Selling Artwork With Good Description, Title, Keywording Without Outside Marketing, Is It Possible?

Having been on this site for almost a year now... everyone that i've seen answer this question or a question like this... would tell you you need outside marketing. I agree. You have to get your work out there. If you just have keywords, title and good description you'll only get views from people that use FAA.

Making an occasional sale here and there? Yes.

Making the $1000 a month goal you stated in your other thread. No.

I believe most if not all of my sales have been from internal search...my sales have been very few. If you have the right subjects you can sell more often without external marketing, some here do, but how much do they sell? I suspect most don't even get close to that $1000/month goal you've been talking about at all let alone on a consistent basis.

You would need to become very good at Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Akos, when I joined FAA eight years ago, it was possible to sell regularly based on the internal search. Since then, two things have happened.

First, there has been an explosion in the number of artists and artwork. Even if the search were fair (unweighted) it would still be unlikely to get your work noticed to any significant degree, given the numbers. The second thing is that the search was restructured to take several factors into account, with the most weight being given to prior sales. The exact nature of the weighting is a closely held secret, but in short, unless you sell regularly and often, your images probably won't make it into the first few pages of the search results in most categories.

That's why it's IMPERATIVE to develop an online and offline marketing strategy. You have to send the buyers to see your work, just like in the 'real' world. Don't count on buyers to magically find you here.

anything is possible, but the chances of being seen is very very very low. you are but one store in a mall of 1000's. if you don't wave your arms now and then you won't be found. keywords and the like help quite a bit. actually they help a lot, because without the tags - you won't be found in any search. and google likes content only, so that's needed too.

some sell right away. others have a niche that isn't copied yet, some get lucky. i advertise all the time - i can't say its doing me a lick of good. but i've been doing this for years, and i've been absorbed by the search.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

think of this site as a garage sale.

if you set up on the lawn, and hope people will find you - not many will. they might if they walk a dog on your block or see a table in the distance.

if you put up a sign, some locals will see it but that's it.

if you put it in a newspaper or something like that, you'll get a wider audience looking for that thing (though i never used that for art).


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

I'll buck the trend and say sure, you can do it. You can even clear more than a grand a month doing it.

I am far more the exception than the rule and while I do some marketing VERY few of my sales are generated from the marketing. I search for and attack underserved markets. As Murray stated there are a LOT of artists here and the search is heavily weighted to those that sell but if you attack viable markets with less than three pages of results here you can get an image seen and if you can get it seen it can sell.

Sure, if you have something no one else does and it's in high demand.

...

What is my experience? You build up your portfolio and your brand over time. Step by step. Keywords and descriptions are just one part of the overall strategy.

You can sell a few - as in my case, too few to mention. In JC's place - you can and make some money, real money.

Well, JC, I just checked on one of my underserved markets, where there was only one page of photos, which put me on page one. As luck would have it, someone just posted four pages of butterflies, putting me now on page 4, LOL !

The secret is out - butterflies! Jump on it everyone! ;-)

LOL! And, yes, he sold one of them!

Yes you can. But those who say it is internal marketing are wrong. Descriptions and titles play heavy to the big search engines. Don't think of it as an image niche. It is a word and phrase niche that you need to rank high Google search.

Many thanks for your answers,

I think for online marketing(ads, or without paying ads) I will use only Instagram, because it is the most visual social media and is has got a lot of daily users, and it is very good for

to advertise your visual artworks and also I have got a Samsung Galaxy S9+, so when I 'am travelling(I ' am not driving, I haven't got a car) , I can use everywhere the Instagram for marketing, and it is very good for me.

King Regard,

Akos Horvath Fine Art Photographer & Visual Artist

http://akoshorvath.net/

the problem with instagram is - you can only provide one link on the main page. how many people will look at that is not known (it is, its zero, i never got a click from that place). its best to advertise everywhere. you'll catch just as much attention on twitter with hashtags maybe more.

i tried paying for ads, it was a waste of money.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Thanks, Mike, I have got time, only one social media, to advertise my works, so I'am listening carefully to you, I'am going with Twitter,

Many thanks,

King Regard,

Akos Horvath Fine Art Photographer & Visual Artist

http://akoshorvath.net/

Well I can say that with only my keywords, tags, SEO, descriptions.... I was getting a couple print sales a month here. So yes, you can do it. But you can do better.

I recently changed my Pinterest pins from marketing my Originals on Etsy (I got too busy with commissions) to marketing my prints on Pixels.

My print sales more than tripled immediately = Pinterest works for my art and my style of marketing.

Try this.
https://fineartamerica.com/groups/on-sale-discounts-here-for-a-limited-time-promotion.html?showmessage=true&messageid=3597395