Ways To Get Traffic To My Art

Its a crowded world with millions screaming "look at me!". To stand out you have to produce something so extraordinary that it goes viral or do something other people are not.

Keep in mind it takes years to build up an audience. Less than a year is nothing.

Displaying your art on a billboard in a parking lot should get "traffic" to your art

Hey i am just logging in again after about 8 months, I too have been a member for a bout 5 years.


Your photography is flawless. You are an excellent photographer.


I noticed i get some sales around the holidays... I think joining the groups within FAA is prolly a good way to get fans. So i am going to try that today.


along with uploading some of the art I have created lately. I noticed sometimes sales if I continually post new things. but seems like like get HITS from all over.


atleast I used to. Are you using good tags in your listing? like RED, Goldengate, SF , ect?


have you tried grunging your photos in PHOTOSHOP to make them look grungey? people love texture, and you could always combine images? maybe blend to two shots together?


Right now the pictures are flaweless. but could look edgy with a just 5 minutes of photoshop effects. DONT GIVE UP!


I am hoping to buy a CANON mark III in December, cause I need a second carreer soon!

holidays are coming up. I am amazed that people buy my stuff at 50"x50" for a print of something that is only digital. so 2 months to go before holiday season.


You started in January? you kinda missed the holiday ordering season, and Yeah 6 months on here aint that long.

Thanks for your replies. I meant to say my time on Fine Art America has been less than a year. I have much more professional experience than my time on fine art america. '

It just seems so odd how drawing traffic to your site takes much more effort than it would on other sites where you showcase photos.

I have had photos and other projects go viral before, just not here. In fact it is difficult just to get a few people to look at my photos on this site but have no problem elsewhere.

Are you regularly sharing and promoting on social media? You can't rely on being found here, you have to send people to your portfolio.

Twitter
Facebook
Tumblr
Reddit
Personal Blog
Participation in groups (Linkedin, Facebook, art websites)
(and many more like Pinterest and Wanelo and Houzz)

Do you have or are you building an email list and comunicating with those people?

Consider finding a local gallery, or shows and outlets to display your work. That can help a lot. Entering your work in contests and online shows outside of FAA can help too.

It's a long road, been about 10 years for me since I got serious about working toward making this a full time gig. Now I'm there, and it's still work and effort to promote and create every single day.

Robert,

Thank you for your help. I appreciate your comments. Yes, i do use photoshop quite a bit. I am aware of how to alter my photos in the ways you mention and is something I will consider. But I guess I would mostly just testing the waters of Fine Art America to see if people would even notice. And so far, most of my photos have been viewed less than a dozen times despite being online for several months.

I guess I was mostly looking for any tips on something I am missing or not doing or could do better with getting my photos more attention, ensuring they are found in search results, etc. I have followed all of the site's recommendations with keywords, SEO, imbedding the html code on my own website, etc. and it doesn't seem to help at all.

Thank you again for your help and suggestions.

Cynthia,

Yes I use social media quite extensively and am quite active and successful in getting attention that way. And in learning from my audience and their desires, they do want my photos as prints, canvases, etc. but seem reluctant to order through this site. They would rather have me complete the order and send it to them myself. And that is what I am leaning towards doing unless I start seeing some more promising activity on fineartamerica soon.

Thank you again for your time and suggestions!

"I have made a few sales, but I have seen such little traffic. All the sales I made were to people I was in contact with outside of the Fine Art America site and I simply redirected them there to make a purchase. "

I think that is already the key.

I have come back to FAA after ca. 15 months to give it another try knowing that putting up the images alone will not sell anything. Also I learned that you can get thousands of visitors to look, but only very few buy if at all. I had invested years in microsites to generate traffic to my artwork until the content farm finally shut down after serious google slap due to spammers. I lost virtually no art sales (there were almost none), but some income from google ads which had justified the effort until then.

So now I am at the point were I do not look for traffic, but for art buyers offline which I direct to FAA too.

Martin,

So it sounds like we have some similar issues with FAA. I signed up for an account with them to hopefully have a wider audience who would purchase my work. And that has not happened. I have little views, all the sales I have came from me referring people to the site to purchase.

I could do the store on my own, have more customization, control my prices better and not pay a commission, if I do it on my own. FAA has not been what I was expecting it to be for me.

Good luck.

I would guess this is the most common question in these discussions - and there have been lengthy and thoughtful responses.
Look back to find some of these.

But I think you'll find that they all pretty much end up in the same place ---- you have to do things in the real world to promote yourself and then drive that business to be fulfilled on FAA.

And you've already experienced this yourself. There really isn't any other answer which would make people find you out of the bazillions of images offered here and all over the internet.

As others have said, your work is wonderful! Good luck!

Hi James!

Wasn't there some famous Udall's from your neck of the woods that dabbled a bit in "public service"?

Welcome aboard! Your work is fantastic!

The key to sell on FAA is marketing and advertising OUTSIDE of FAA.

The other key may be in the numbers. You have 35 great images, but unless you are already famous or have a big following or some other special circumstances, the more images you have the more you are going to sell.

Here is some reading for you. Pay close attention to the first article and the 25/75 rule I talk about. Also make sure that you understanding that nothing you do inside of FAA is going to pay off anywhere near a big as the advertising and marketing you do outside of FAA.

Best of luck to you!

Response to new FAA member looking for advice
Another Response To A New Member Seeking Help
A Few Reasons Why You May Not Be Selling
Work Smarter Not Harder To Beat The Big Guys
50 Effective Tips to Help You Sell You Art

I sell in a local gallery, and I have my work set up in pricing tiers. If a customer wants to buy from the gallery, or directly from me, meaning I do the print approval, the framing, shipping, all that, then they pay more for that. If they order a print from FAA, it costs less than if they order through me, and the shipping is lower (FAA works in volume and gets better deals on packing and shipping than we can). I also know and assure my customers that the quality is great. Plenty of folks want the personal touch, but when offered an alternative, plenty of folks appreciate the freedom of a customized image and a lower price point.

So if they want me to handle it, I'm more than happy to do that, and they get a hand signed piece with a certificate of authenticity. If they want a print, and they want to choose their own framing or want metal or canvas, then I explain their options and send them a link straight to the image they like on my Artist Wanted page. I'm still fulfilling orders for clients myself, but many people choose FAA once I explain it to them and reassure them of the quality.

I assume you're doing something similar, but thought I'd explain my process because it works for me. I find I sell more online now than ever.

I mainly use Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook.
Thanks to Twitter I made a few sales, I put directly in contact with the buyer. With Twitter you need to make at least one post every half an hour to have a certain visibility, so they must be programmed with the relevant tools, and should be varied and interesting

What in the world do you post to Twitter 48 times/day?

Floyd, yes, related but they are mostly from Arizona & Colorado. :)


To all of you, thank you again for your sincere advice and feedback.

I guess I misunderstood the purpose of FAA. I thought it was to help people discover art and artists and allow artists to have some greater exposure. Therefore I haven't put as much emphasis in selling my work outside of that because I had just assumed nobody was interested based off the lack of it on FAA.

Now that I know FAA is more of a means for completing the sales transactions, that helps. I still don't believe I will continue my FAA account when it is time for renewal though. I have another printing company I get finished products from that can provide the same service FAA does at lower cost.

I will also work harder on putting my work in some local galleries/coffee shops and will be doing some local shows for sales.

Thank you again for your help, everyone! Good luck in your work!

Twitter is just so foreign to me. I feel that it's like standing in the middle of Times Square and shouting. There are lots of people there, but no one is paying attention.

Andrea do you use Hootsuite or something similar? You really tweet every half hour - my strategy is WAY off in that case - I only post a few times a week. I keep hearing how people are making Twitter work, I must be approaching it all wrong.

I agree that your work is excellent but you only have 35 images! That's very little! That's like a needle in a haystack!

After reading your concerns, I went to look at your portfolio expecting to see hundreds of images. You only have 35! Your work is wonderful...but you nee a LOT more than 35 images.

"I could do the store on my own, have more customization, control my prices better and not pay a commission, if I do it on my own."

Yes, that is always the case in any product, not just art. If you can build or make a product yourself you cut out a lot of cost. Nothing new in that.

FAA is not a "we will sell it for you site". Some say that is what they see when the first discover FAA. I never saw that at all. FAA is a fulfillment site and a place to park your images and then drum up people to buy them and they do all of the work and offer the hundreds of variations of production and framing. They also offer different products such as cell phone covers, totes, pillows, etc, etc.

Another important part of the service and how you use it is your AW: ArtistsWebsite.

But yes, if you can do all of these things yourself, you can probably do it for less money. But then you are still going to have advertise and promote you own work. I know, I have 12 online sites (no other POD sites), several that I own outright and several of them I have to do all of that fulfillment myself or farm it out. And if I was young and full of P&V like I once was, I would still be expanding those resources AND building a larger gallery on FAA. But I an old and cutting back a lot and trying to consolidate everything on FAA. There are just too many golf courses I have not played yet.

Most people make the mistake of marketing inside of FAA by chasing likes, comments, favorites, groups and contests. That may get you views and followers but those people do not buy to any great extent. You have to reach the greater art buying public and direct them to your work on your AW so they do not get lost in the 2 million images on Pixels/FAA.

Agree with Andrea on Twitter. Frequency is important and so is time of day.

I took a little different approach. I set up different accounts looking for different segments to follow me. The I posted I what the research will tell you are the best hours morning, noon and night.

I also never post to Twitter or FB using the automatic FAA posting tools. They all to often tune out to more adverting for FAA then for me.

I post directly to both and always with an image and always with links that take the person directly to an image page on my AW. Never to Pixel or FAA.

I also set up retweet agreements with people that sell high end fashion and high end jewelry and a few other products.

What you really want is buyers not random traffic. You get buyers by building an audience of people who believe you are offering a unique product. Something that they relate too.

Try this - http://austinkleon.com/show-your-work/

you have to advertise outside. pinterest is not the way to do it. that's more like a bulletin board. it can take years to build a following. you have a grand total of 35 images. that's a very small amount. you have to upload nearly constantly, otherwise people get bored. its no different then having a tv show, new programs bring in people.


you have a total of 9 views on this. there should be way more. facebook, twitter, blogs, etc - that's how you get people here. handing out cards, talking to people, etc

always start people in galleries, and upload more work. the work itself should sell just fine. though keep in mind many people have the same types of images you sell, so the competition will be much higher.

re do the bio and tell people where you go, what types of landscape etc. its kind of barren there. that's another place keywords go.

Marketing 101 by Mike Savad
Why Your Work May Not Be Selling - By Mike Savad
Evaluating Your Own Work To Sell – By Mike Savad
How To Critique And Edit Your Own Work For Better Sales

these are my blocks, follow those that apply.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

https://twitter.com/jkudall
you have a grand total of 34 followers and a total of 57 tweets. you have to do it every day. you need a much larger following than that - 1000's of people. i avoid posting pictures to twitter because it turns twitter into a gallery. and they may not click out to your store. post them now and then, but i would not put them up as much as that. your also making it very hard to find your art. i have to click from twitter, to your blog. and then from your blog i have to find the image i just clicked on. and from there, it only shows me a larger watermarked image of that same image. and its not clear you sell any of these. when tweeting, you have to send them directly here. make it too hard and people will give up.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

fine art america is a POD - they print the images for you, deal with the customers, deal with the complaints and returns. you have to provide the work and the traffic. people come here and buy it and get it. people may discover you on this site but you still have to advertise it. your one of many people here.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I think it is a numbers game...
number of images is huge, number of outlets to increase awareness (like blog guest features, social media mentions from your own account as well as the accounts of others), number of years you are at it (notice I said years, not days or months), etc.
but you also need to ignore the numbers - visitors sometimes mean nothing because of bots. the number by the pins/tweets/whatever is often wrong (I know this because I have pinned some of my own work but it shows as 0 pins for said piece).

Mike,

Yes my Twitter numbers are pretty low. But to be fair most of my social media stuff is done on Instagram, FB, Flickr, and my own website. Instagram especially is where I have built my following and have a lot of dedicated followers. These are the ones who have bought my work. But most of the time I end up selling to them from elsewhere because FAA charges too much for shipping, takes a too large commission, takes too long to ship the item, etc.

I totally agree I need to be doing more to get more attention and drive people to my FAA page. Part of it is I already have a demanding full time job and this was a way for me to test the waters to see if my photography would be of interest to people. If it panned out, I would probably dedicate more time to it.

I guess what I am not seeing that I thought I would when I enrolled in FAA was a little more traffic to my photos from searches within FAA itself. They market themselves pretty much as a one stop site for artists where it can all be done on their site. So maybe that is my fault for misunderstanding. But I figured at least some attention would come from searches from within their own search engine and people searching in their own store. But not only do I not get sales that way, I don't even get page views that way.

I figure if I am paying for a subscription from them and allowing them to take a cut in my sales, I should be getting something in return from them. But it hasn't amounted to what I was expecting from FAA.

Thanks again everyone for your feedback.

hmm james, a little off topic here, but is your last name udall or dall? Just cuz other dalls are so rare.. there are only like.. one other dall I've found in all of canada..

also ironically most people looking for art don't go to faa unless someone brings them there externally. I know I wouldn't - I probably would just google the type of art I was looking for and click one of the many sites that popped up with that kinda art - or go to a gallery.

I literally wallpaper my website onto everything - you should try pinterest too, and make a qr code for your site and just stick it randomly everywhere - people love qr codes..

out of curiosity where else do you sell your work? I am in the process of selling a couple of my new pieces, one being an original for $1000

---Shawn Dall
ShawnDall.com

Shawn,

It's with the U. :)

I am increasing my pinterest use and twitter as well. Those are the ones I was late in the game to. So hopefully that will help. Thanks for the QR suggestion, I hadn't thought of that before. As for where else I sell, I just do it on my own. I am exploring all avenues though.

Thanks for your feedback. Good luck to you in your goals!


James

I used to just have Facebook as a means for communicating with my friends from high school and college, but now I just "friended" hundreds more that I don't know. I post links to my FAA photos all the time on Facebook, so the more people I "friend", the more people will see my work on here. I just have to be careful about what I talk about on there so that I do not divulge too many details of my personal life to strangers.....

An interesting discussion.

"I figure if I am paying for a subscription from them and allowing them to take a cut in my sales, I should be getting something in return from them. But it hasn't amounted to what I was expecting from FAA."

Do you make more than $30 a year profit from FAA? If so, then what's the problem? You have no order fulfillment, complaint handling or anything to do other than upload art and drive traffic to it. It's as much effort as you want to put into it for the cost of about 7 starbucks...

Richard Reeve
ReevePhotos.com

"I figure if I am paying for a subscription from them and allowing them to take a cut in my sales, I should be getting something in return from them. But it hasn't amounted to what I was expecting from FAA. '


I think you have possible made an honest mistake in what FAA was going to do for you. Thousands and thousands of artist find a way to sell a lot of art here. What you thought it was is not really that important at this point. What you decide to make of it or not make of it is where the focus should be, imho.

The search favors the big sellers. Plain and simple. You should not get bogged down in worrying about the search. That is not where your buyers or anyone's buyers, other then be top seller's, are gong to come from. But even then I have always thought that in order for the top sellers to get to the top, they had to start by advertising and marketing out side of FAA.

FAA is not really taking a cut of you sales. You set your own prices. If you want $100 for 16x20 and it sells, you get the $100. They add a small fee ($5.00) and then make their money on the framing and you get 5% of the framing. And they get the $30 a year. That is really not all that much.

But the thing you have to remember is you are one of 100,000 (?) artist and over 2 million images. How would FAA go about making sure every artist is give equal exposure and why would they want to give equal exposure to other then proven sellers?

That is pretty much the way it is on all of the other sites I sell on that I don't own outright. Search ranking is determined on the success of the seller.

@DavidKing: This is how I use my Twitter. A post for each photo. I change them often, I make them interesting as I can and 4/5 times a day I use images to attract more users to get more RT

https://twitter.com/Erian_A

do people on instagram really buy work? i always thought it was a kids game to post blue images, and teens don't have the money. twitter is really the place you want to be. the search on faa will show sellers first, you still have to do the work to get people over. and that includes adding a lot more more to be seen. they give you the space in return. there are over a 100,000 artists, in theory... and you can't advertise them all. $30 is pretty cheap compared to other places.

you have to be everywhere. and it takes time. building up twitter people, moving onto facebook. making a blog that is more than just a list of your work. sending people to you Faa store, and not just your blog that doesn't say you sell anything and so on. its a lot of work.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Andrea, aren't you the one that warned me in another discussion to not just tweet the same images over and over, that it's all about interaction? If so, I'm confused. Even with 648 images you'll be retweeting the same ones often if you tweet 48 times/day, and if it's on autopilot using a program how can you interact?

Diana, that's why I keep a separate artist's page on FB.

hmm still we might still be related :)

I do an awful lot of promoting - and I daisy chain everything together - personally I do a lot - I am a spiritual leader, an artist a musician/producer, a writer/author, and so every site I have has links to all the other ones. I do daily tweets - post on instagram daily, post on facebook daily, do spiritual stuff daily - and I always end my posts with my websites, or incorporate them into my images - you gotta whore yourself out, for lack of a better term. People may get sick of it but boo hoo to them - you're the one trying to make money here and drive traffic to your site!

I tried reddit - it was fun for some bursts of activity but I think most people on reddit are too young to actually buy anything. The ficklesness of our society is you can get a flurry of initial interest but peoples attention span are shorter than that of a goldfish and once the immersiveness of your work passes on for someone elses you will be forgotten, so you have to keep being in the public eye.

Heck even here - find excuses to keep your work being shown - if it's making a new post for your work detaling the process, or linking an example of your work to help someone else in one of their own posts - just do it tastefully hehe :)

---Shawn Dall
ShawnDall.com

Rule number 1 - dont follow young people on twitter , they have no money :D

@DavidKing: I don't remember well, but I always used images in my posts on Twitter. 4/5 per day, on a total of about 50 posts, 10%. Necessary to have more visibility.

Regarding the planning of the posts: I use it only to prepare the posts of the day and to be sure they are published when I'm not at the computersmarthphone, and to give precise times of publication. Generally I am always connected, but so I can dedicate myself to answer questions of possible customers, participate in discussions on message boards where I can intercept people interested in my photos, seek new followers, and I can help those who need help in the purchase on FAA. I spend only half an hour a day to prepare the posts of the day, trying to be varied as possible.

James,
I am new to this site, but all of the advice that I have received from the people who make sells, have two to three hundred pictures. That does seem like a lot of work. My brother has done well on this site, but he sells original paintings too, Good luck! I have not made a sell yet. Christal

Andrea, maybe it was just someone that looked like you, I don't remember what discussion it was in so I can't look it up. I suspect your strategy is only viable for someone with hundreds of images however.

Not exactly. On Twitter you need many posts to get visibility because the index of interaction is low. According to data of TwitterAds on average my posts, including hashtag, get about 600/1000 views(i Have over 13.500 followers). To reach everyone it takes a lot, and repeat several times the same post will not get negative results. There is great possibility that the post is seen by different people than before. Anyway my posts are thousands and all different. Although this is the same image I change text, hashtags and then I am read by different people.

I'm not sure I can agree with that. Seeing the Twitter posts as they come is only one way for people to discover you on Twitter, and I suspect it's the least likely no matter how often you tweet.

Jessica-

I prefer a minimal amount of offerings. In fact one great piece (which I have not accomplished) would be sufficient.

I like the idea..."His work is hard to come by"

Adds a little exclusiveness and hidden value.

On Twitter I follow a few artists and galleries. The artists don't tweet enough, but some of the galleries spam the same few pieces over and over like it's on an automatic loop.

They don't get retweeted - they get muted.

Every now and then I'll go on tweet campaigns where I will tweet everyone on my list - I got just over 2000 followers but you still max out at like 200 people you can tweet a day.


---Shawn Dall
ShawnDall.com

That's exactly my concern with retweeting the same images over and over again Mark, it seems very spammy. I've muted dozens of twitter accounts for that very reason.

What do you mean by "I tweet everyone on my list" Shawn? Do you mention them specifically in an image tweet or just to get their attention and say "look at me!"? If so that seems kind of crass.

never do the same images over and over. you could get in trouble with the twitterarti and they can suspend the account. its also annoying. keep it to a few a day, different subjects. its builds up over time.

also if you use the @ someone - too often, you could get in trouble for that too, and it really increases your chances of someone complaining.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

While this is a bit off topic, I think I have found a group who might be able to answer my question of the day.

I have, for the last week, been trying to find out where to post a question I have. Tonight I Googled FAA and forums and your topic interested me enough to read through.
My question is whether or not there are new robots in Sunnyvale, CA and Roubaix, France. Do any of you know? I've had repeat visits from both places over the past three weeks but don't know if these are robots or actual people.

Bots

....

A robot is a mechanical or virtual artificial agent, usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by a computer program or electronic circuitry.

An Internet bot, also known as web robot, WWW robot or simply bot, is a software application that runs automated tasks over the Internet.

Thanks Edward! They hadn't shown up until just recently.

nice artworks James .. can't wait to see your milky way images uploaded here on FAA

"David King 4 Hours Ago
What do you mean by "I tweet everyone on my list" Shawn? Do you mention them specifically in an image tweet or just to get their attention and say "look at me!"? If so that seems kind of crass."

My twitter: https://twitter.com/Chronamut

I mean whenever I post a new artwork - I make the general post, and then I make one that says check out my new work - "whatever" - "link" "main site link" - and send that message to as many people on my list as I feel up to msging - usually 200-400 - they actually really appreciate it because otherwise they wouldn't see it - I don't do it a lot and it's not spam because each person is only getting it once. It only looks like spam if you look at my sent feed and you see me sending it to all those people - but since there is no rss send all type function for your followers this is the next best thing. It is very time consuming though and I do it by hand because automating it will get your account suspended.

Tweet the same thing dozens of times is spam, of course. But it is different from tweet hundreds of different things that are alternated for weeks, not days. Also new images are added and then there are always new tweets. I have 80/120 retweets per day and over 25.000 views of my tweets per day. Sometimes I lose followers, however, I gain more followers every day. I'm not saying to spam, but to have a strong presence. Only some tweets per day are lost in the sea of Twitter

are you getting a lot of sales from the near constant tweeting? how do you find time to do anything else?

i do 3 a day. tweet, facebook and google. 6 tops. doing it constantly, i wouldn't have the time. people usually don't read twitter, if you have 1000's of friends there, your stuff will be lost even with a 1000 posts a day. people search twitter and that's how its found. in which case, having tons doesn't matter.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

In my experience, more I use twitter more I sell. Simply because I have more chance to get in touch with potential customers, compared to Facebook or G +, for example.

Time is not a problem. With TweetDeck I just need 30 minutes a day to schedule the post of the day. To answer customer questions and more all you need is the smartphone, and the time to write a message. Not so much.

And no, using simple apps like TweetDeck does not lead to the suspension of the account. The system distinguish them by bots, unless you do hundreds of posts daily, all identical.

twitter, doesn't like places like that btw. eventually they do catch on.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

or is this place run by twitter?

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Andrea , seems you have found something that works for you. As they say, when you find something that works, keep doing it and do more if you can. When it stops, then find something else!

WTG!

Jean Henderson, the bots are meaning less in the sense they cannot and do not buy anything.

Every page on the internet has bots or crawlers taking inventory of what is on every webpage in the world. That is how information gets into to all of the search engines from all around the world. The can originate from anywhere.

I have 12 web stores and this is the only one that puts the bots data in the views or hits data. I don't know why they do that but they do.

The views data is rendered pretty much worthless because of that.

I sell on a daily bases and I have no idea how many views I have.

I do know that most of my last dozen sales have very, very few views, never been in a contest or a group and have almost no comments. Some have none of the above.

You concentrate on marketing outside of FAA and let the views from real shoppers will come, they will take care of themselves.

Creating views from inside of FAA are not going to lead to sales.

In reality, in the three years of selling here and trying to make any real correlation to vies and sales is fruitless. There is no meaningful data that cam be gleaned until they take the bot views out and give us some indication of where the views or hits originated from.

Keeping track of bots is like counting how many times the janitor walked through the theater at night. He is doing important work, but he has nothing to do with ticket sales.

Floyd, thank you so much for that info about the bots. I was hoping (a bit against hope, mind you) that someone was getting interested in my work in those places. But, I will learn from you and forget about checking views.

Welcome Jean :-)

James, you must have done something right!

Congrats on your sale! lol Many more to come I hope!

Hi James your work is incredible and impressive too
as with getting traffic to your site
one has to constantly self promote