An online portfolio is your digital calling card as an creative person.

Promoting your artwork in person and online is all part of beingness a artistic entrepreneur and running your own art business organization today.

Your online portfolio is the  starting time identify that people look to see if they want to become forward with acquiring a piece from yous. That'due south why yous should accept the time to get it right.

Collectors, gallerists, and potential buyers look online to verify your history and credentials as an artist, also as to find and acquire more about your work. Information technology'south come to be an expected office of an artist'south business concern.

So, how do you lay this foundation once so y'all save time in the future and ensure that your portfolio is working for you?

Employ these tips for making a standout digital portfolio and how to get eyes on your piece of work—plus our favorite tools to help save you fourth dimension.

What every portfolio needs

One of the top mistakes artists brand when it comes to their online art portfolios is not taking care of the nuts.

The truth of the matter is that if you desire to make a living with your art and you lot don't cover the bases of your digital portfolio, you could end up looking like an apprentice—even if yous accept a whole stockpile of masterpieces.

Why work extra hard to convince buyers that y'all're a credible, professional artist when you could merely make a few tweaks to your portfolio and showcase your strengths from the start?

To make sure your portfolio is not holding you dorsum from whatever future business concern, check these items off the listing:

Artist Julia Ibbini embedded her Artwork Archive portfolio onto her Squarespace website.

✔️High-quality images of your artwork

Why spend hours, days, and weeks, creating something incredible if the photo doesn't convey that?

Our advice? Avoid fuzzy, dimly lit, or poorly cropped photos. And, be certain to scout out for any distracting shadows, camera flashes, or backgrounds. Make sure that your photographic camera settings reverberate the true colors of the work and colour correct the image if need to exist to present an accurate image.

Honour your work and your career by investing in quality photography or apply these tips to photo your art like a professional person.

✔️Working links

Beyond your portfolio, you lot have an entire online presence that tells a story about who you are as an artist and helps sell your fine art. And we're willing to bet you put a lot of work into those outlets!

So when a buyer views your portfolio, clicks on one of these links hoping to view your social media or sign upwardly for your newsletter and the link is broken, they are immediately cut off from learning more about you.

Non only does it exit a bad sense of taste in their mouth, merely they may not want to spend the fourth dimension figuring out what to do adjacent. All that piece of work was for nothing, and your credibility took a hitting at the same time. Taking the actress minute to double check that your links piece of work can make all the difference.

✔️Frequently updated

What if a potential buyer or gallerist asks about your near recent work and you take nothing to evidence? Y'all are pretty much guaranteed not to make the sale.

Only like the Scouts, your motto should always remain the aforementioned—exist prepared!

Ofttimes times, it feels similar the opportunities just aren't coming. Simply is that because there aren't any opportunities or because we aren't ready? Ready or not, opportunities will come. Keeping your portfolio stocked with your latest and greatest pieces allows you to leap on whatsoever opportunity that presents itself.

✔️User-friendly

When information technology comes to your portfolio's design, clean and professional always should be top of your list.

No distracting backgrounds. No crazy fonts for big chunks of text. Everything should be easy—easy to read, like shooting fish in a barrel to navigate, easy to empathise quickly who you are every bit an artist.

And while you lot may desire to go wild with design elements, remember that you lot aren't trying to sell anyone on your web design services. Yous are trying to promote your art! Therefore, brand your artwork the star of the prove.

✔️About section

Did you know that creative person About pages are ofttimes the most frequently visited folio on an creative person's portfolio?

But, one of the most common obstacles artists face is how to write their About page.

When you work in large or conceptual ideas, it can be hard to find the near succinct, convincing and authentic words to describe ourselves and the work that we do. Yous want to remain authentic to your vision, but you lot too don't want to sound besides self-promotional or inflated!

Take a wait at these tips on how to craft your artist About page to win over collectors.

✔️Your all-time work

You're only as skillful as the artwork you present. At to the lowest degree, that is how it will feel to those looking at your portfolio. Remember, the goal of an art portfolio is to represent your technical ability as an artist—your core strengths, range, and feel in the fine art world.

That's why it's of import to highlight what you consider your best works—work that will help you send the message that you lot are outstanding in your field.

An example of artist Krista Reuter'southward embedded Artwork Archive portfolio on her Wordpress website.

The devil is in the details

The more than professional your portfolio looks, the more professional yous appear every bit an artist. That's where particular comes in.

Including things like titles, dimensions, mediums, creation appointment, sale price, and the story behind your art shows that you accept your work seriously—and information technology as well gives yous an edge when presenting your portfolio to clients.

There's ever more than to a work than meets the center.

And permit's face up information technology, whether y'all're trying to gain representation or sell your work, no gallery managing director, curator, or collecter likes to chase down artists for information. These are the details collectors need and want to buy your work anyway, so why arrive harder for them to find it?

Which leads united states to our next signal…

Don't forget to tell your story

Fine art is and so much more than paint on a canvas. Every artwork has a story: the inspirations, the journey to creation, the care and devotion taken with every brushstroke, the bulletin it'south telling, showing history, and more.

The aforementioned goes for you every bit an creative person! You have a unique perspective. Your passion, motivations, personality, upbringing, teaching, experiences, and the issues you intendance almost have all had an impact on the kind of fine art you create.

Telling this story helps sell your art.

Share this story through your online portfolio, and you volition connect emotionally with the people who care nearly this story, besides.

That being said, a proficient online portfolio will give you room to share. Whether information technology'southward an About section with images, a spot for a brusque bio, a fashion to share news, or the power to group your works into collections, your portfolio should help y'all stand out equally an artist, not hide your voice.

Artist Holly Ann Friesen embedded her Artwork Archive portfolio on her Weebly-powered website.

Manage your inventory and portfolio at the same time

Don't make more work for yourself! Why not find a way to manage your inventory and your portfolio at the same time?

Take a wait at Artwork Archive, an all-in-one business solution for artists.

Non simply can y'all keep runway of your whole fine art inventory online, the of import details fastened to each piece, and the current locations of your work, but y'all can manage your whole art business—clients, shows, schedules, sales, reports, and online art portfolio—all from one, intuitive tool.

Plus, Artwork Archive'southward latestwebsite integrations permit yous effortlessly sync the online portfolio of your artwork (and all of the artwork details stored on Artwork Archive) to your own artist website including Squarespace, Wordpress, Wix and more.

This saves you lot endless hours—time that you'd probably rather spend in the studio, by allowing you to enter a piece's data once, and only once!

With a click of a push, you can sync this online gallery with your running inventory of works. Information flows from Artwork Annal to your website, so your online portfolio is always up-to-date and set up to impress buyers when you organize your inventory on Artwork Annal.

Run into how like shooting fish in a barrel it is to get started.

Share whenever and wherever you can

You lot've followed these tips, made some updates, and now your online portfolio is on bespeak. Fantastic!

So, what's the next step? You accept to promote it!

The internet is vast and competition is fierce. The odds are, people won't simply happen upon your artist website accidentally. Sometimes you have to give them a gentle nudge and put it out there for the world to meet.

Let's have a look at some great ways to promote your portfolio:

✔️Email signature

An email signature is an splendid way to amend the marketing power of every email that you ship. Past providing a link to your portfolio, you're giving buyers, galleries and other contacts the chance to come across more of your amazing piece of work that they may not have had otherwise.

✔️Artist blog

Seeing advert, later on advertising, after ad, is not very exciting for an art customer. But, the fun and engaging content you post on your blog can actually help sell your fine art by creating goodwill towards your business.

Stick to the 80/xx rule: 80 percent entertaining, 20 percent promotional. Then, use that 20 percent to promote your online portfolio and bulldoze sales in a fun way.

✔️Business cards

Y'all never know when you'll come across someone interested in your work. Show them only how professional you are and further the relationship by whipping out an impressive business concern card with the link to your portfolio.

Don't become lost in the pack, either! Take a look at the secret to effective business organisation cards.

✔️Social media

One thing is clear—social media is redefining how the art world does business organisation. Another smashing grade of content marketing, social media allows creatives to express themselves with more liberty, frequency, and intimacy.

And while you should be conscientious not to overdo information technology with the promotion, calling on fans to peruse your portfolio can help bulldoze sales. Get some post ideas with these Instagram tips.

✔️Newsletter

Newsletters tin can be incredibly powerful tools for artists. Debra Joy Groesser sells a painting off every monthly newsletter she sends out. They're a style for you to tell stories and give your fans an sectional window into your creative life.

While delighting and heady your fans with these newsletter ideas, don't forget to directly them to your portfolio with a stiff phone call to action.

✔️In person

The great office about having your art portfolio organized with Artwork Archive is that yous tin pull it upward with any device. And, everything is up-to-date, so you can impress collectors and reply questions on the spot.

The bottom line?

The more people who see your artwork, the more likely they are to fall in love with it. A professional online portfolio is the key to wowing these potential buyers.

But, don't make more piece of work for yourself than yous have to!

Skip the double information entry, disorganization, and lengthy coding projects by embedding your Artwork Annal portfolio directly onto your artist website.

Y'all'll be able to present your work in the easiest, about professional person manner possible, while all at once keeping your art concern organized and thriving. Accept the time you simply earned back and spend information technology doing what you actually love—making art.

Desire an easy way to manage your online fine art portfolio? Get started with a gratuitous trial of Artwork Archive.