When You Do It Right

 

One of the best ways to see how you and your art travel around the web is to sign up for Google Alerts. I’ve done this for my name and also for the smARTist Telesummit.

Now, every day I receive one or more “Google alerts” in my inbox. Not only can you see where your name and art are showing up, these alerts provide a link so you can click to find out more. Once in a while the link lands me on page where I can’t find any mention, but more often I end up…on someone else’s website or blog with a nice juicy post. Not only does this help Google rank you higher on their search engines, it helps you track your visibility.

Yesterday, one of these Google alerts led me to Michael Lynn Adam’s blog, Art Business & Other Oxymorons and his “free stuff” page. 

Michael, it turns out, is an alumni from last year’s smARTist Telesummit, and WOW, has he been busy putting what he learned into action. As you can see, his work is first rate (No.1 key ingredient to an artist’s success). And now he’s made sure that his online presentation is first rate.

Let’s look at a few things he’s done right.

His Blog Title

It’s direct and clever, at the same time. A very tricky feat to pull off. Art Business takes you right into the heart of what he is blogging about. It’s clear, direct, and gives the search engines a great keyword to hook up with. & Other Oxymorons plays with our cultural expectation, and sometimes prejudice, about artists as business people, which is clearly what any self-supporting solopreneur has to be.

Because the virtual world is a fast paced environment, where most people are on the make for information, cleverness is a distraction. And distraction means people click off and go somewhere else. Since you have from 3 to 9 seconds to keep someone on your website, you want to make sure if you are going to be clever that you are also clear and people can feel confident that they are in the right place. Otherwise, it’s Sayonara baby…i’m outta here…

His “Call to Action”

A web page is pretty useless if it doesn’t net you a database of names. You want people who are interested in what you do, but if you have no way to follow up and keep their interest, you lose. The easiest way to do this is to offer people something in exchange for their name and email. And offer it up front before they lose interest or have a chance to get distracted.

Michael offers a free poster of one of his paintings if you sign up for his newsletter. You don’t have to look at his work long to see it’s a great offer. And he’s made it easy on himself. You get a link to the high resolution image, which means you print it out yourself.

His overall clean design

- Michael’s logo and header are eye catching, but not overly fussy. He uses subtle design elements, like placing the logo’s larger font at the top of the wider column on the left, with his name and smaller font at the top of the slim column on the right.

- The menu options are integrated into the header, which reduces the possibility of a cluttered feeling.

- His choice of straightforward black text on a white background is one of the easiest combinations for the human eye to read on a monitor screen, and leaves center stage for his paintings to draw our eyes to their color combinations.

- He gives us an image of himself in black and white. The image helps us connect to a real person in the Virtual landscape, and the black and white once again allows his artwork to be what dazzles our eyes.

I only caught 3 things I’d change:

- Drop the word “Gallery” in the menu bar, unless you really are a gallery. It’s “Artwork,” “Portfolio,” “Paintings/Drawings/Sculpture/ Mixed media,” etc. Not only does it get you in hot water with “real” galleries, it’s just not truthful. I know artists aren’t meaning to step on “real” gallery toes, but they do.

- Have a live link open up in a new window, so people don’t have to click back to return to your web page. When someone has finally landed on your web page, the last thing you want to do is send them away.

- And please, please, please give me a way to contact you up front. The Bio & Contact.com page left me baffled. One, how did I miss where to contact you? And what is “Contact.com?”

smARTist Alumni for life

I would have never discovered Michael’s website and written this blog post if he wasn’t a smARTist alumni. So, besides 7 days of art career advice you simply cannot find anywhere else, attending the Telesummit increases your visibility. 

This year, the smARTist art career conference runs Jan 15-23 (with the weekend off!). There are 11 Keynote speakers who will cover a range of art career information no artist should be without, from the best tax deductions that will save your hard earned dollars, to writing your own marketing plan, and everything in-between.

Join artists from 38 US states and 16 countries and learn how to move your art career forward in 2009!