You need to meet your competition in order to beat your competition.
There is simply no way you can keep the online audience away from your competition. Your proprietary Web site is no bulwark. Rather, you need to meet your competition in order to beat your competition.

Supermarketers have long known that consumers love choices, and your “brand” will fare better in an open market environment—I might add that art fair organizers operate on the same principle.—You will benefit from the proximity to your competition, just as competing brands do in supermarkets. On artnet’s Gallery Network, collectors shop across the top brands, or galleries, if you will.

Do not invest any more of your valuable time and money in your proprietary Website.
Eleven years of Web Trends research supports that art professionals and collectors almost never look for specific galleries online. Rather, they are almost always looking for a specific artist. Unless you can optimize your artists in the search engines (which is increasingly difficult, if not impossible owing to the proliferation of gallery and museum sites), your chances of garnering new clients from your own proprietary Web site are slim. Bear in mind, too, that your ranking in Google and Yahoo (and the 143 other search engines that use the Google search technology) reflects the number of incoming or “popularity” links. Very, very few proprietary sites have significant numbers of popularity links; hence rankings for specific artists on proprietary sites are low. (Go ahead and check your own “popularity” links on marketleap.com. You can also compare your numbers with your competitors there or with portal sites like www.artnet.com.)

Post your inventory on artnet’s Gallery Network, where your artists place high in search engines:
Works by artists posted on artnet’s Gallery Network are almost invariably found on the first pages of any search engine. artnet also provides traffic reports, giving you not only your page views and click-throughs, but also the number of searches for a particular artist or group of artists.

If you are searchable, the more artworks you post, the more customers you will attract. And the more frequently you update your site on artnet, the more interesting it will be to collectors.

Context is important!
artnet’s Gallery Network offers the world’s largest market overview. With the Gallery Network collectors can view scores of works by the same artist which enables them to learn more about the artist. Just as importantly, it is an environment where comparison creates trust.

Content is important! (And more really is more.)
Visitors are looking for treasures not trifles. artnet’s sophisticated collectors are looking for excitement. We have consistently seen that higher quality works fare better on artnet.

Post your prices!
Collectors often shop at a particular price level. Help them find what they can afford. (Why waste their time and your own?) Don’t leave the pricing power to the auction houses! Your price is an important message, communicating openness and fair dealing.

There are customers for all price levels on today’s Internet. For the most part, it’s the high end works that are, by definition, best known and sell most easily on the Web.

Put your best foot forward. Join artnet’s Gallery Network now.

Bill Fine, President, artnet^®

To find out more contact Jennifer Adams at +1 212-497-9700 ext. 476 or via email.