Building Trust on the Internet

   The hardest thing to do on the internet is build trust. OK, maybe the hardest thing to do is to work with GoDaddy.com, but that's a different post. But building trust has got to be near the top. After all, how many of us have been scammed, or been the near victims of an attempt? How many of us have opened legitimate looking websites only to find a flashy spam page, loaded with pop-ups? It's little wonder an artist can have trouble selling art through a website! 
   So what's a struggling, unknown artist to do? Well, first of all, try to shed the 'unknown' part. It's not enough to send out postcards and buy pay-per-click ads if there is no reputation attached to your name! There's a good chance that anyone remotely interested in you or curious about you will type your name into a search box to see what comes up.
   Have you ever Googled yourself? What did you find? Did you find anything? Hopefully nothing bad! If someone tries searching your name, and nothing comes up about you, then this may show a prospective buyer that you aren't active. If you aren't active, and you don't show up in an arts related document anywhere, then you may not appear serious about your work. So get active! 
  A quick aside: One can also type a name into a Google box to identify a scammer. By the time a scammer gets to you, he has likely tried his bullcrap on other people, and those people have warned other artists on forums and social sites.
  Even before I built ArtofJohnFrench.com, I had started taking steps that would eventually increase my presence on search engines. Keep in mind, this was not my original intent. I joined the Marquette Symphony Board to learn and help. I got involved it The West End Community Arts Network to help foster an arts environment. I got involved with The Ishpeming Renaissance Faire because it's a very cool event that needs help and support from the community. Getting involved in the community not only helps the community, but helps you as well. This is one of those priceless perks that comes from volunteer work!
   Once I began to get active in my community, my name started popping up in more and more places in a search. Now people can find out that I ran for Ishpeming City Council last November and lost!
   Keep in mind that search engines are beginning to factor in your location when giving out search results. Someone in Marquette, MI searching for 'John French art' will likely find me, but someone searching the same thing in Austin, Texas will likely find a completely different artist. But that's OK; local is the perfect place to start building your name and reputation!

The Dance

36"hX24"w Oil

This image showed up three times on the first page when I Googled 'john french, ishpeming'!