Hi Theo,Â
I hope you are well.Â
I have recently finished my eCom website (hosted on Shopify, might change that to Wordpress!) that is currently selling my own art, debsakalart.com. At present I just cannot afford to advertise on Facebook.Â
So I’m thinking of starting a blog on this site, as there is lots I could write about: the history and psychology of colour, pigments, different painting media, framing, art supplies, uses of colour eg therapy, etc. My thinking being approaching my shop like I am with my blog SimplyYouToday.com, from following your course. If I could monetise the blog, I could drive organic traffic to the site/shop and that could drive a decent amount of sales, not to mention the income from the blog itself too.
What are you thoughts here, do you think it could work, both as a strategy and as a blogging subject? Â
As well as selling my own art, I’m also going to be designing other art pieces, using other artists’ designs and graphic elements, appropriately commercially purchased & licensed of course. Plus there will be a collection/line of what I call Quote Art. These are quotes presented on beautiful backgrounds, sometimes these will be my own paintings, sometimes images from Pixabay, again appropriately commercially licensed. The quotes will vary from well known ones that are in the free domain, bible quotes and my own quotes (sometimes written from from pulling Tarot and Oracle cards).
So what are your thoughts on this, could it work and generate a good income?  I really value your professional opinion Theo.  Obviously I’m aware that trying to build organic traffic takes months rather than days, but I just don’t have the advertising budget for Facebook at present, however I still want to be doing something positive to get traffic to my website, and I think a monetised blog might do it.
Actually, for when I do have a decent budget, I’ve been looking much more into Pinterest, since you are such fan of it. If I could dispense with Facebook & Instagram and maybe advertise on Pinterest, that would be great. From a moral standpoint, more and more over the last few months, I just don’t want to have much to do with FB anymore, but needs must, it’s still an important platform.  I actually think that the audience for my art store as well as my blog SimplyYouToday.com are both on Pinterest, so I’ve just purchased a Pinterest advertising course on Udemy, so fingers crossed.
Thank you so much Theo, and sorry for the long message. 🙂
Warmest wishes,
Deb.
Hi Deb, yes I think people are interested in colours and how they can affect us etc. Not so sure about creating content on the subjects of different media, art supplies, etc, because that is aimed more towards artists as opposed to people shopping for art. If that makes sense.
I would suggest keeping your art store on Shopify unless you want to change to WP and save money on the Shopify fees. Also, of course, the Shopify blog feature isn't all that great, but it's still a way to add content and generate some traffic through SEO. Â
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Plus there will be a collection/line of what I call Quote Art. These are quotes presented on beautiful backgrounds,
That's a great idea and it could definitely work!
@theo Thank you, I appreciate your advice, I will definitely take it on board, I must remember that I'm not marketing to artists, but the end user consumer, thank you for that. 🙂 Â
Yes, I'm thinking I would like to save the monthly Shopify fees, also it's harder to do good SEO on Shopify because of the underpinning structure that it's built on. Â I've paused my Shopify store for now to save money, so maybe I will do a new WP site and start with an engaging blog, selling products bit by bit, starting with the quote art pieces, which will be both physical products (print on demand) plus digital downloads and then bring my own paintings over later. Â I could even write blog posts exploring in more depth about some of the various quotes I'm using. Â Hmmm food for thought.
Thank you again, I can always rely on you for good advice.  You're the best with your course and always being available to ask questions here on the forum.  🙂
also it's harder to do good SEO on Shopify because of the underpinning structure that it's built on.
Agreed. And from a cost perspective as well, it does make more sense to switch to WP and use your existing hosting account.Â
