16 Tips On Blogging For Artists & Creatives: Blogger Tips For Beginners

If you are considering designing a blog or website for your art this post is for you. I have compiled a list of tips on blogging that I have learned during my first year of writing. I hope it helps those of you who write and draw about your artwork.

Writing about art and the struggles we face as creatives have been a steep learning curve. It takes time to figure out what you want to say, how you plan to communicate value and connect with other artists. It has taken a whole year to understand the depth of planning, researching, reviewing, editing and sharing that goes into creating a helpful post.

While some of us might create a post that goes viral within the first year of blogging, I am not one of them. I don’t believe that writing comes naturally to me. I was always the student who said it better with a picture, that’s why I became an artist.

I am not saying this to scare you… If it were easy everyone would be blogging. But it has been one of the best decisions I made for my art business. It continues to be a fun challenge.

For creatives finding your voice and what you are passionate about is a journey that never ends. But the advice I give you is to just start, even before you know what you want to say. You don’t get better at playing the piano unless you practice.

At first, you are probably going to write for an audience of one (yourself) and maybe your parents and a few friends. Experiment at this stage, it does not matter if your posts don’t get the views you want. At this point you are honing your craft, finding your voice and your identity as a writer and artist.

Write for yourself first

I know this might sound counterintuitive as most blogging mentors lecture about connecting with your audience. But thinking in that manner will hurt your creativity. You need to create work that you enjoy first. You have to keep your tank fueled. You need to enjoy your work before you share it. Your audience will know when your writing is coming from a place of authenticity.

Batching your blogs

My first 6 months of blogging was chaotic, to say the least. I would leap into an idea without a plan, miss my scheduled posting dates and struggle under pressure. Why? I did not have a concrete plan that I wanted to follow.

Experience has taught me the value of batching my blogs as I learned from Alison Lindstrom. Create several art blog plans, write the drafts to each one of them, edit several posts together, find and edit images for all your posts. This way you can focus on other areas of your art business such as creating more products, videos, tutorials etc.

Ask for help

We start with the best intentions and try to do it all. Posting on social media, creating products, building an email list, creating content etc. Until we realise that it is a lot to be a single media company and a full-time artist. If it sounds like too much for one person, it is.

Ask for help when you are a blogger with different tasks.
Be kind to yourself. Ask for help from your family and those who are vested in your success. If you can afford it, hire freelancers to do things that will free up your time to do your best work.

Make time for products

Make sure to plan and invest in products or services that will grow your art business. While it might be tempting to jump onto the newest TikTok trend that will get you more followers I think the best thing is to focus on building your audience on your website.

How many different platforms have gone out of trend in our lifetime? Your website is yours alone, you have control of what you put on there and what happens to that information. Focus on your blog, products and nurture your subscribers. Everything else is bells and whistles.

Connect with other bloggers and artists

Find your tribe. Join with other artists on social media and blogs. Look for other artists and creatives who are building audiences like you. Leave valuable information that will help them on their journey to be successful. You will be surprised how much you can learn and grow with constructive feedback.

Give away your knowledge

A common piece of advice prominent bloggers give is to write about things you are an expert at. Most of us start not being experts, we are working towards it. The learned experience that you gathered as you studied a new skill might help someone else. Share that!

Give it all away so that people have a reason to return and learn from your trials and errors and hopefully avoid it themselves. Can you share a pdf that will give them actionable steps to achieve success? Your audience should walk away with something to remember the value you provided.

Give it time

The worldwide web is 32 years old now. There is a lot more noise online to get to your target audience. Plan to invest in blogging for the long term as it will take time to see the return you want. If you want a quick path to fame blogging might not be for you. If you are willing to stick it out for years adding meaning to peoples lives, building your brand, sharpening your art then keep at it.

Focus on the cumulative effect of traffic your website generates. Create evergreen posts that bring valuable, high-quality visitors to your website that stay relevant for years. Shift your perspective from daily traffic to cumulative traffic over time.

Start with a very specific title

And stick to it. When you first start blogging you realise the same topic could be written in so many different ways. It is easy to get pulled in two different directions. Get specific, break a large topic down into a few targeted topics. Create a skeleton of the topic you want to cover and stick to it.

Specific topics attract smaller, targeted audiences of higher quality and are more likely to return to your blog on art for insight on other questions.

Build your email list

Most people have an email, however, different people have different preferences of their social media platforms. Email is personal directly into the inbox of the user. You own your email list and is not influenced by algorithm changes.

Start building your email list along with your blog posts. Even if you don’t plan on selling anything it allows you to communicate directly with your audience without the interference of search rankings and algorithms.

Add a call to action

Finish your blog post with a call to action to sign up to your email list or to follow you on social media. Don’t rely on people returning to your website to see what new work you have come up with. People also want the ability to continue the conversation, having a place to connect with you is vital to the growth of your brand. Personal one on one conversations with your audience is the perfect way to understand their problems and how you can help solve them.

Stop and revise

Set aside time to review your progress. What are your goals and aspirations and how have they changed over the last few months of blogging. What have you learnt and how can you improve what you are already doing. Block out time in your calendar and adhere to it.

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Create a plan and stick to it

Create projects and attack them one at a time, stick to your goals for your art business. When I started I got distracted by other peoples input even though I knew that they were not taking me closer to my goals. I even tried to jump onto social media trends with the hopes of building an audience. But you have to evaluate what are the returns you are getting by pursuing other tasks. If they don’t get you closer to your goals, just quit.

Perfection is the enemy

Don’t wait to feel good enough to start blogging. Just do it. Don’t aim to write the perfect art blog, because it will never be. There will always be ways you could have written it better. You can always update it later.

When you try something new you are inviting failure and rejection and that’s a good thing. We learn from our mistakes. Great things happen once we get past our fears and look failure straight in the eye. Allowing you to grow, learn and change.

“Perfection is the enemy of progress.” -Winston Churchill

Post your blogs consistently

Create a schedule and publish your blogs consistently. You cannot get past the planning before executing. I learnt that the hard way. Yes, the more you post the more traffic you will generate. But more importantly, is consistency. If you publish 4 blog posts a month and then 1 the following month you will confuse your subscribers. Plan it all!

Blogging is still relevant

People still read blogs and 77% of internet users enjoy reading them. Every time you look something up online chances are you are reading a blog to solve your query. Readers trust what they read on blogs since they are one of the most reliable sources of information. Artists and creatives who wish to have a career as an artist can educate, provide advice, and expand their brand or business should consider blogging.

Never. Stop. Learning

If you are a fellow blogger I am sure you have heard the phrase – “Blogging is a marathon, not a sprint.” I have learnt so much about marketing, business management, photography, writing, editing etc over this last year. This is my first blog, and I don’t personally know other bloggers. I have taught myself everything and learnt along the way. It is amazing how much I have learned from researching, practicing and posting.

What art blogging tips did you find most useful? If you are a blogger or fellow artist, share your work in the comments, I would love to know more about you.