You have a website. Now what? You need to do two things: drive traffic to your site, and engage users so they want to stay on your site, then return again later. This is one of the most difficult steps. It’s not something you can do just once – you will be working on this goal for as long as your business exists. Buckle up and start sharing your work.
Content Creation
You need to create a body of work and share it with as many people as you can. Many artists struggle with this as we want to put only our best work out into the world. We may be afraid of negative feedback, or think our work isn’t good enough to share. But if you wait until you have something ‘perfect’ you will wait forever.
Practice creation; paint a new portrait and share it every day. This will help you improve your art, build a body of work, and have consistent original content. Not everyone will like your work, but those who do will want to see more. The more you share your work on social media and content sharing sites the more people you draw in. Let your work convince them to follow your page, and to click through to your website.
On your website you may want to only showcase your best work, or currently available work, and that is fine. You may also share all your work and your process on your site. It depends what you want the site to do. For sales, the first option may be best. For brand awareness, the second.
Scheduling Content
Creating a content calendar will keep you posting regularly and help you craft a strategy. Decide how often you will post to your site, blog, social media, etc. Challenge yourself to stick to that schedule. Write new blogs when you say you will. This may mean preparing things in advance and scheduling them to publish on a later date. I write all of my weekly posts on Mondays and schedule them in Hootsuite. That way I don’t have to worry about it for the rest of the week.
That being said, you should remember when your posts are publishing and check for comments, likes, and analytics. LinkedIn and Twitter both let you track how many views and engagements your posts have received without paying for your post or having a business account.
Tailoring
Pay attention to which posts get the most engagement (likes, shares, comments). Knowing what your audience likes to see will help you tailor future posts to their taste. Maybe people really like your bad puns, cute dog, or unapologetic opinions. Whatever draws people to you and your brand, make it part of your shtick. Branding is just as important as your actual artwork to draw people in and build a following.
Good luck, now start sharing your work!
