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Tips for increasing traffic to your art portfolio website

When we photograph our pieces and add them to our online art portfolios for the world to see, it can be frustrating when the site view counts and interactions don't go up.

As artists we put a lot of work into our pieces. From spending hours perfecting tile mosaics to days contemplating what color scheme to use for the background in a painting, we are no strangers to hard work. We apply ourselves fully to our art marketing as well as the creation of our works. So when we photograph our pieces and add them to our online art portfolios for the world to see, it can be frustrating when the site view counts and interactions don't go up. If you're experiencing this issue, try these tips for increasing your art portfolio website traffic:

Always include descriptions
When you post a picture of your artwork, don't just add the title and call it a day. You're more likely to be discovered in a random person's search if you have a description of the artwork as well. For instance, someone might not necessarily search, "Dreaming longingly of winter's past," but they may search "New York maple woodworking." In your description, include your name, the dimensions (and weight, if applicable) of the piece, the medium, a short description of the work and your location. All of these terms work together to greatly increase your search potential.

Use linking

"If people don't know about your website, they won't visit it."

If people don't know about your website, they won't visit it. Get the word out about your site by including a link in your social media profiles and your email signature. This way, any time you communicate with someone via message they will see your link. While you might have shared an excited post on Facebook about your website when you first created it, you may be surprised how many people want to check it out but haven't because they didn't see that post. It's also helpful to link your website to your other social media accounts. This way you won't have to manually share updates across all your accounts, they sites will do it for you. Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram can all be linked to your website to automatically update in sync with your art portfolio and make your life easier. 

Learn some SEO best practices
If you are not using the right words, your portfolio will never get looked at. Not sure where to start? Try Google's AdWords or another keyword website where you can type in a word you've used and see how it performs in terms of bringing people to your unique website. If the word you chose wasn't the best option, Google will offer other varieties for you to check out. This is an easy way to make your site more search friendly. Plus, the more words you check, the better your future posts will be because of what you learn along the way. Knowledge of SEO is handy for art marketing as well as in many careers that you might one day participate in, such as writing or sales positions, so it's a valuable skill to have. 

Include the link to your art portfolio website on all of your social media accounts and in your email signature. This way, people can easily find your work.

Keep visitors in mind
While your friend's 500 Tumblr views a day may be impressive, those views are likely not from art galleries looking to host his or her pieces, or even necessarily from prospective buyers. Many page views can make you feel good, that's not exactly what you're looking for. Your art portfolio website should be a place to show your pieces, network and potentially make sales. If you have only had 20 website views the entire month but you made a sale or two off of those views, you aren't doing so bad after all. Remember not to get discouraged. The quality of who is viewing your site and why they are doing so is much more important than the actual number of visitors