If you hope to make money selling art, bear in mind that it may be something that won't happen overnight. History reminds us of many struggling artists, but there are also the Van Gogh stories of sunflower-like sales that change everything. You don't have to be another Van Gogh to make money selling art; you just have to know how to set about it the right way.

1. Create the kind of art that is in demand. You will have much greater success if you do. Do your research and discover what is popular and what is not. You have to accept that in order to make money selling art you need to cater to popular demand. Creating a masterpiece and assuming that it will sell is not the way to go. You may be lucky, but the odds are against it happening. Cater to demand, create what people want, and you will sell art.

2. You next have to display your art to let people see it. In the offline world this may be a local gallery. It is usual for small art galleries to have a waiting list of artists whose work will be displayed. You will have to join the list at the end, so it may be several months before your work can be displayed. Use the time to increase your portfolio, as well as trying to find other venues to display your work.

3. Set up a website to display your art online. You could use one of the free website platforms, such as Squidoo or Blogger, but you will come across as someone more professional if you have your own website with your own URL. And website hosting account with the likes of HostGator is not expensive and it's easy to use. Set up the website to display your best art examples. You will need to photograph your art pieces and display the images online. Be as professional as possible for the best results.

4. Set up a payment processor to enable you to accept payment for your art pieces online. There are a number of options here that you could use, but PayPal is popular and very easy to use. Customers can use all major credit and debit cards as well as electronic check to pay you.

5. Your website should have at least its main page targeted on a main keyword. You can use the free Google keyword tool to find suitable keywords that have a reasonable number of daily searches, but not too much competition to target, such as, "buy contemporary art," for an example.

6. Promote your website to help it rank highly in the search engine results. One way to do this is through writing lots of articles and submitting them to articles directories for back links. If you write one 500 word article each day and provide a link back to your website from the resource box, after a month you should see the website rise significantly in the search engine results.

7. Join a forum of like minded people, such as The Artists Forum for example. Compose a signature with a link to your website displaying your art. Join in the conversations. Be helpful, ask questions, but never be a nuisance. This will help to promote your art website, and it could be a way to make money selling art too.