Blogging is good for artists and it is really easy to start an art blog for everyone. On top of that, blogging can also be profitable—how much you earn as an art blogger totally depends on how much work you put in your blog! That being said, what does an art blogger actually do—like all day long? Well, it’s probably not what you think, because we art bloggers don’t just create blog posts day in day out…
The word blog is short for “web” and “log.” Thus, an art blog is just a web-log where an artist speaks about their art and art-related topics.
We all know by now that building a website and setting up a blog is by far one of the best ways to get exposure as an artist.
Believe me, with the constant and incalculable algorithmic changes on social media platforms, an art blog is one of the easiest and reliable ways to get the word out about your art and connect with your audience in a meaningful way.
But what does an art blogger actually do—all day long?
Well, it’s not all about creating content and writing blog posts day in day out. No. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Art bloggers do things in their daily routine that you might not have even thought about—if you don’t have an art blog yourself.
I am one of those art bloggers. I know what I’m talking about. ʕᴖᴥᴖʔ
What the actual day and work of an art blogger really looks like, that’s what I’m going to tell you in this post.
So, let’s get into it:
How to start art blogging?
Starting an art blog isn’t difficult at all. If you’ve already created a website for your art with any of the popular website builders, then you can easily add a blogging feature to your existing site.
If you’ve built your artist website on WordPress, it’s even easier! WordPress is THE blogging platform—and if you want to start art blogging on WordPress, all you need to do is creating posts.
That’s it!
→ How To Start An Art Blog That Makes Money (No Experience Required)
Is blogging good for artists?
Yes, blogging is definitely good for artists—and for any other individual and company that wants to get the word out about what they do!
Apart from the two major benefits that I already mentioned at the beginning of this post—namely creating exposure for your work and forging meaningful connections—blogging has a lot more advantages for artists.
There is hardly anything else that you can start with as little upfront investment as a blog. Besides, you don’t need any office space or physical storefront to get your art business started. You can do everything from the comfort of your home—or wherever you are currently at in the world! That’s a huge advantage.
As an art blogger, you can decide how much time and work you want to put into your blog. You also have the freedom to choose what topics you want to blog about (as long as they fit into your art niche) and what projects you want to work on.
That being said, there is not really a cap to how much money you can make as an art blogger. It all depends on whether or not you treat your blog like a business and on how much time and energy you put into it.
Of course, you should also develop some sort of business mindset and acquire some skills to market your art. But that can all be learned!
How much does an art blogger earn?
I’m not gonna to lie to you—making money with your art blog takes time and can be frustrating at times. If you’ve thought that setting up your blog and publishing a couple of posts is enough to attract a readership, you are mistaken!
At the beginning, you won’t get much traffic to your blog. However, if you keep working on your blog consistently for at least one year or more, you will start seeing results.
With good SEO optimization, you can make it to the first organic search result—and even featured snippet—after a couple of months!
My blog post on how to rekindle your creativity when feeling lost as an artist made it to the featured snippet on Bing’s search results page after my website being live for five months only. That’s really good SEO!
One example of my blog post being the first organic search result on Ecosia, outranking even more established sites like CreativeLive and ArtworkArchive. How’s that possible? Well, it’s because my post on why being artist is a calling and my entire website are effectively optimized for search engines.
Learn more about building an artist website for success here.
Ultimately, if you put in the work and give it enough time, it is absolutely possible to earn money with your art blog.
What does an art blogger do?
Now, let’s talk about what an art blogger does. As I already mentioned earlier, I’m not just writing blog posts all day long… There’s much more than that to being an art blogger.
Here are 10 things that are part of my daily blogging routine:
10 Things an Art Blogger Does... All Day Long
Thing #1 An Art Blogger Does: Get the design on point
Being an artist means having an eye for aesthetics. This does not only apply to artwork. If you are like me—a little art perfectionist—you want everything on your website and blog look nice and sweet.
Design will take up a big chunk of your time as an art blogger—especially at the beginning when you are setting up your website from the ground up. You need to design pages, products, and posts, making sure that the text is easily readable, that the colors are on point (important for branding), that you’re choosing the best color for your hyperlinks, and so on.
→ 8 Things Every Good Artist Website Should Have
I’m using Elementor to design my WordPress artist site. Elementor is hands-down one of the best and most flexible page builders for WordPress sites. It’s easy to use and offers you all the design freedom you can think of, allowing me to build even intricate calls to action like the one you can see below:
A call to action from my Wacom screen tablet review that I designed from scratch using Elementor.
Thing #2 An Art Blogger Does: Take care of the techy stuff
No matter what kind of website building platform you are using, there will always be some techy stuff you’ll need to attend to.
As I said above, I’m using WordPress for my artist site. WordPress is an open-source content management system, meaning that the user needs to make sure that everything works together nicely. For example, you’ll need to set up your WordPress theme, find and install the plugins you need, update everything regularly, and make backups yourself.
If you are using a website builder like Squarespace or Wix, the maintenance work is not that time-consuming for the user. Those platforms will do most of the work for you.
A self-hosted WordPress site is one of the most work-intensive options with the steepest learning curve. But once you’ve mastered the ins and outs, you’ll be rewarded with a highly versatile web platform that belongs fully to you! I love working with WordPress.
Thing #3 An Art Blogger Does: Learn about SEO
Getting your blog out and expecting visitors to come—that’s not how it works. Every blogger knows that.
Creating visibility for your blog and website takes time—and the willingness to learn about SEO!
SEO stands for search engine optimization and means optimizing your site in a way that it ranks high in the search results.
→ SEO For Artists: 5 Game-Changing Tips To Get Traffic To Your Art Website
Search engine ranking criteria are not like the nebulous algorithmic clutter you know from social media. SEO is based on clear benchmarks you can rely on and there are real SEO experts you can learn from.
I’ve been learning a lot about SEO and using it for my posts since I started my blog—that’s why my website got organic traffic so quickly.
In my Ultimate Guide to Build an Artist Website for Success, I’m sharing all that knowledge with you to help you rank your website fast and generate traffic and sales!
- Learn to Build an Artist Website for Success
Thing #4 An Art Blogger Does: Research keywords
One component of SEO is keyword research. Keyword research involves finding the best keywords for your art that people actually type into the search engine.
Imagine you write a blog post with really helpful content and nobody finds it, because you didn’t use the words or phrases that potentially interested readers use when searching online. That would really be a pity, because then no one would be able to read your articles.
To not let that happen to you, it’s important to find those keywords and keyphrases that people actually use and optimize your posts for those words or phrases. That’s how you ensure that your posts can be found.
I do keyword research for each and every blog post I write. Yep, that’s also part of what an art blogger does all day long!
To find the best keywords for my art posts that will get me the most traffic I’m using tools like KWFinder, Ahrefs and Moz.
Thing #5 An Art Blogger Does: Try to solve their readers' problems
The truth is that you will never have a successful art blog if you don’t strive to solve your readers’ problems and address their interests. If you just speak about yourself, you probably won’t be able to attract a large readership.
I’ve been on my creative journey for more than a decade. I know what kind of problems artists encounter along so way, so I share my experiences on my blog and hope to be able to help other artists by doing so.
Apart from that, I also ask my newsletter subscribers about their biggest challenge as an artist. They can fill out my Google form (anonymously) and tell me about the biggest struggle they face and the topics they are interested in the most.
If I can, I try to address their issues in a blog post and provide tips and advice to tackle them!
Thing #6 An Art Blogger Does: Create FREE helpful content for their subscribers
Another thing you will be busy with as an art blogger is creating free helpful content for your subscribers. At least, if you want to be of help to your readers and build an email list at the same time.
I have an entire library with free resources for artists. I’ve created quite a number of eGuides, Photoshop resources and other goodies that subscribers can download for free. Of course, that takes up some time of your blogging life as well.
I’ve even created a free eGuide with the best lead magnet ideas for artists to help you grow your email list! If that sounds interesting to you, just head over to the Freebie Library and get it. ʕᴖᴥᴖʔ
- Get the Best Lead Magnet Ideas for Artists in a FREE PDF
Thing #7 An Art Blogger Does: Promote their art blog
As I already said earlier: you cannot just create a blog and expect readers to flock in. Unfortunately, that’s not how it goes.
Besides optimizing your art blog for search engines, you’ll actively need to promote it online. You can do that in different ways.
For example, you can use social media and art sharing sites to drive traffic to your blog. Just try what works best for you.
I’m mostly using Medium, LinkedIn and Pinterest to get the word out about my content.
That being said, creating Pins and sharing them to Pinterest is part of my weekly routine.
→ 15 Must-Know Tips For Artists Using Pinterest To Promote Their Artwork
Then, apart from sharing my blog posts to LinkedIn, I also post articles on those two platforms. So, this is yet another thing an art blogger does: writing articles for other platforms or guest posts in order to drive visitors to their own website!
- Pinterest Pin Templates that Convert & Save You Hours of Work
50 High-Conversion Pinterest Pin Templates
Thing #8 An Art Blogger Does: Create courses, guides & other resources
When you’ve created an art blog, I assume you also wish to earn some money with it. There are different ways to monetize a blog; promoting your own courses, guides and other resources through your blog is one of those ways.
If you do not just want to rely on paid ads and affiliate links, you want to create something to sell on your own.
Of course, you can sell your original art, prints and digital downloads of your artwork. However, if you want to take it a step further, you can offer your audience something they can learn from or work with.
If you acquired exceptional skills in an area your art community could benefit from, then why not create an online course or e-guide to share your knowledge?
This can be anything you’ve learned along your artist journey. For example, you can teach your audience how to create a particular type of art, how to use Photoshop, or how to create a successful artist website.
Anything that is of value to other artists is worth finding its place in your online shop, and people are willing to pay for helpful resources!
Thing #9 An Art Blogger Does: Create art
Let’s not forget about one of the core things an art blogger does, namely creating art.
I believe you became an art blogger because you are an artist in the first place. That’s usually how it goes. An artist creates art and then decides to level it up and blog about it.
I know from experience that despite art being your passion it can easily get buried under all the things you have to do as a blogger.
However, I like the alternation between art-making and content creation. When I’ve created a couple of blog posts, I’m looking forward to making some art—and the other way round!
Here are two of my most recent works I’ve created:
Thing #10 An Art Blogger Does: Blog about their art
Last but not least, an art blogger also blogs about their own art—not only about art-related topics or things that are helpful to their audience.
Showing your artwork to someone and thinking they’ll get the message you want to convey usually doesn’t happen. In most cases, artists need to explain their work to allow viewers to understand and appreciate the piece more deeply.
Furthermore, we all love a good story. Stories let us connect with each other on a deeper and more meaningful level. So, if you can tell people the story behind your artworks, you have the possibility to forge stronger connections with your viewers and sell more of your work!
→ How Storytelling Can Improve Art: 12 Hands-On Tips From An Artist
When you have a blog, it’s no problem to create a section for the stories behind your art. You can give your readers insights into your creative process with screenshots and timelapse videos, let them know what inspired you to create that work and the meaning behind it.
I have an entire subsection on my blog where I speak about the ‘Making Of‘ my work. Here are some examples of my “Making Ofs”:
∗∗∗
Are you an art blogger yourself? Then let me know what you do all day long! Do you have the same routine as me or does your blogging work look different? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear from you!
Also make sure to sign up for my email list below so you don’t miss out on new blog posts and other cool stuff. ♥
I’m curious to find out what blog system you have been utilizing? I’m experiencing some small security issues with my latest site and I would like to find something more secure. Do you have any solutions?
Hi Nancy, I’m using WordPress for my blog. As far as I know, security issues on WordPress most of the time stem from hosting. I have a list of what I consider the best hosting providers for WordPress here. I have my website hosted with one of those providers as well.