Are you an artist who wants to have a blog? 
Or maybe an artist who wants to work on improving your blog? 

Here you will find links to advice and information relevant to blogging for artists and blogging by artists.
This page focuses on:
  • blogging basics
  • blogging for artists
  • problems encountered by artists who blog and how to deal with them

PS My main art blog Making A Mark has had more than 4 million visitors, 11 million pageviews and is ranked in the

Section Contents

This site is in transition from another site to this site - and it's a big page!
Sections still to transfer are in lighter grey
Starting and Improving a Blog
  • Why artists should blog
  • How to improve your art blog
  • Why content is so important and how to improve it
  • How to get readers for your blog

Technical
  • Which blogging platform
  • Blog Law
  • Making a Mark - Guides to Blogging
  • Comments systems which control spam
  • How to increase followers
  • Feedreaders
  • The 'long tail' and why it's relevant to selling art

Types of Art Blogs (in progress)
  • The BEST Art Blogs
  • Blogging and a painting a day
Tools, tips and techniques (in progress)
  • Titles, Links, Labels and Archives
  • Favicons, Design and Colour
  • Images and online storage
  • SEO and keywords
  • Blogging Conduct
  • Security Online
  • Blog statistics and software - visitors and page views

When things go wrong 
  • Theft of blog content and what to do about it
  • Pinterest for Visual Art Bloggers - concerns about copyright

Top Tips for Blogging

The Best Art Blogs
Here are some quick tips to be going on withFrom Blog Experts

Starting and Improving a Blog

Why artists should blog

Have you been thinking about having a blog for your art? Read the links to blog posts find out some of the reasons why artists have thought this could be a very good idea.........

I start with some posts I've written on my own art blog which has now had
  • over 4 million visitors and
  • over 11 million page views

A number of the views below were written some years ago when having an art blog was a big deal.

However. if you're NEW TO BLOGGING your art, it'll still feel like a big deal to you and most of what is written will still be very relevant to you.
Posts by other art bloggers

The Technical Bit

Which Blogging Platform/webware?

Choosing which blogging platform to use is a big decision because moving a blog at a later date can be a bit of a pain!

  • Each has its own unique pros and cons
  • Plus options for third party comments systems
Time to check out which is the right blogging platform and webware for you

Find out about the different webware platforms for blogging. They each have different features and different approaches to blogging - but they also have a lot in common.

One feature that is consistent is that there has been a lot of development over time - so base your judgements on blogging platforms based on what they can do right now - not why somebody rejected a particular platform in the past
Blogger

Blogs using Blogger
  • I've used Blogger from the very beginning and started Making A Mark on Blogger in 2006 and have stuck with it - and have never found a good reason to move. It now has over 3,000 posts, over 4 million visitors and over 11 million pageviews.
  • James Gurney also has a very popular 10 year old blog - Gurney Journey - also running on Blogger

PROS
  • doesn't cost a penny / no costs for hosting, templates or plugins
  • very simple to use (and used by a lot of bloggers)
  • customer responsive templates means it automatically adjusts to any size screen
  • Blogger looks after ALL the techie bits. Over the past 11 years it's had the odd problem, generally sorted out pretty fast
  • started fairly basic but has evolved over time and now has lots of functionality
  • free blogspot sub-domain OR you can have your own (and pay for) domain name if you wish
  • Google owned - which means it's in Google's interest to ensure it performs well and doesn't wobble in technical terms
CONS
  • not seen as the "smart move"
  • other platforms have scope for more functionality through plugins

REFERENCE:
Wordpress

Blogs using Wordpress
  • Lines and Colors - Charley Parker has been writing about art and illustration since 2005

PROS
  • started as a blogging system and has grown to become a full content management system; often used by those who want websites, blogs and ecommerce platform on same domain
  • lots of options for templates, widgets and plug-ins for look and functionality
CONS
  • need to self-host for Wordpress.org webware - and host must be able to support PHP and MySQL
  • you look after the techie end - and because lots of templates and plugins are provided by smaller outfits you may be left adrift if they disappear

REFERENCE:
  • WordPress - About - WordPress started in 2003; now the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.
Typepad

tended to be used more by writers than artists and big companies

PROS
  •  14 day free trial
  • lots of templates
  • designed for professionals and small businesses
CONS
  • you need to pay to use the platform - see pricing (4 different subscription levels)
  • once a serious competitor for Wordpress but now a minor player
  • experienced a a major DDoS attack in April 2014 and unavailable for 6 days

REFERENCE:
REFERENCE - TECHNICAL BLOGGING TERMS
  • Weblog software - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Weblog software (also called blog software or blogware) is a category of software which consists of a specialized form of Content Management Systems specifically designed for creating and maintaining weblogs.

REFERENCE:

Comments systems which engage and control spam

Comments systems which control spam

Blogs are a big target for spammers - so you need a system which enables you to control spam.

In over six years of using Blogger I have had very little difficulty with spam comments. This is because:
  • I moderate all comments
  • I use the Word ID system which means that automated spam commenting systems can't get past it
  • I check out the IDs of all people leaving URLs in their comment to see if they are identifiable and/or whether the link relates to a commercial operation. The only ones allowed are those which are completely relevant to the topic and to artists

I RECOMMEND you always try the built-in comments systems and the options it offers for the control of comments and the prevention of spam before you try any alternative systems

REFERENCE
Alternative third party comment systems - and spam

You may want to try alternative systems for management of comments. Alternative third party comments systems include: They vary in terms of which blogging platforms and browsers they support.

Bear in mind that:
  • much of what a third party systems are about relate to getting a site noticed. They can be less good on identifying exactly how they control spam - check out the Disqus site for example!
  • the comments system you might see running on big corporate sites is very unlikely to be the free on which is available to the general public. The Pro version of Disqus for example costs $99 per month.
  • third party comments systems often integrated better with other social media platforms but not all integrate well with mobile blogging systems. If you have a lot of people who comment via their cellphones or iPads etc this may be important to you.
  • some of the reviews of comments systems are about systems which aid spammers - not prevent them (eg scraping systems)

FREE Guides to Blogging for Artists

Guides written by Katherine Tyrrell and published by Making A Mark Publications

My publications are available for personal educational use only and can be downloaded FREE as pdf files

How to improve your art blog

You agree it's a good idea and you've now got a blog - but you aren't getting as many visitors as you would like.
Read about how to improve your art blog
First my blog posts on this topic:

  • Making a Mark: How to improve your art blog - A year ago I wrote a couple of posts about why artists should blog. A year later this post is about how to improve your art blog. Recently I gave some advice to a successful artist who wanted to use her blog as part of her marketing of her art but w
  • Making a Mark: Unique vs. repeat visitors - and the impact on sales - How many repeat visitors do you get? Is the number increasing over time? Do they bring you repeat business if you use your blog to help you market your art? This post looks at site tourists versus repeat visitors and their impact on sales.
  • Making a Mark: Advertising your work on your blog - the design essentials - You want to create the right impression with your website or blog - so should you use advertising? Or should you just use the design lessons from advertising? One of the questions which perplexes me is whether or not a case can be made for using adve

Plus an article I wrote for The Good Web Guide - which likes to characterise itself as "the 'thinking man's google'."

Articles by other commentators:

Theft of blog content and what to do about it

Links to useful sources of information and advice about plain ordinary thieves and sploggers - spam bloggers who steal content - and what to do about them
What I've written about theft of blog content on Making A Mark and what to do about it
See also my sections on

Articles by other bloggers