has having a blog helped you?

Hi Maxwell, I started writing my blog about a month ago. I use wordpress.com - Oxygen theme. I really like it, though it took me some time to find out how it works. I also have experience with blogger. Blogger is very easy to use. However, I prefer wordpress as it offers a lot of professional looking themes including the most frequent widgets. Feel free to visit my blog :) http://petraterslova.wordpress.com/

Mine is a Weebly site, and I use the blog feature that comes with it. Half of all of my traffic lands there first, so I'm pretty happy with it considering I just started it in June and haven't had much of a chance to post to it with my son being home from school and all. But it has already led to some interesting opportunities that resulted in sales, so all in all, I can't complain.

http://www.aprilmoen.com/blog

I use blogger: http://mary-ellen-anderson-fine-art.blogspot.com/

I have to say that I really like blogging. Maybe because it's new to me but so far I find it very interesting and rewarding.

I have recently figured out how to pull my blog into my website: https://www.meafineart.com


This allows me to get exposure on my blog without having to separately promote it. I also am starting to get people wanting to post my blog posts or have me write for their blog. So if you surprise yourself like I did in apparent undiscovered writing talent than blogging can be a serious branding and marketing tool and a lot of fun.


--mary ellen anderson

Petra- Nice blog! I like your coming soon post, I never thought of that, wish I had implemented that myself.

April- I like the variety of things to explore on your blog. Great job on the hornet painting.

Mary- Diggin the post about fine art printing, you guys have good ideas to write about.

fyi:
Immediately after I posted this I did changes to my blog that won't reflect in the webpage till the servers update. So it will be tomorrow before you can see the way the blog can be pulled into the website.
--mary ellen anderson

I am in the process of resurrecting an old blog to re-focus on my photography. It is built on Wordpress installed on my own server and using my own name - http://www.BillSwartwout.com - as the URL. I am using it more as a content management system (CMS) that a real blog; I don't intend to post ongoing articles. I want the ability to easily upload copies of my photographs and describe them using slightly different narrative and keywords than I use here on my AW.

~ Bill
~ USPictures.com.

Hi, Maxwell (do you prefer Maxwell or Max or something else?),

Your blog is looking good you're off to a great start! :-)

I've been blogging for 7+ years, on the Blogger platform. In the beginning, it was a way to talk about my art and tell my backstories. I work very independently, and know few artists in the 'real world'; a blog fills some of that void.

As I continued to blog, I found it to be a great networking tool -- both with other artists AND non-artists -- and an awesome way to send traffic to my website(s). After about two years of blogging, I realized I was making sales directly through my blog . . . which was great and really helped build my online presence.

Three years of blogging left me with a severe case of 'Blogger Burnout'. Despite the increased sales, I was spending so much time writing the blog, responding to comments on the blog, visiting and commenting on other blogs, making guests posts on other blogs, etc., that I had less time to focus on my art. Blogging was eating about four hours of my day. Not a good thing.

So, I stepped back. W-a-y back!

I've really only started blogging semi-regularly again in the past few months, and I'm much more comfortable with the way things are now. In the few years I was away, things like Facebook and Twitter became the preferred way for people on the 'net to communicate. So, I don't have the pressure of reading and responding to dozens of comments per day. I enjoy the smaller number, and more art- or blog-centric conversations I now have.

Luckily, though, all my archived posts are still available, so I often get readers -- and sometimes, sales -- from all the work I put in during those early days.

I think blogging is a win-win proposition: it's great for SEO, link-sharing, self-expression, news, and as a showcase for my work. And, unless you do something really crazy (I once accidentally lost hundreds of posts and comments), your blog posts are out there to entertain, inspire, educate, and/or encourage buyers . . . forever!

My multi-page blog works like a pseudo-website, and as it's been out there for years, there are links to it in nooks and crannies all over the web. That encourages a lot of passive traffic and opportunities, even when I'm not actively blogging. I'm trying to work my way back up to blogging every other day; I found that level of consistent posting showed the greatest benefits to my art business.

Unfortunately, I recently found that my 'subscribe box' is not working; it's on the To Do list. (Regular maintenance is another part of blogging!)

I do have a personal domain that I use with my blog, which makes the address easier for people to read and remember. Visit me at:

http://art166.info

Best of luck, Maxwell! :-)

Maxwell .... listen to Weandy.


Since you're on WordPress here is some information for you: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/blogging-university/


I just Followed you, but here is mine anyways: http://FrankJCasella.WordPress.com

Thanks for the back-up, Frank! :-)

You're always providing insightful information Wendy.

... though I'm still learning how to spell your name it seems.

I've answered to worse.

Much worse! ;-)

20

20

20

Maxwell, I checked out your site and it looks like it is coming along.

One of the plugins that I would highly recommend is "Limit Login Attempts". This will prevent people from making repeated attempts at logging into your site with malicious intent. As my site has grown in popularity, so have the number of hijack attempts that I have received. In one night, I had +5,600 lockouts due to an attack.

Something else that I would suggest is removing the link to login to your admin page. If you look at my site, there is nowhere for people to login and this prevents them from doing any harm.

Guest blogging is great way to not only afford others the opportunity to get a quality backlink to their site, but you may find that writing for other people's blogs will help you get some traffic as well.

The main thing that is needed for a successful site, as many others will tell you, is that you have to have good content. If the content of your site continues to draw people, it doesn't matter what changes are made with Google's search algorithms or anything else that is in constant flux. Present something that people are looking for and you will get the traffic.

Getting traffic is great, but worthless to both of us if we are not converting sales from that traffic.

Make sure that you make a call to action on your site to draw people to purchasing your art.

I use MailChimp for my newsletter and give a discount for my subscribers. That has worked well for me.

I wish you the best in your endeavors.

~ whispering ~ okay . . . what just happened?

lol, Wendy.

Another thing we should mention in blogging (or anywhere in IT-land) is weird electronic gremlins.
-- mary ellen anderson

I finally got around to starting one up just this weekend. I copied and pasted the last one I did on FAA, but really need to study up on how better to word press.

http://joethephotog.wordpress.com/2014/08/23/odd-things-you-find-on-a-hard-drive/

i use a self hosted wordpress install and i love it. i can do whatever i want with my blog. design it how i want, post whatever content i want, sell ad space, etc. and no one can tell me no :P

Hi!

I am an artist, blogger, teacher and mom. I started an art website and blog a few months ago and it is going great. My favourite part is blogging! Who knew? I have an account through weebly and I love it. I sure made some big mistakes starting out...and yes, I blogged about it. People seem to like to read about epic failures...hmmm.

Check out my blog at http://www.artbyalisonnewth.com/blog.html

I would love to get some more comments!!!!!

Cheers, Alison

Allison - Wonderful blog - I read several of your blogs - and then I know why I don't - you have real knack for doing it. your blog is well done, creative and easy to use. It was also 'entertaining' as well as useful.

I am so jealous of everyone's blogs...they look really good!!

@Wendy "Fantastic"...I don't know how you do it!

I've been trying to blog but I'm really not very good at it and it feels like a chore. Since the consensus seems to be it helps in marketing, I try.

I started with blogger with a cat blog about 3 years ago. http://facesofmisty.blogspot.com/2011/10/pleased-to-meet-you.html I believe this blog helps in sales of my pet greeting cards I have on another site.

My next blog I dedicated to my photography. http://joannvitali.blogspot.com/ I'm not sure if this is helping sales as I really have few followers...but I guess it doesn't hurt.

Hey, guys! THanks to everyone who responded! I had not considered the threats David mentioned. I am using wordpress.com, the free version so I do not believe I can download that plug in. Does anyone know of any alternatives that would work for wordpress.com? Also great blogs everyone, nice to see such diversity.

Joanne,
I think it's interesting that many here were surprised like I was that writing was something we were fairly good at. So I'm inclined to think that it's an easier crossover for an artist than most professions. But just like in your art, it has to be genuinely interesting subject to you first before you can paint about it (at least well).

Now i'm going to guess that even though your doing this to market your art, marketing art isn't the most interesting topic to you (or maybe even one you know much about). So don't try and write a sales page, write about any topic you find interesting and then find a way to decorate it with your art. Like someone said, people love hearing about your failures and struggles, personal life, ideology, etc..

You're job as an artist isn't to sell art, it's to build a value in your name (interest). Build enough value in your name and it will be worth it to sell by someone whose job that is.

Your blog should be IMHO very lite on the sales pitch, and really heavy on just plain entertaining. So make it fun for you; it's your stage, just worry about putting on an entertaining show. The sales will follow.
--mary ellen anderson

Mary Ellen,

Thank you very much for taking the time responding. I really appreciate and value your input and will implement your advice in my future blogs. I did find it a lot easier to write my blogs about my cat Misty, as you can tell, there are many more of them than there are art blogs. :)

http://janifreimann.blogspot.com/

Here's mine. I've been bad about posting to my blog. Especially during the summer. Soon I'll do more of them more often, but first I'm doing a re-think on it. Post more often, less lengthy, and with pics.

I too hear about how great it is for marketing. Must get through the summer first. Kids at home and all that jazz.

There was a thread recently on how you developed as an artist that I think would make a great blog post, at least for those of us that have been at this a decade or so. And it's really interesting to look back at your work and analyse this in yourself.

-- mary ellen anderson