Erin from the Sculptress blog asked:

Would you clarify something for me? How do I know for sure I am hosting an image, do you mean save the image as a file on my computer and then repost it from the computer file?

Good question, Erin - it was something that confused me a bit at first and my web designer had to walk me through it several times until I got it.

…do you mean save the image as a file on my computer and then repost it from the computer file?

Yes, that’s exactly what you do, Erin - from the way you’ve phrased the question it sounds like you may know how to do that already but I’ll run through the exact steps just in case other people are a bit unsure about it.

What I do is this:
1) Find an image I’d like to use
2) Drag and drop the image to my desktop
I do this by left-clicking on the image, holding down the mouse button and dragging the image until it’s off the browser and onto my desktop. You can also do it by hitting the right mouse button and clicking on ‘copy image’ but I think dragging and dropping is quicker. Make sure that you’re dragging a reasonably sized image and not a thumbnail.

The image file is now on my computer. If it’s too large and I need to make it smaller I can edit the size in Photoshop but I usually don’t need to do this.

Next I need to get it onto my web server:

In Wordpress there’s an upload section just beneath the text box where you write posts. Hit the ‘browse’ button, locate the image on your desktop and click on it to select it, write the artist’s name and the title of the work where it says ‘title’ (this is optional but I always do it), then hit upload. After a few moments a thumbnail of the image will appear in the ‘Browse All’ page - the file is now loaded onto your server. You can put the image in a post by selecting ’show fullsize’, followed by ‘link to file’ and then hitting ’send to editor’. You’ll see that a bunch of html appears in your post, this is the image file, it’ll become an image when you publish the post.

If you’re using Blogger you do the following: Go into dashboard and select new post. Now hit the little image button on your blogger toolbar - this is the 6th button along or the second from last. This will bring up an image page. You’ll see that it says ‘add an image from your computer’ on the left, hit the browse button next to it and select the image from your desktop by clicking on it. Now choose the size and layout you want and then hit the ‘upload image’ button at the bottom of the page. Your image or the image html should now appear in your blogger editing software. This article from Blogger give more details on uploading images, including where the images are stored and how you can check how much room you’ve got.

The only thing left to do is to add the artists name and the title of the work - oh, and write the rest of the post, of course!

Gosh, it’s been far too long since we had an Artists Online post. I was going to do the round-up post next but my email is still extremely messed up, which is making it difficult to check with people that it’s OK to use their comments. So instead, I’ve decided to move this post about getting blog visitors up the queue.

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OK, so you’ve got your blog started - you’ve set the table and put the kettle on and now you just need some visitors. So how do you go about enticing people to your site?

Obviously you need to have great content but even if you’ve got the best blog in the world, people won’t know you’re there if you’re doing the online equivalent of hiding in the kitchen at parties! You’re going to have to get out there and meet some people. Here’s a few ways to do that…

Link, link, link

The first thing that any article on this subject will tell you is ‘link’. There’s a very simple reason for this - it works. At least a third of my visitors to both this site and The Diary Project arrive here via other bloggers who’ve linked to me in their posts or on their sidebars.

Linking is, quite simply, the foundation stone of the blogging world. Sure, you can blog successfully without ever linking to anyone else but you’d better have another promotional strategy worked out. I don’t use links much over at The Diary Project because of the type of blog it is, consequently I have to work a lot harder at promoting it. This site, where I link to a lot of other artists, has snowballed for me in a way that the Diary Project just hasn’t yet (although I keep hoping it will).

Linking just works. And it’s easy: find someone whose work you like, nab one of their images *unless they prohibit that*, host the image on your site so you’re not stealing bandwidth, write a little bit about their work and what you like about it and voilà, almost instant blog content with the added advantage that you might have drawn the artist or blogger in question back to your site.

Be generous with your linking, link to people you like or who’ve done or said something that interests you. It’s OK to link to people that you’d like to be noticed by but don’t make those the only people you link to. Be genuine and think about linking in terms of good karma, not in terms of what it might bring you. And don’t expect to be linked back - you might be, but it’s not automatic and it doesn’t mean anything if you’re not, so don’t get huffy about it.

Tell People You Know

You’ve already got a ready made audience in your existing friends and family - send them all an email to let them know you’ve got a new blog. You should also change your email signature so that you’re automatically letting people know about your blog every time you send an email. If you’ve got a mailing list, let them know too. Do you have profiles on other sites, especially networking ones? Go round and update them to include your new blog address.

Watch Your Numbers

Get Google Analytics or a similar programme installed on your blog and keep an eye on your numbers. It’s helpful to know your baseline and encouraging to see the numbers gradually rise. Plus you can usually spot when you’ve been linked somewhere. If you are linked, nip over to the person’s site, check it out and leave a comment or email to say thanks. Obviously, if you get really huge, it might not be possible to say thanks to absolutely everyone (you’ve got to leave some time for the studio!) but give it your best shot, especially in the beginning.

NB: If you have already linked to me and I haven’t thanked you either by email or in your blog comments, then it almost certainly means that Technorati has missed the link so I don’t know about it.

Make Some Cards

A couple of months ago I bought a box of 100 Moo cards to advertise the Diary Project and I’ve gone through two thirds of the box already. I carry them in my handbag and give them out to people who seem like they might be interested - you know, bus drivers, random people on the street, small children in pushchairs! OK, I’m kidding, I only give them to people I’m already talking to but I do know that people often do visit the project after taking a card because they often email me to tell me they have.

You don’t have to get Moo cards made (although they are fab) but you should already be carrying some sort of visual card to hand out to people you meet, so you might as well have your blog address on it too.

Leave Comments

Leaving comments on other people’s blogs is a good way to meet people, make connections and get readers back to your own site. If you leave a comment on here, I’ll invariably go and check your site out because hey, I’m nosy! I’m not alone in this, it’s common blogging behaviour. I don’t end up regularly reading everyone’s blog but I have discovered some great new sites this way.

Most blogs have a fairly open comments policy and it’s usually easy to leave comments, although some sites do moderate to avoid spam so your comment might not appear instantly.

Leave your name and URL so that people can find you. Oh, and definitely make sure that you get your own address right - I’d accidentally been leaving the slash off the end of this blog address in other people’s comments for about a month before someone kindly pointed out that hey, they couldn’t actually get to my site that way. Boy, did I feel stupid! I can’t believe that I could make such an elementary mistake despite being on the net for about 12 years, but I did…

Link To Yourself

If you have more than one site, make sure you link to your other sites in your sidebar or profile. All your sites should link up to each other - it sounds obvious but it’s a step that many of us forget about. Looking at my numbers, I can see that both this site and The Diary Project get about 15% of their visitors from my other sites.

Remember my mantra of Make It Easy For People, well it applies here too. If you’ve got a cool project on the go, a nice little blog or a great new site, don’t make people go hunting for them: the information should be right there, out in the open and very easy to spot. When I added a ‘My Other Sites’ section to the sidebar of The Diary Project, my visitors to this site from over there absolutely rocketed. This site was already mentioned and linked to in the profile, which was right at the top of the sidebar but for some reason having that extra ‘My Other Sites’ section made a huge difference. Sometimes you’ve just got to make things really obvious.

You should use this approach in your blog writing too - link to your sites or projects when you mention them in posts. It’s not shameless self promotion, it’s making it easy for people to investigate this neat thing you’re talking about. Treat yourself with the same consideration that you would give to other artists or sites that you were talking about. If you find it uncomfortable to link to your own stuff, then ask yourself, “if this was someone else, would I put a link here?” - you’ll probably find that nine times out of ten, the answer is yes.

The excellent Empty Easel has this to say about general linking and this to say about internal linking.

Submit Your Site

This is something to do with the bigger sites rather than individual blogs. Most of the big hubs on the web have a submissions page where you can enter your details. Work out where your work fits and then submit to those sites. This is something I do regularly with The Diary Project - since I don’t use links much in the project blog, I have to raise interest in other ways.

A couple of weeks ago I submitted the Diary Project to Craftzine and when they blogged it (thanks Craftzine!), I got a big increase in numbers and visits from that site have continued to steadily climb.

You can also submit your stuff to individual blogs but that’s a technique you should use only sparingly because it can be a bit spammy. I know many of you discovered this blog through Alyson Stanfield who kindly blogged about my Why Artists Should Be Online article. I had emailed Alyson directly to tell her about the article because I thought she’d be interested and fortunately she was. However, I already knew her slightly through commenting on her blog and because she’d linked to a previous article of mine, so it wasn’t a complete ‘cold call’. This is yet another good reason to build up your blogging relationships through commenting - it makes approaching possible allies a lot less daunting.

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I should also point out that there’s absolutely no obligation to try to improve your visitor numbers - if you’re happy with a very personal blog that has a small intimate readership (or even none at all!), that’s completely fine. It’s a valid way to blog and one that I’ve used for many years over at Livejournal. Just don’t expect it to be a particularly effective way to promote your art career.

OK, if you’re not already blogging then hopefully I’ve convinced you with the previous article in the Artists Online Series that it’s something you can do. In the next couple of days, I’m also going to be doing a round-up of some of the comments about blogging that other artists have left me. If you’re an existing blogger who’d like to be included in that, then leave a comment telling me what you get out of blogging or how it’s helped your career.

If you’re new to the idea of blogging but roaring to get going already, then you might be wondering where to start. Well, basically you’ve got two main options - a blog that’s part of your website or a stand-alone blog.

Website Blogs

A dedicated blog with an attached website, ideally hosted at a snappy domain name (i.e your name.com or some variation on that theme) is a great option and obviously, the one I’m currently using.

The advantages are that your portfolio, CV and statement are all right there for people to see. Plus you’ve hopefully got that snappy, easily remembered site name. This can be quite an important issue - after less than three months, I can always remember the name of this site but not the Diary Project blog address, even though the later has been up since the start of the year. I can never remember the full address of my Livejournal blog either and I’ve had that for nearly four years! Admittedly I have a stinkingly bad memory but it’s certainly easier and quicker to say or write yourname.com than yourname.blogspot.com or yourname.wordpress.com.

Being on your own domain also means that you have ultimate control over your content - this may be a big issue if your art is controversial since the free blogging services tend to put limits on what you can publish on them, especially if there’s adult content.

The disadvantage is it’s not very instant. Unless you already have a website you’ll have to do a fair bit of work - even if you pay someone else to design the site you’ll still have to sort out all your photos, update your CV and your statement. If you go with designing it yourself you’ll have to do all that and the design and coding. Even with the best will in the world, in my experience, it takes months. Even if you do already have a website, designing and inserting a blog into it might involve some reshuffling.

It’s not free either, at the very least you’ll have to pay for a domain name and hosting and if you’re design-impaired like me, you’ll need to pay a designer too.

I do think a dedicated website with an inclusive blog is well worth doing. However, if it’s going to take you a little while then you might be better to start a free blog now rather than waiting for all your ducks to be in a row (because we all know how that duck thing goes!) Remember, you can always move your blog over to your dedicated website once you’ve finally got it up and running - people do it all the time.

Stand-alone Blogs

To set up a stand-alone blog, you’ll need to sign up with a blog hosting site. Some of these cost but these days there are lots of places where you can blog for free. I’d say the main ones are probably Blogger, Wordpress and Livejournal and I have experience with all three of them.

The Diary Project is hosted over at Blogger and I don’t have many complaints. It’s pretty stable with only the occasional glitch - I know it had big problems with crashing in the past but I’ve not seen many in my 8 months over there. The software’s not too bad, although I have had problems with certain parts like inserting code into the sidebar. The clickthrough rate from people finding me by hitting the ‘next blog’ button in Blogger also seems to be quite high - I get a surprising number of visitors to the Diary Project that way. If you go with Blogger, make sure you read this article about improving your visitor numbers.

Wordpress can be used to run a dedicated domain, including a blog, or you can set up a free blog over on Wordpress itself. This whole site is run on Wordpress and while I’m not a software expert by any stretch of the imagination, I like their software a lot. It’s free, open source, upgraded fairly often, mostly intuitive and easy to use and the help forums seem quite decent although I haven’t needed to use them much. Personally I also prefer the Wordpress interface to the Blogger one, it seems slicker and plugins definitely work better.

I’ve had a blog on Livejournal for nearly four years and I love it over there. That said, I wouldn’t recommend Livejournal as a place to host your primary blog if your aim is to promote your art career. It’s a very enclosed community so it can be hard to reach a wider audience from there, plus Livejournal is not taken seriously by the rest of the blogging community - something to do with ‘drama’ and ‘weirdos’ apparently! While I’ve loved being a member of Livejournal, I’ve definitely reached far more people here in three months than I did in three years on Livejournal (although to be fair, I wasn’t really trying to get a big audience over on LJ). However, Livejournal and similar sites who use the Livejournal code, like InsaneJournal and GreatestJournal, can be fantastic for building communities and I’ll be addressing this in later articles on social networking.

You could also check out Tumblr to make a tumblelog, which is a bit like blogging for people who’re too lazy to blog! Tumblr describe them thus, “If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks.” I’ve given it a short go and found it a bit like eating junk food - kind of addictive but ultimately unsatisfying. I don’t like the aesthetics, which are deliberately basic - to the extent that posts blur into each other far too much for my taste. But that’s just my personal opinion, tumblelogs do work for some people and it really depends on your style of blogging and what you’re trying to get out of it.

Read the various FAQ over at the blogging sites, do some research and decide which place suits you best.

Decide On Your Focus

Next, take some time to decide why you want to blog and what you want to get out of it. There are lots of different kinds of blogs and reasons for blogging and you may well find it easier to find your writing voice if you’re clear in your intent from the beginning. Read my article on the different forms of art blogging if you’re still unsure what your approach should be. You can also just dive right in and at some point, you’re going to have to do exactly that, but taking some time to set out some goals first can be helpful as long as it doesn’t become an excuse not to start (watch out for those damn ducks again!)

Get Educated

OK, so you’ve chosen your platform and decided on your focus. What next? Well, you should probably read the Wikipedia article on blogs to get an idea of some of the background issues in blogging, particularly defamation and copyright issues. There’s a ton of stuff that you can read on blogging - after nearly four years as a blogger, I’m still learning new stuff every day - but that’s a good place to start if you’re pretty new to the concept.

Choose a Blog Address

Now you need to chose a name and get your blog set up. I’d advise using your professional name in your blog address, where possible. If you’ve got a common name, someone else might already have nabbed it but it’s a good idea to use it if you can, for the following reasons:

• Even the most addled of us can usually remember and spell our own names, which is useful when you’re telling people where you blog!
• Blogging under your professional name will increase your Google ranking and make it easier for people to find you.

Choose a Blog Title

Now choose a snappy title for your blog. You might want something that relates to your art practice or, if you’re like me, something that makes you laugh. Incidentally, my original title for this blog - “Look At Me, I’m Fabulous” - is still up for grabs, feel free to use it if you want!

Your blog name can include your own professional name but it doesn’t need to unless your blog address doesn’t. This site rates highly in Google searches for my name because although the blog is called Up All Night Again, the actual blog address contains my full professional name. However, over at The Diary Project, my name isn’t in the blog address and I had to change the blog title to Kirsty Hall - The Diary Project because it wasn’t registering well in Google. When I added my name to the title, the site’s Google ranking improved drastically.

Mind you, this advice is only relevant if your blog is intended to be a professional one: if you’re setting up a blog about your interest in clown porn, then you’ll probably want to go for a completely anonymous title and blog address! Well, unless clown porn is a relevant part of your art practice, of course…

Setting Up Your Blog

If you’re blogging from your own website you may want your blog design to match or echo the rest of your site design, although you can go for a different look if you want. if you’re setting up a stand-alone blog, most blogging sites have a range of predesigned templates that you can use. In my experience, you can fiddle around happily for hours until you find one that you like and I’d advise you to do so. If you’re a computer expert with good graphics skills, you can also design your own completely from scratch.

You should try to find a template that you like but which will be accessible to other readers i.e easy to read, especially for visitors who might have visual impairments. Don’t go for anything too cluttered and if you’re planning on posting regular photos of your own work or that of other artists, then I’d strongly advise against background wallpaper. Take a look at other blogs and see what elements you like or dislike in their designs and use that to inform your own choices. If in doubt, err on the side of minimalism and readability.

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Great, your blog should now be up and operational. Now you just need to close your eyes, take a deep breath and start posting… Good luck and remember to have fun with it.

If you’ve recently set up a new blog and want me to go over and have a look, I’m happy to do so. Just leave me a comment - for some reason, I’m not receiving all my email this week, so comments are a better way to get in touch right now.

Well, it’s time to get back to the Artists Online Series - today I’m going to be exploring the different types of art blogging.

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One of the golden rules of blogging is that ‘content is king’. All the articles about improving your readership numbers will tell you to ‘write great content’ and ‘post regularly’. But how do you do that? Where to start? It can all seem a little daunting at first.

Fortunately, there are lots of different techniques for art blogging and it’s probable that you can find at least one that suits you. Here are a few different kinds to think about:

The Blog As Art Project

This form can be a great way to stand out from the crowd. My own Diary Project is an example of this but there are plenty of other artists using blogging to create art projects. Some notable examples are The Textile Files, PostSecret and Skull-A-Day.

I’ve noticed that art project blogs usually have a set of defined rules, however, this isn’t set in stone and blogging is a form that lends itself to plenty of creative interpretation. Blogged art projects can be a one person affair or a collaborative or communal project. If you’ve got a great idea for an art project, why not take a moment to consider whether blogging could enhance it. Remember that blogging can often bring you a larger and more diverse audience than a gallery show.

The No-Writing Blog

This is an excellent way to blog if you’re not confident with writing or don’t have a lot of time to write in-depth stuff. Because art is a visual medium, you can put together a great blog simply by linking to other people’s work. Do make sure that you have images of their work though, rather than just a text link - you’ll have a far more interesting blog that way.

Maditi Links is a good example of this form, she doesn’t write about the work at all, just posts an image and a link. Her blog is a feast for the eyes and I visit regularly for inspiration and to find interesting artists for my own blog.

If you want to use this technique, make sure you host images on your own site rather than stealing bandwidth and don’t lift any images if the artist has stated that people shouldn’t do so. If in doubt, simply ask the artist. Always give full credit to the artist and link back to their site. If you want to include a little bit of text, you can usually pick up a description from the artists’ site (be clear that you’re quoting them) or write a brief piece about why you like the work.

There are plenty of places to find artists to blog about - Flickr, other art blogs, other artists you already know, general search sites like StumbleUpon! or dedicated art sites like Saatchi Online or AXIS.

Linking to lots of other artists in this way will often improve your traffic since the artists in question usually come over to your blog to check you out. Don’t be cynical though, only link to people whose work you genuinely like, rather than people you think might be useful to you.

The Process Blog

Blogging as a way of recording artistic process is a popular choice amongst artist bloggers. It can be helpful for artists because it creates a journal-type record of their practice but readers like it too because it gives them an insight into how an artist creates and the way a piece develops - warts and all! It’s a way of unlocking the studio door and that’s always appealed to people. If you can talk about your work until the cows come home (erhm, guilty as charged, officer!) and are comfortable showing unfinished work, then you’ll probably feel quite at home with this technique.

I don’t have any numbers to back this up but I suspect that this could also be a good way to drum up sales because allowing people to see the process might get them emotionally attached to a piece.

Blogging images of your own work also exposes more people to your work - I’ve found that a large proportion of people who read my blog don’t visit my galleries. Posting images of my work on a fairly regular basis means that those people see at least some of my work. Blogging about your own work also allows you to go into greater depth about subject matter or technique than might be appropriate in the portfolio part of your site. If you’re not comfortable showing unfinished work, then just show finished pieces and talk about them instead.

The Tutorial Blog

If you’re a frustrated teacher then this could be the blogging technique for you!

A step-by-step guide to a technique, especially when accompanied by clear informative pictures, is a great way to draw people to your site. Plus, there are plenty of places where you can promote tutorials - sites like Whip Up and Craftster are always on the look-out for them and I’m sure there are plenty of other sites that would happily link to them. If you can’t find an existing place to promote them, then why not set up your own Squidoo? Squidoo isn’t something I’ve got into yet but I know a lot of people find it a useful concept: Katherine from Making A Mark uses it to provide a handy round up of art resources and a search for ‘art’ on Squidoo gives nearly a thousand results, so there are clearly plenty of people interested in art who are using it.

If you want to try this form, you’ll need to have reasonable photography skills and be good at writing out projects or techniques in easy to understand steps.

The Article Based Blog

A similar approach to the tutorial blog but with more words and less pictures. Good if you’re confident with writing and have plenty to say on a subject. This really works for visitor numbers - the articles I’ve written for my Artists Online Series have brought a large number of people to this site. Watch out though, this kind of writing is time-consuming and you may want to balance it out with some of the other forms, both for your own convenience and so your readers aren’t drowning in words.

The Subject Blog

If you want a very defined blog, then blogging about a single subject can be the way to go. The Carrotbox is a blog about rings and nothing but rings. You might think it would get boring but it’s actually a constant source of delight and a brilliantly condensed way to learn more about contemporary jewellery because there’s lots of images and the work chosen is so diverse. The downside to this type of blog is that you may only attract the people who’re already interested in your niche subject.

The News Blog

A round up of news stories in the art world is a fairly easy way to provide regular, topical content. You can provide stories without comment as The Arts Journal site does or add your own opinions, like The Arts News Blog does. If you’re going to focus on this form you’ll need to have the time to keep up with current art stories and you should also have a few research and journalistic skills.

The Opinion Blog

Aren’t artists always a bit opinionated? The ones I know certainly are, myself included! If you’re a critic at heart, love to analyse things and don’t mind sticking your neck out, then you’ll probably enjoy this form of blogging. Just remember that being overly critical might not win you too many friends and being overtly nasty can look very unprofessional.

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Of course, your blogging might cover many or all of these forms, there’s no rule that says you can only do one and I use a combination on this blog. However, if you mostly blog in one way, why not try shaking things up a little by trying a different form? You might gain a new readership and surprise yourself by being good at something you didn’t know you could do.

Michelle wrote in the comments on the Alt Images post:

Very informative post, Kirsty. One question: is there a place to learn how to create alt tags? The article is clear about what they are, but not how to make them. For those of us who are coding-challenged (or coding-averse, more accurately!), this would be vitally valuable information! Thanks.

No problem, Michelle, I’ll have a go at explaining it.

I’ll use this image as an example:

Kirsty Hall - art, photograph of Broken Cup Handle With Shadows

It’s actually pretty simple and you don’t need to be scared of it. OK, if you look at the code on your linked image, you’ll see something like this:

initial code here=”tt-flickr” href=”big long string of code”> img class=”tt-flickr” src=”a different bit long string of code”
width=”500″ height=”305″ alt=”Broken Handle 01″ /> closing code here

Please note, I’ve replaced the actual code with the helpful words ‘big long string of code’ and ‘initial code’ and ‘closing code’, so that we can see the code instead of just getting the picture again (working out which bits to change took me quite a while, since I’m pretty code impaired myself!) The code may also be in a slightly different order depending on how you’ve linked the photo. However, the only bit you’re interested in is the bit that says, alt=”whatever” /> and that will always appear somewhere towards the end.

In this case it originally said alt=”Broken Handle 01″ />, which was just the title of the image in Flickr. Now Broken Handle 01 isn’t very informative, it doesn’t give you my name or much about the image, so I changed it to: alt=”Kirsty Hall - Photograph of Broken Cup Handle With Shadows” />

Basically, whatever you put inside the two sets of quote marks between the = sign and the /> code will be what Google and the other search engines read as the alternative text for the photo.

If any of you are more technically minded than me and are smacking yourself on the forehead and yelling ‘dammit, that’s completely wrong’, then please do get in touch and I’ll change it but I’m 99% sure that this is right.

Making that text searchable and relevant is how your work winds up in Google Images so, you should be adding your name and keywords that are appropriate to that particular work, i.e. ‘oil painting’, ‘landscape’, ’sculpture made from pins’, etc. Apparently using keywords in alt tags can boost your general Google results too, although I’m not too sure how (magic Google dust sprinkled by the Google fairies maybe?)

Don’t restrict yourself to using alt text just as a promotional technique though. You should also make sure that your text is clear and descriptive to make your site or blog more accessible to disabled internet users. Text browsers can’t detect images but can detect alt tags and will translate them into spoken text for visually impaired web users. People in countries with poor web access may also have their browsers set to text only and they’ll see little written blocks of text instead of your images. Bear this in mind when you’re writing your tags. This article has more details on the level of helpful descriptiveness you should be aiming at.

It’s a shame that Flickr seems to turn the photo title into the alt text since I can’t quite bring myself to label all my Flickr photos with my name (I think it would look way too pushy, weird and tacky). Manually changing the alt text when I post images over here seems to be the only solution right now but I will do a bit of research over on Flickr to see if there’s some wonderful way to add hidden alt text to the images without putting it in the titles.

However, if you’re uploading images directly into your Wordpress site, rather than linking from Flickr, then you can set your alt text very easily. Simply go to the section where you upload images and type the description you want in the box that says ‘Title’. I imagine that other blogging software probably has similar options but fortunately changing the code isn’t too complicated - just make sure you don’t accidentally erase those all important little quote marks.

I hope this makes things a little clearer, Michelle. Oh, and if it makes you feel any better about the subject, I’ve just this minute realised that I have 235 envelope images to change over at The Diary Project. Someone shoot me now!

EDIT: on the advise of Gyrus, I’ve changed the term ‘alt tag’ to ‘alt text’ as the later is apparently less confusing and more accurate.

Gyrus also points out the following:

Sometimes you might not get the alt text come up when you hover the mouse over an image (it doesn’t come up on Firefox, for instance). Properly, the alt attribute value is “alternative” text, i.e. to use if you can’t see the image (either it’s a text browser, images are turned off, or it’s a speech browser reading the text out). That little “tooltip” that pops up, if it’s there at all, is technically supposed to come from a “title” attribute on the img tag. The title is optional, though. Just thought I’d mention this in case anyone gets confused on Firefox with the alt text not popping up when you mouse over it.

Alyson B. Stanfield has an excellent podcast this week about the importance of assessing art venues.

Considering your exhibiting strategy is always worthwhile. The artworld judges you not only on how often you show but also where you show and who your fellow exhibitors are. Not all exhibitions are created equal - a selected group show in a well regarded gallery usually rates much higher than an open submission exhibition with a high proportion of amateur artists.

Do you have rules for showing and places you won’t consider? If you don’t have any showing rules, then it’s definitely time you sat down and did some strategic thinking about this issue.

Personally, I won’t apply to exhibitions that charge an upfront non-returnable application fee unless the show is extremely prestigious or has some other compelling factor. For example, I’d consider putting in for the Jerwood Drawing Prize even though they charge an application fee because it has national exposure, a proper catalogue and is very well regarded in the British art scene. I chose not to apply this year but if my drawing continues to evolve then I might consider it next year. I know that my chances of getting in would be low because they have a lot of applications and the standard is high but even applying would feel like a step up to me.

There are a couple of other UK juried shows that I feel that way about but they’re fairly few and far between. Usually they’d need to be in an extremely good venue that I couldn’t otherwise get into at this stage in my career or have some other major advantage.

That said, I’m completely fine with paying a small fee to take part in things like local art trails. Now, if you look at it logically, this doesn’t seem to make sense - I’ll happily bung £15 to a bunch of artists organising a local event, while I’ll scoff at a gallery charging the same amount in an application fee.

However, there are couple of good reasons for this.

Firstly, I’m just more comfortable with artist-led projects - at heart, I’m a grassroots kind of girl! I know exactly what it’s like to put together projects on a complete shoestring and believe me nobody’s getting rich doing it! Usually you’re doing well if you break even.

But it’s not just about supporting local artist-led initiatives out of the goodness of my heart - art trails often have a lot going for them. Our local art trails get fantastic visitor numbers and good coverage in the local media. Plus, they can be a great way to build up a local following; add to your mailing list; attract local visitors to future shows and make vital connections with the movers and shakers in your regional art scene. On balance, I’m more than happy to pay for that, there’s enough value in the exchange to make it worth my while.

Secondly, artist-led projects usually don’t want money from you unless you’re accepted, whereas a lot of galleries seem to think that it’s completely fine to charge you money for the privilege of them looking at your work.

I know from my curating experience that having that kind of show can be an excellent money spinner for galleries. You get the fees from all the artists who’ve applied, not just the ones who’re eventually selected. Then, because you’re showing a lot of artists you get a bigger than average crowd when the artists invite all their friends and family. In turn, large crowds give you a higher chance of generating big sales. Believe me, I can completely understand why galleries put on these kind of shows - I’m just not sure that it’s my job as an artist to subsidise them.

I’m not saying that artists should automatically rule out every exhibition that charges an application fee but you should definitely consider the following things:

• Is the venue far enough above your current level that it would boost your profile considerably?
• Is there a proper catalogue?
• Does the show have a good reputation in the art world?
• Does the show get good media coverage?
• What are the visitor numbers like?
• Does the show traditionally have an excellent sales record?
• Is there a prestigious guest list for the private view?

As with everything where money is involved: caveat emptor! Know what you’re getting into and why, understand your reasons and don’t apply to or accept shows out of sheer desperation.

The next section of my Artists Online Series will look at blogging.

Blogging can be a very useful promotional tool for artists. It’s not a substitute for having a good online portfolio or for doing lots of offline work on your career but it can be a useful addition. Not convinced? Here are my reasons:

Blogging Raises Your Google Profile

Since Google prefers fresh content, regular blogging tends to push your Google results higher. Other people linking to your blog posts also increases your Google profile. Make sure you’re blogging under your professional name to get the full benefit of this.

It’s not just Google that likes new information: people are also far more likely to come and visit your website if you’ve got constantly changing content. How often is someone likely to blog about your really cool art? Once or twice tops. However, if you’re regularly writing good blog posts then you don’t just get repeat visits, you may also get repeatedly linked, which means… yes, better Google results! Rinse and repeat…

Blogging Reminds People You Exist

Promotion isn’t something that you do once and then it’s done forever: it’s more like exercising - you need to do it little and often!

Blogging helps with that; if people are constantly coming back to read your blog, then they’re naturally more aware of you. You don’t even need to constantly talk about your own art; just by visiting regularly they’re getting a gentle little nudge that you and your work exist.

Blogging Improves Your Website Numbers

Being able to say to a gallery or a funding body, “well, last month I had X number of visitors to my website” puts you in a better negotiating position because it proves that your work is already popular.

Of course, online popularity won’t substitute for offline experience like exhibitions, publications and residencies but it can add to it. Last year I was told by someone in the know that if you’re filling out a funding form and it asks about prospective audience audience numbers, you should definitely include your web hits. This had never even occurred to me but apparently Arts Council England counts online viewers as bums on seats!

Blogging Connects You With People

This is one of the most important reasons to blog: I’ve met some completely amazing people through blogging and some of them have turned into offline friends.

Blogging can help you find a group of people who support your art. This can include other artists, gallery owners and curators but equally importantly it can include lots of non-artists who are willing to be advocates for your work.

Cultivating a group of people who like your work is vital for any artist. Supporters will turn up at your shows, cheer you on, blog about you, tell their friends and even sometimes buy your work. Supporters are great!

Of course, you should also be cultivating a group of supporters offline through using things like mailing lists, but finding sympathetic people who genuinely want you to succeed can often be easier online.

Blogging Gets You Out Of The Garret

Many artists work in isolation and blogging can help reduce that all pervading sense of invisibility. My own studio is in my home: this is definitely the best option for my art practice but it does mean that I don’t always get as many opportunities to connect with other artists as I’d like. When I graduated, I did feel very isolated, lonely and out on a limb. I lessened that by starting a artists’ group with my college friends but it was a lot of work - I was the chairperson, general organiser and one of the main curators for our group shows. Now I get that all important sense of connection through blogging and online social networking spaces with a lot less effort. For real world connections, I have the Spike Island Associates Programme, local private views and my part time jewellery course.

Even if you are in a studio, there aren’t always as many opportunities to connect deeply with the other artists as you might expect - they’re busy, you’re busy and you might not have that much in common anyway. But online you’re not limited to your geographical surroundings - with a little effort, you can find a peer group with whom you truly click on an artistic and intellectual level.

Blogging Breaks Down Barriers

Sure, there’s a hierarchy in the blogging world but there’s also a surprisingly level playing field. You can leave comments in the blogs of ‘far more important’ bloggers and they’ll generally reply to you on an equal basis. I’ve spoken in blog comments to published authors and more established artists in a way that I would never have dared to do in other mediums. Blogging opens the channels of communication in a way that feels comfortable to me: I feel much more equal online, I’m less intimidated by what someone’s done and just respond to what they write and how they come across. Blogging makes me braver and that has translated into my offline promotion efforts.

In the same way, blogging can make you seem more approachable and human to people who are interested in your art. Why not do the next generation of artists a big favour and help to break down the myth that artists are all crazy, ear chopping introverts or outrageously drunken drama queens! Of course, if you do happen have that kind of personality then you might as well play to the gallery because I’ve been told several times that collectors just love that sort of thing…

You Can Reach A Wider Audience

People who might not be comfortable visiting a gallery are often happy to look at your work online, especially if you initially engage them with a blog post that’s relevant to them. Through blogging you can often reach people who wouldn’t otherwise consider looking at your art and those people can sometimes end up being incredibly supportive.

Through blogging, you can also reach a global audience who might not otherwise be able to see your work. To date, The Diary Project has had visitors from 39 countries, including places like Guam, Brunei and Malaysia, while this site has had visits from 29 countries.

I’m not saying this to boast - just the opposite, in fact. My point is that I’m not important yet. I’m very much an emerging artist rather than a well-known one: I’m only five years out of college and although I’ve had a steady stream of group shows, I’ve only had one solo show. I’m certainly getting established, through lots of hard work both on and offline but I’ve not exhibited my work abroad yet and I’m probably still be a couple of years away from doing so. [Although, do feel free to offer me an international show - I'm totally OK with moving it up my agenda!]

So it’s quite incredible that people from all over the world have already had the opportunity to see what I do. This would never have happened without the internet - it simply isn’t possible from my current position in the offline art world.

Blogging Empowers you

By being active online you take a little bit of the power away from the artistic ‘gatekeepers’ and put it back in your own hands. You’re not just sitting around twiddling your thumbs waiting to be discovered - you’re out there building an audience and creating your own opportunities.

Of course, the gatekeepers aren’t ever going to be redundant - artists still need gallery owners, exhibitions, audiences, collectors and funders in the offline world. I’m not trying to denigrate the artworld or its gatekeepers but particularly in the early days it can feel as though you’re banging your head against a brick wall and getting nowhere. I’m not complaining about that either; there’s absolutely no substitute for paying your dues and we all have to knuckle down and do it. However, a little bit of encouragement online can keep you going when it feels as though no one else knows you exist. You’re still going to have to engage with the artworld offline but blogging can help to increase your confidence to deal with those interactions.

Blogging can also build confidence to take bigger and bolder steps online. I was blogging over on Livejournal for 3 1/2 years before I got my website up. Setting up a website felt huge and intimidating and quite beyond me at the time, whereas setting up a blog was quick and easy. Blogging was undoubtedly a helpful first step towards finally getting my website sorted.

Blogging Strengthens Your Voice

When you’re blogging about your own work, you have to think about your work. You have to put into words what you’re trying to do and that’s damn good experience when you need to write artists’ statements and press releases. A lot of artists hate writing about their own work and find it excruciating - blogging can help you get over that.

Blogging Can Generate New Opportunities

I know people who’ve been published or been offered exhibitions because of their blogging. It hasn’t directly happened to me yet but I have approached people I know in the online world and scored opportunities that way.

Blogging Is Cheap

Blogging costs virtually nothing compared to other forms of promotion like postcards, poster and ads but it can be very effective. Writing a good blog post won’t cost you anything except time, energy and a few pence for internet access and the electricity to run your computer but it can get distributed all around the world. Not only that but when people link to you, the information is usually replicated on their blogs plus they also usually link back to you. It’s like you sent out a single postcard and someone photocopied it and gave it to all their friends. As we all know, word of mouth can be a powerful thing. Who knows how connected some of those people might be? Who knows how large the audience on their blog is?

Blogging is Fun!

OK, obviously I’m biased on this one but I think blogging is a blast. It’s an effective promotional tool for me but it never feels like work because I enjoy it. Believe me, that’s a world of difference to how I feel about writing press releases or designing posters!

A variety of views from other artists discussing whether blogging works:
The Painter’s Keys

The Empty Easel

Art News Blog

OK, so how do you improve your Google ranking?

The SiteWizard has an excellent article called How to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking on Google. It might be a bit technical for some artists (it certainly lost me in places!) but it’ll give you a bit of background about how Google works. Searching for ‘improving Google ranking’ will give you lots of information along these lines but the SiteWizard article was one of the clearest I found.

My own tips are a lot less technical!

Use your name

You absolutely must link your professional name with your professional online identity. No one is going to be able to find you if you hide behind a pseudonym!

If you start a new blog, use your name in both the blog title and the username. Google seems to pay a lot more attention to the title and the username than it does to your profile, which is one reason why having your own dedicated domain name is such a good idea.

Even if you host your blog or domain on a free site, which tend to rank somewhat lower than dedicated domains, changing the title to include your name can make a big difference. I was mystified when I searched for myself by name last month and discovered that The Diary Project didn’t appear on Google until about page 15. It was outranked by far less important sites, where I was mentioned only in passing, and far newer sites, like this one. I just couldn’t understand it. Eventually I worked out that although I had my name in the profile, Google wasn’t giving it much weighting. I changed the title of the blog from “The Diary Project” to “Kirsty Hall: The Diary Project” and the page ranking shot right up. It’s now on the second page if I search just for my name and the first page if I search for my name + art.

Of course, you might not want to use your professional name in all your online interactions – you don’t necessarily want a curator or potential collector to find iffy drunken photos or blog posts where you’re talking about your sex life! Remember that your reputation is all you have online and you need to protect it. Have a personal online identify by all means, but if you don’t want it to intersect with your professional identity then make sure you avoid ever linking the two. Google is remarkably smart at joining dots. I linked to my Livejournal in a professional capacity twice and it now comes up in searches of me. This isn’t disastrous since I don’t write about anything incredibly revealing over there but now I always have to bear in mind that someone searching for me in a professional capacity could find and read that more personal blog. Since I don’t want to strengthen that Google association, I deliberately don’t link to my Livejournal from here (you’re welcome to go and read it though).

Switch Things On

OK, this is an area where I’m not strong but you need to make sure that you’ve got the right things switched on in your blog or website. If you work with a web designer, make sure they’ve optimised your site for search engines through using keywords. Check your website or blog software documentation and make sure that you’re being indexed by search engines. I used this article by Biz Stone to make sure that I had the right settings activated on The Diary Project, which is hosted by Blogger. Even if you’re not on Blogger, it’s worth a read because there are some good general blogging and promotion tips.

If you are on somewhere like Blogger, definitely make sure you’ve added your site to their own listings. It really is worth it: I get a steady stream of visitors to the Diary Project because it’s in the Blogger listings. I got 55 visits from there in the last month: it’s currently my fourth largest source of visitors to the Diary Project and provides more visitors to The Diary Project than this site does.

Use Your Natural Advantages

If you’re working with an unusual technique or imagery or have a less common name, then you’re always going to be easier to find on Google simply because there’s less competition.

Unfortunately if you’re called Joe Blow and you’re an oil painter, then you’re going to have to work a lot harder to stand out. So pick out the things that are unique in your work and use them in your profile and your keywords. To find those things, imagine you’ve only seen your own work once in a group exhibition. What would stand out? If you’re not sure, ask a couple of friends what stands out for them.

Write a snappy profile

Mention the important things in your profile - your name, where you’re from (in case someone is looking for artists just in your area), the materials you use, the imagery you use and any relevant keywords that describe your work. Keep it fairly concise, don’t use too much art jargon and and try to employ the sort of terms that would be used by someone searching for work that’s similar to yours.

Be In More Than One Place

As Andrea pointed out in comments.
“It’s easier to have a strong web presence of course if you’re something of an internet whore.”

Why yes Andrea, yes it is!

One reason that I’m all over the front two pages of Google like a cheap rash, is that I’m in more than one place online. I’ve used my own name in at least five sites of my own, plus other people have written about me or linked to my sites.

Now, getting yourself in multiple places online is something that definitely takes time and effort and since it’s complex, I’ll be discussing the most effective ways to do this in later posts. In the meantime, consider upgrading your profile on any sites you’re already on if it’s appropriate to do so (see earlier point about professionalism). You could also ask any galleries that show your work if they would link to your website. However, I have been told that some commercial galleries frown on artists being online, so you might want to test the waters fairly gently on that one.

Personally, I haven’t always done this well, I used to be positively shy and retiring. For instance, I’d been curating for several years before I twigged that I ought to put my name on the posters of the shows! I genuinely felt that I was much less important than the artists and it was ‘putting myself forward too much’. So at the moment, I have very little online documentation of the five years of curating that I did, although I’m planning to put together a curating page on this website in the near future. That said, at least one or two of the shows that I curated turn up in Google when you search for me.

Considering that I didn’t get paid for any of the curating I’ve done, I should at least have been getting some major props for it! It’s safe to say that I wasn’t doing myself any favours when I was hiding behind that bushel and I regret it now. But at the time, I just wasn’t emotionally ready to be more forward. Later in the series, I’ll be talking about how to promote yourself when you’d much rather hide under the bed clothes - believe me, it’s an area where I have plenty of personal experience!

Link to yourself

If you are in more than one place (see above) then make sure that you link back to yourself in your profiles. Don’t make visitors go searching for your blog, website or Flickr account but instead make it easy for them (there’s that mantra again!) by pointing them directly towards the places you’d like them to go.

Google also looks in the text of sites, so using your name, the name of an art project or your other sites in your own blog posts can also make you pop up on Google more often. You could try doing things like labelling your photographs when you blog them (something I’ve only just started doing). I don’t know for sure that it helps but it certainly won’t hurt. Plus it also makes it clear when an image is yours rather than another artist’s - important on a blog like mine where I blog both kinds of images, sometimes in the same post.

Linking to yourself in this way also ups your Technorati numbers. Technorati works by giving you a popularity ranking; you start out low and the more sites that link to you, the higher your ranking rises. Now, obviously you shouldn’t try to artificially boost your Technorati rank by linking to yourself more often than is necessary. However, there’s nothing wrong with pointing people at your other sites if it’s relevant to what you’re talking about or when there’s new content over there. It’s not manipulative or ‘too in your face’ unless you’re either sneaky or make a big song and dance about it: instead just think of it as being helpful, both for them and, admittedly, for you. Regular visitors will just ignore the hot link but new visitors won’t be left wondering ‘hey, what’s this other thing they’re talking about?’

Start A Blog

If you don’t already have one then start a blog.

Blogging improves your Google ranking in several ways.

Firstly, it means that your site has fresh content. Google and the other search engines prefer newly updated sites: a site that’s been updated recently will tend to place higher than a static site that hasn’t been touched in a couple of months or even years.

Secondly, if you’re blogging then you’re usually linking to other people and they’re hopefully linking back to you. I’ll cover this more in more depth in the articles on blogging but suffice it to say that links are very good. The Google spiders love links - it is called the web after all - so the more little threads you have going in and out of your site, the more visible you are to those spiders.

Be Patient

You won’t appear in Google instantly so don’t be disheartened if you don’t see changes overnight. You can help yourself by doing the things I’ve mentioned but the web is a big place and those little spiders, although surprisingly fast, can sometimes take a bit of time to find you.

If you haven’t seen any change in a couple of weeks then reconsider your options. Look at your Google Analytics and Technorati results again, see if you can spot where you’re missing out. Keep testing, do more research, do more reading and try new things. Go back and search for yourself in Google again and note any changes. However, be aware that something like building up a blog takes time; you won’t instantly get hundreds of visitors unless you’re already famous - in which case, you should probably be writing this series instead of me!

The next few articles in the Artists Online series are going to be about improving your search engine visibility. I should point out that I’m not an expert on this, so I’d recommend that you do additional research.

Set a baseline

This should be your first step because simply put, if you don’t know where you currently are, you can’t know whether you’re improving or not. It can also help you spot any obvious mistakes that you’re making - I just spotted one of mine!

So, indulge your ego and go type your name into Google.

Try the following versions:
“Your name”
“Your name” + art
artist + your medium + your geographical area
artist + something unique about your work

What do you find? Are you on the first or second page? That’s good, you’re pretty visible but if there’s a lot of variation between the different search terms you might still have room for improvement. If you doesn’t appear until 20 or 30 pages into Google, then unfortunately you’re effectively invisible because only the most determined person is still hunting for you. Even 10 or 15 pages down is bad because people can be pretty lazy when searching online.

Take a note of the most and least effective ways in which you appear. Try to think of other ways someone might search for your work and test those too.

If I type “Kirsty Hall” into Google then I come up as 5 results on the first page and 10 out of the first 20 results. That’s 50%, which isn’t bad but if I type “Kirsty Hall” + art, then 19 out of the first 20 results currently refer to me. When I’m searching for an artist, I will generally add the word ‘art’ to help rule out the non-artists who share their name so clearly a curator who already knows my name has an excellent chance of finding me online.

If they don’t know your name it’s always going to be harder but it can be done if they’ve seen your work and remember something distinctive about it.

The search terms, ‘artist + pins + sculpture’ will bring this site up on the first page. However, if someone has only seen my work with string, then I’m in trouble because I don’t appear in the first ten pages of Google at all if you use the search terms, ‘artist + knots + string’. I’d just better hope they add the magic word ’sculpture’ because that shunts me right back up to the front page!

The search terms ‘artists + drawing + envelope’ bring me up as the very top result on the first page - how lovely. Unfortunately, only I would know it was me because my name isn’t mentioned in the little blurb - instead the words, “Each day in 2007 I am doing a drawing on the back of an envelope, …” appear. Now that might be enough for someone to identify the Diary Project if they’ve heard of it before, but to me it instantly says, “oops, I need to change that profile”.

Remember my ‘Make It Easy For People’ mantra from the Flickr posts? Well that applies here too. You need to make it easy for people to find you but you also need to make it easy for them to recognise you when they do find you. While someone might not remember your name well enough to type it into Google, it’s quite likely to ring bells if they see it written down.

Being found when someone knows absolutely nothing about you is always going to be the hardest thing to achieve. Despite the fact that I list where I’m from and what I do in most of my online profiles, typing ‘artist + Bristol + sculpture’ doesn’t bring me up until the 19th page of Google. Now, obviously, there’s a lot more competition when you’re using more general search terms so it’s always going to be more difficult to get top results but I clearly need to do some work in that area.

Chart Your Progress

If you already have a website or blog then sign up with Google Analytics and Technorati right now. You can see how many visitors you’re getting, which sites are referring them and which other blogs or sites are linking to you. Monitoring your numbers from the beginning means that you can see when things start to improve, which is always encouraging.

Plus being signed up to Technorati can provide a small but steady stream of visitors, in addition to highlighting who has linked to you and in which post. The incredible detail in Google Analytics can help you to work out why things have improved, as well as being endlessly fascinating in its own right. For example, I’ve just spotted that this site has suddenly had 12 visits from Etsy, which is somewhat mystifying since I’m not even on Etsy. I can only assume that someone from there has linked to me (if you’re from Etsy, please do tell me how you got here, I’d love to know).*

Every so often, type yourself into Google to see if your rankings have changed. Don’t just look at where you place, look at how often you place. What you’re aiming for is to appear in the front two or three pages, over and over again.

Right, now that you’ve worked out how things stand at the moment, it’s time to work on making things better. Don’t be disheartened if you’re pretty invisible right now, you can make improvements fairly quickly.

* EDIT: Aha, mystery solved. Thanks to Tina Mammoser for pimping me on the Etsy forums.

EDIT: Leonardo Bjork points out that putting your name in quotes can make a big difference to your Google results. Since most searchers know to do that, you should make sure you try it when you run your Google tests.

Short Answer

Yes!

Long Answer

Flickr can definitely reap big rewards in promotional terms with only fairly small investments of time on your part.

I know that posting to groups works because whenever I post an envelope drawing to even a single Flickr group, I always get a spike in my Diary Project numbers. I’ve had Google Analytics running over on The Diary Project for exactly one month now (I was using a less accurate site meter before then) and in that month I’ve had 89 direct referrals from Flickr. Posting an image to a group or taking part in a group discussion also often results in someone adding me as a contact, commenting on my photos or finding their way over here.

But that’s not the end of the story…

Just this week I had a timely example of how effective Flickr can be when Jeffrey Yamaguchi from 52 Projects promoted my work without any direct contact from me. He had seen an envelope image that I’d posted to his What’s Your Project Flickr group, investigated it and then very kindly blogged about The Diary Project.

Now, I’ve been meaning to write a press release about The Diary Project and send it to various sites but I hadn’t quite got round to it yet - er, you know how it is!

52 Projects was on my list of places to send a press release to because I’d read Jeffrey’s book and thought The Diary Project might appeal to him. Now, thanks to Flickr, I don’t need to send a press release to that particular site.

It was the work of about 30 seconds to post one of my envelope images to the What’s Your Project group, it was certainly much easier than writing a press release, looking up Jeffrey’s contact info and sending an email. And frankly, it was also less intimidating: posting images to Flickr groups is brilliant for an artist who hates doing promotion because it doesn’t feel like marketing. I don’t know about anyone else but I always feel a bit embarrassed writing and sending out press releases about my own work (come to think of it, that’s probably why I’ve been procrastinating on the damn thing for so long).

The Diary Project has already had 91 visits from 52 Projects and who knows, maybe some of those visitors will choose to link to the project in their own blogs. So, if we add those two sets of numbers together, you can see that Flickr has provided 180 visits to The Diary Project in the last month with very minimal effort on my behalf. All I did was upload my Diary Project images (something I had to do anyway) and then send a couple out to groups. I don’t know how many images I posted to groups but it’s unlikely to have been many since I only do it when I remember so it’s a little erratic! My promotional investment was probably about five minutes, tops.

However, it is important to note that all the images had the relevant info on them; a concise bit of blurb about the project and a link to the project blog. Without that information, the envelopes are just more drawings amid a mass of art images: knowing the context of the project is what makes them stand out and having the link right there on the image is what encourages people to find out more.

I’ve had more unusual Flickr contacts too: Garrison over at Holiday Pad Magazine found this site earlier in the week when one of my non-art photos tagged with the word ‘holiday’ popped up on the rolling feed at the bottom of his site. He tells me it was my recent taxidermy photos that piqued his interest because he couldn’t work out why on earth they were tagged as holiday pictures.

Click on the images if you want to find out why I have taxidermy pictures in my holiday photos!

I guess you just never know what’s going to attract someone to your site…

You know, I’d been on Flickr for about 6 months before I even started using groups. The first group I joined was a knitting group and it was another couple of months before I suddenly thought, ‘hey wait, maybe there are some art groups…’

Up until that point, it had honestly never occurred to me that Flickr could be a promotional tool (I’m slow sometimes…) but using Flickr groups has revolutionised the amount of interest people take in my work, as well as massively increasing my own enjoyment of the site.

Well then, that’s a fairly thorough round-up of Flickr and why you should use it. I hope it’s been helpful and that you all come to grips with it a bit quicker than I did! I’ll probably come back to it at some point but now the series is going to be moving onto other ways for artists to use the web. I haven’t quite decided what’s up next but I’ve got several pages of notes at this point and about 20 different topics to cover, including some thoughts that have come up in the comments. My notes keep expanding too, I thought the Flickr topic would be just one post but it seems to have stretched into five.

People on Flickr tend to be an easy audience for an artist to engage with because, by definition, they’re already interested in photography and that often spills over to an interest in other visual areas. People on Flickr usually LIKE looking at other people’s photos and they’re used to doing it.

Ah, a sympathetic audience - the battle is already half won!

You can engage people even further by posting strong shots of your work - use unusual angles, take macro picks, shoot your work in interesting lighting conditions and post research photos that show what inspires your art. Flickr people have a tendency towards visual literacy and they’ll respond well to good photography. We all know that it can be hard to take good descriptive photos of your work - the sort of photos that you need for applying for exhibitions. However, I’ve found that taking more atmospheric shots, especially close-ups, is a lot easier and it tends to be those sort of shots that people on Flickr respond to because they’re more photographically interesting.

Flickr is a powerful social network and this is why I recommend it over other photo hosting services. Flickr currently has 4,000,000 users and almost a billion photos hosted on the site. That might sound daunting - with those numbers, who on earth is ever going to see your work? Well, thankfully, Flickr is set up in such a way that it’s easy to share your work and make connections with sympathetic people.

There are lots of ways to be more visible on Flickr but basically you need to reach out and participate in the community. You can do this by:

• Adding people as contacts
• Joining Flickr groups
• Commenting on individual photos
• Marking other people’s photos as favourites

If you do some or all of these things, then other people will usually start looking at your photos.

Make Contacts

Making contacts is an excellent way to start creating a little network of like-minded people on Flickr. It’s a very informal process; you don’t need to already know someone beforehand, it’s fine to add someone simply because you like their photos. Very often people will add you back but it’s not obligatory, so don’t be offended if they don’t. If someone is listed as a contact then you’ll see their photos on your front page. If they add you back, then any new work you put up will automatically appear on their page, either on their front page or their contacts page. If you’re regularly posting photos then all your contacts are getting regular little updates on your art and being reminded about your work in a very gentle and non-invasive way.

So where can you find some people that you like?

Well, it’s likely that some of your existing friends are already on Flickr, if they are, then add them as contacts. You can also send invites to friends and family who aren’t already there. That should give you a bit of a start in creating a network but if you want to find a wider range of people with similar interests to yourself, then the best way is to join some Flickr groups.

Flickr Groups

Groups are one of the fundamental building blocks of the community side of Flickr. Most groups are a combination of discussion and photos: you can post your images to a place where they’ll be seen by hundreds of other people but you can also take part in the discussions, which are a good way to meet individuals.

There are groups on just every subject under the sun and most of them are open membership so you join with the click of a button, very occasionally you’ll have to ask a moderator to join.

Consider joining some of the art groups: Artists And Their Art is my favourite because I like their discussions but there are masses of others. You might not like a lot of the work that gets posted to the general art groups, I certainly don’t, but there are interesting artists active in some of the discussions. Also, posting photos to a group isn’t like being in an exhibition, where you’re often judged by the company you keep, it’s far more like putting a promotional postcard up in a huge display. Of course, you should still use your discretion - if you hate everything that’s posted to a group and the discussions don’t appeal, then it might be better to walk on by.

Does your work use a particular technique, image, theme, style or colour? Then there’s probably already a group on Flickr that covers it and if there isn’t, you can always start one. I’m on a wide range of Flickr groups (61 to date - it’s easy to get a little bit carried away!), from the more obviously arty ones to more unusual ones like wabi sabi suki, Coiled Knotted Twisted and Keys Keyholes Locks. Obviously it’s impossible to keep up with a huge range of groups: I have a couple that I’m more involved with and just randomly dip in and out of the rest.

When posting images to groups, obey the rules; many groups limit the number of images you can post in a day and off-topic images are likely to be deleted by the mods. Even if a group has unlimited posting, don’t post huge clumps of your work to a single group all at once because it drowns out everyone else’s work. However, picking an image that you like and posting it to more than one group is completely fine. Personally I try to pick a wide variety of applicable groups for individual images so that I’m reaching a wider potential audience. I also do this so that I don’t bore people. The same people often belong to all the groups about a single subject, therefore, to make things a bit more interesting for those people, I post different images from the same series to each of the related groups.

You can find groups by using the search tool on your Flickr page, you can search for groups, people, locations or through your own or everyone else’s photos. The Flickr search engines works by searching for tags, which is why you should be using them on your own photos, otherwise you’re effectively invisible to the search tool and consequently to other users.

Comments

It’s perfectly acceptable to comment on someone’s photo even when you don’t know them. There’s no need to feel shy, just dive in. The person will see that you’ve added a comment and the comment will usually be publicly available on that photo for others to read. Adding comments usually encourages people to come over and have a look at your work.

Obviously nasty comments are very unprofessional and aren’t going to make you any friends: as my father likes to say; “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all!” Just ignore the stuff you don’t like, there’s no requirement to comment on every single thing you see (you couldn’t anyway, it would be a full time job!)

Constructive criticism might be fine, especially if you’ve already connected with the person and know that they’re open to it but the culture of commenting on Flickr is generally positive and you should bear this in mind. If you want brutally honest responses on your own work, then you’ll probably need to explicitly ask for it in the text of the photo. If you happen to get a troll who hates your work and is just being abusive in comments, you can block them. It’s never happened to me but if you’re making more controversial work then it could be an issue.

When someone has left a comment on my work, I try to drop them a quick ‘thank you’ via FlickrMail, especially if they’re a new commenter. I like the FlickrMail tool because it means that as well as taking part in the big group discussions, you can have personal side conversations with people. It helps to break up the vastness of Flickr and make it a lot less overwhelming.

Favourites

This is the Flickr tool that I use least but it can be useful. It’s basically an extension of commenting: you mark other people’s individual photos as favourites and they’re then stored on a favourites page on your own page.

Where I have found favourites to be helpful is in finding new people: I’ve often found interesting new artists by going to the page of someone whose work I like and browsing through their favourites and contacts pages.

The Culture Of Flickr

I hope it’s clear by now that Flickr doesn’t need to be a dauntingly huge place where you’re destined to be invisible but can be a place where, with a little effort, you and your work can be seen and respected.

You shouldn’t go into it cynically though - regarding the other members of Flickr as just another marketing opportunity won’t go over well. It’s rude, disrespectful and contrary to the ethos of the place. Flickr isn’t just a huge potential audience for your work; it’s a community and you’ll be a member of that community. Respect the other members and respond to them with openness and generosity.

Flickr is about sharing and being generous with your time, energy and creative thoughts can reap big rewards there. Every time you make someone into a contact, comment on or favourite one of their photos or write something interesting in a discussion, people are likely to come and see who you are - they’ll read your profile and have a quick look at your work. If you’re lucky (and you’ve made it easy for them), they might also go on to visit your other websites or act as an advocate for your work by blogging about you.

Sorry about the length of this one, there didn’t seem to be a good place to cut it in half and there was a lot to say. We’re nearly done with Flickr posts now though.

I always describe Flickr as ’simple but deep’ and that’s a good way to think about it. I’ve already explained that I like the intuitive interface, however, there’s a lot more to Flickr than ease of use. I’m still coming to grips with what you can do over there but in my experience, the more you delve into Flickr, the more there is to find.

If you just use Flickr as somewhere to store your images so that you can blog them elsewhere then you’re definitely not realising its full potential. Today I’m going to run through a few ways for artists to make the most of Flickr, all of which relate to the powerful communal aspects of the site.

OK, first let’s quickly check what you should ideally have on your own Flickr before you start engaging with the Flickr community.

The first thing, as usual, is to make sure your actual work is up to scratch. Post good, strong interesting images of your art. Work in progress shots, clearly marked as such, are also perfectly acceptable - indeed, people usually enjoy seeing those. However, if Flickr is your only online visual portfolio, you may want to keep it a bit more formal and only post finished works.

Now sort your images into collections and sets: you can sort by date, by medium, by series or by any other criteria that makes sense to you. Once you’ve got the sets and collections you want, set up your front page so that your art collections and/or sets are visible alongside your photostream. This means that anyone clicking on your profile or one of your photos will instantly be able to see that you’re an artist and exactly where your art images are. Always make it easy for people!

You also need to have explanatory text under each photo. Obviously it’s best to do this when you upload images but if you didn’t have time then it’s easy enough to do it afterwards either by clicking on individual photos or, if you’ve got a lot to do, by using the batch organize button in the Organizer feature. When writing the text don’t use too much art jargon and be reasonably concise. However, people often like to know a bit about the reality behind the art so it’s fine to tell stories or to explain why this is a favourite piece of work.

If you have an art website or blog, then make sure that you include a link in the text of every single photo as well as in your profile. Having a direct html link from individual Flickr photos makes a big difference to the numbers of visitors you’ll get to your website: Flickr is my largest source of visitors to The Diary Project blog because there’s a direct link on every single envelope image. I’m currently running a small comparative experiment on this. Last night I checked my numbers in Google Analytics, took a note of them, then added a direct link to this site on all the art images that aren’t Diary Project images. I’ll let you know in a week or two how much difference it makes.

As I mentioned yesterday, your profile should contain an artists statement and/or a mini CV; a link to any other art websites; plus a way to get in touch with you, although you don’t have to give out your full address if you’re uncomfortable with that. Do think long and hard before putting your home address or phone number online because once it’s out there, it will stay out there. I’d recommend putting a rough geographical location though, it helps to orientate people and would be helpful if someone was looking for artists in your particular area.

OK, your Flickr account should now look presentable, although if you haven’t done absolutely everything on every single photograph, don’t worry over much. My own Flickr follows most of these principles but it isn’t absolutely perfect and I don’t let it stop me taking part in the wider Flickr community. At some point I need to go through and make sure that I’m following my own advice and everything has the correct tags and explanations!

Right, on to Part 2, where I’ll explain how to get started in the community side of Flickr.

OK, so I’m assuming that I’ve sold you on the benefits of using Flickr. So, how do you go about it?

I’m not going to spell out how to set up an account because that’s already well covered in the Flickr FAQ and help pages. What I am going to do is give you tips for using Flickr effectively as a professional artist. Again, I’m chopping this up into manageable chunks: this post will discuss ways to optimise your own Flickr space, while the next post will look at interacting with the wider Flickr community.

Use Your Professional Name

When you’re signing up, choose an account name that’s as closely related to your professional name as possible. Of course, if you have a common name this might not be possible. The reason for this is that it makes it easier for Google to find you. It also links your Flickr account to your professional online persona.

The observant amongst you will note that my own Flickr name doesn’t follow this rule, I’m kmhlamia on Flickr rather than kirstyhall. This is because I set up my Flickr account before I was thinking about using it as a professional space and it simply never occurred to me. Since I’m already known on Flickr by that name, I don’t really want to change it, although I am considering it.

You should also use your professional name in your Flickr profile. I have done this and it means that my Flickr page comes up on the third page of Google. Since this website is my primary website, that isn’t a problem for me but if Flickr was my main online presence then I’d definitely change my username to get better Google results.

Use Your Profile

Your profile is your friend: you can use it to host a mini CV and a statement about your work. Make sure that you include contact information and if you’ve got other professional websites, link to them. Don’t make it too long - people simply won’t bother to read it - and don’t link to anything you don’t want Google to find!

Think carefully about what you say in your profile since it’s part of the professional face you’re presenting to the world and it could be read by curators, collectors and fans of your work. However, Flickr is a fairly informal space so it’s OK to be a bit more relaxed than you might be elsewhere. Go with what you’re comfortable with.

Set Things To Public

You can set individual photos to different privacy levels in Flickr but if you want people to be able to see your work then you need to set your photos to public. You should also set your photos to bloggable to encourage other people to promote your work for you. Setting your images to ‘artwork/illustration’ instead of ‘photograph’, can help people to find your work since it’s possible to search just for ‘artwork/illustration’ on Flickr. If your artwork contains imagery that could be considered ‘unsafe’, then you should read the relevant section of the Flickr FAQ carefully and set your safety level accordingly but be aware that this may limit who can see your art.

Protect But Share

While I approve of Creative Commons in general, I don’t usually recommend it to other artists. However, if it’s appropriate for your work, then Flickr offers the full range of Creative Commons options. Personally I have kept traditional copyright on all my Flickr images because it’s important for me to retain full control over my work. However, I also put a note in my profile saying that it was fine to blog my images without asking but any commercial use needed my explicit permission.

Putting any image of original artwork up on the web is always a risk. Posting lower resolution photos limits the risk of people printing out copies but you do have to keep an eye out for people nabbing your images and claiming them as their own. If you’re really worried you can put watermarks in your images before you upload them to Flickr. However, I believe the best defence against this is to become well known online and I’ll be discussing ways to build up your internet art profile in later posts.

Tag Your Photos

Tags are one of the most useful tools on Flickr and can help you in lots of ways. Firstly, they make your own life much easier. For example, perhaps you have a series of artworks about the same subject but you uploaded the photos at different times. Instead of searching for each photo individually within your photostream and maybe missing some, you can do a search using your tags. You can also search for images which don’t have any tags, just in case you forgot to tag some of those particular photos.

Tags can also make it easier for other people to find your work because they can search for tags within the whole of Flickr or just in your account. Of course, this works better if you’ve got fairly specific tags; ‘painting’ will bring up thousands of images but since you can add more than one tag, you can label things in more than one way.

I usually use a combination of title, medium, themes, colours and materials for my tags.
For example, this image of Pin Ritual is tagged with the words, pin ritual; pins; art; performance; sculpture; white; repetition; domesticity; labour and textile art.

Decide How Pure You’re Going to Be

If you’re conceiving of your Flickr space as largely a portfolio for your work then you need to decide how pure you’re going to be. Are you going to show work in progress, related visual research or are you just going to show finished pieces of art?

You also need to decide if your personal photos belong on your artistic Flickr account. It is possible to completely separate out the personal and professional by having more than one Flickr account but there does seem to be a fairly large acceptance of mixing photos on Flickr. Including a few more personal photos can make you seem more human rather than less professional, although obviously if photos are really personal then it might not be appropriate to have them within a professional space! However, you can also set privacy levels on individual photos so that only people you’ve marked as family and/or friends can see them (apparently you can send personal invites to non-Flickr members, something I only learnt today).

If you do want to maintain two completely separate accounts on Flickr then make sure the personal one doesn’t link to your professional one and doesn’t use your real name in any way or Google will probably join up the dots.

Organise Your Photos

Organising your photos into collections and sets can help your Flickr be both more professional and more accessible. You can set your Flickr page to show both your photostream and your collections or sets and I’d strongly recommend doing so because it allows people to instantly find your art without having to trail through lots of possibly unrelated images (this is particularly important if you do decide to mix personal and professional photos).

Use Descriptive Text

Every image that you upload to Flickr has a space underneath where you can write a description - use it! It’s also a good idea to write more general explanations in the descriptive text box of your collections and sets because that provides people with more background to your art, all nicely presented in easily digested little bites.

If you want people to visit your other web spaces, then put a link in the image text. This is what I do with The Diary Project images on Flickr: they all have the same standard explanatory text, with just the date altered and a html link to the Diary Project blog where people can find out more about specific images. My other art images don’t have a direct weblink within the text box and I’ve just worked out that this is why the Diary Project gets considerably more visits from Flickr than this site does.

Right, that’s all for this part, next we’re moving on to the importance of taking part in the community aspects of Flickr.

So what is Flickr?

At its most basic level, Flickr is a photo hosting service. Photo hosting services are sites on the web where you can upload your own photos, either free or for a small charge. These photos can then be shared with other users of the internet without the need for your own website space. You can read this Wikipedia article if you want to find out more about the concept of photo sharing.

Flickr is not the only photo hosting service, there are plenty of others including Photobucket, Kodak, Fotoblog and Zoomr. I have used a couple of other photohosting services in the past but then switched completely to Flickr because it was so much better. I haven’t used every single photo hosting site so I don’t know how all the others compare. That said, I do think that Flickr has a lot of features that make it ideal for artists and we’ll get to these shortly.

Why do I need a photo hosting service?

Unless you are already in a position to put up a dedicated website where you can host your own photos then in order to make a simple visual portfolio online, you’ll need somewhere to host images.

Even if you do have a dedicated website on your own domain name, you’ll probably still need a photo hosting site. I find I use Flickr just as much now as I did before this site launched.

Later in this series, I’m also going to be strongly encouraging artists to blog and if you’re an artist blogger then being able to quickly and easily share your photos is vital: nothing is more dull than a visual blog with no visuals - I know, I’ve done it!

However, right now we’re going to concentrate on how to use Flickr to make a simple online visual portfolio.

The Advantages of Flickr

It’s probably obvious by now that I’m a fan of Flickr. There are lots of reasons for this:

Flickr Is Easy To Use

If you have a computer, an internet connection and a way to get your images onto your computer then you can use Flickr - it really is that simple. Even as a beginner you should be able to upload images, label them, sort them into galleries, tag them and very quickly end up with a presentable display of your art.

Flickr looks good

This is a personal opinion and you might disagree but I think that Flickr has a clean, pleasant interface that looks reasonably professional. In addition, unlike somewhere like Facebook, you can also do a certain amount of restructuring: it’ll never be as adaptive and individual as a personal website but you can have a decent amount of control over how your images are displayed.

Flickr is community based

This is hugely important because in effect, Flickr already contains a massive captive audience. What’s more, it’s a captive audience who are unusually sympathetic to visual culture and already used to looking at each other’s images and giving feedback. Naturally a lot depends on how you approach people but I’ve honestly found the majority of people on Flickr to be very approachable and sympathetic towards artists. You can never overestimate the importance of an interested captive audience, it’s like gold dust to any artist and remarkably hard to find. That audience already exists on Flickr; even if you already have your own website, do you really want to ignore that audience?

Flickr Makes Networking Easy

This is related to the community based aspect of Flickr. There are lots of tools on Flickr that break the massive user base down into smaller, move navigable chunks. I’ll be talking about these tools in detail in a later post.

Flickr Is Cheap

Flickr is either free with ads and limitations or $25 a year for a more extensive ad-free service. As a way of making a simple yet presentable visual portfolio that already comes with an in-built sympathetic audience, this is a complete bargain!

Of course, Flickr isn’t perfect, many Flickr users have been unhappy about some of the changes which have occurred since Yahoo bought the site in 2005. In particular it may not be the best choice if you make art which is very sexually explicit or graphically violent because Flickr does have restrictions on adult content. In addition, you can’t actively use Flickr