2009 was a great year for us at Art Marketing Secrets and Beautiful Artist Websites! We launched our gorgeous new website (the one you’re looking at!), researched and wrote a bunch of great new articles on art marketing, selling art, artist websites, and inspiration. And, we heard back from you – your thoughts, creative and commercial dreams, experience, and inspiration!

Before we look forward into 2010, here is a roundup of our best and most popular art marketing articles for 2009. Please revisit, comment, enjoy!

#1: 5 Essential Twitter Tips To Sell Art Online

As we prepared the copy for our first featured artist column it came as a blinding flash that in finding and choosing Kazuki Takizawi a classic social marketing sales process for art had been revealed to us. Lets look at what happened and then we’ll break it down into essential components and steps to follow!

#2: 5 Big Artist Website Mistakes That Don’t Sell Art!

You might think you have an awesome artist website, but there’s a good chance it suffers from at least one major problem that could seriously limit your career success. Avoid these 5 major mistakes that could keep collectors from your door!

#3: 18 Tips To Be The Great Artist Of Your Dreams

If you approached your art career as an Olympic athlete in training, have you really done everything you possibly could? Have you been up at 4am every day painting? Have you marketed your work for 2 hours every day? Have you studied the work of masters every day? Have you really gone for the gold medal?

#4: To Sell Art You Need A Great Story

Selling art has most of the same characteristics as selling anything. To be really successful you need talent, hard work, and a great story. Collectors want to leave a legacy, so help them with your great story!

#5: 3 Examples Of Art Press Releases That Get Attention

In a previous article, we discussed 6 important steps to write a great art press release. We always find it much easier to learn from the experience of others, so tnow we have examples for you! Read on for practical examples of art press releases that worked.

#6: Artist Website SEO: Don’t Ignore The Pink Elephant!

Most artists with websites have a big problem they don’t like to talk about. It’s like the pink elephant standing in the corner of the room that everyone sees but doesn’t feel comfortable mentioning. The pink elephant is Google and you must make friends with it!

#7: 18 Tips To Bring Visitors To Your Artist Website

Suffering from low-traffic blues on your artist website? Your number of visitors is only limited by you! If you have a big enough imagination, are willing to think outside the box, and don’t mind some serious old-fashioned elbow-grease you can bring in a nice consistent stream of art-hungry visitors.

#8: Be An Artist, Not a Twitter Newsfeed!

Just as networking with people has ALWAYS been the key to success in any field of business (Remember the old saying NETWORK = NET WORTH), now online social networks like Twitter and Facebook allow you to expand the reach of your networking efforts beyond traditional geographical boundaries. This allows you to be a global networker in your field of interest – great news in a niched interest area like art but to be successful you need to have a strategy.

#9: Sell Art With Authenticity

People can sense authenticity a mile away. It is such a powerful thing to see the work of a person who is truly aligned in their purpose and efforts. Like a big electromagnet it can attract exactly the right people who will love and purchase your work – if that is your dream.

#10: 5 Tips for Curating a stunning art event

Curating is an art form in it’s own right. Get it right and your show will be way more spectacular than the sum of the individual works of art. Get it wrong, and your visitors may wander around bewildered, not getting the art at all, and leave with unhappy faces!

Thanks for a great 2009. We’re looking forward to sharing great stories, advice, and hearing about your stellar creative and commercial success in 2010!