How to Get Your Artwork Noticed (all about SEO)

Are you an artist looking to get your artwork out into the world AND noticed? To do that you need to

1. Get a website and
2. Increase your art website SEO in search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

So, you probably already have #1 covered, let's talk about #2 - make your website known to search engines.

SEO for Artists?

The purpose of this post is to provide a high-level, actionable SEO Strategy for you, if you want more detailed ins and outs then please feel free to Google and do the years of research I've done to come to these truths. 😃

So, before we get started, let's get a couple of terms defined that you may have seen thrown around. 

SERP is Search Engine Results Page...according to wiki

"Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) are the pages displayed by search engines in response to a query by a searcher." 

SEO is Search Engine Optimization...according to the Oxford dictionary, is

"Search Engine Optimization is the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring the site appears high on the list of results returned by the search engine."  

How does SERP relate to SEO? 

SEO is essentially the work and words behind the scenes that would get your artwork onto the front page of Google. 

Why do you care? Artists want their SEO to be good on their website so they can have their artwork on the front page of a Google search result. 

Now, here is the thing, people have careers for this kind of work: mind-numbing, ever-changing work because the search engine rules are changing - constantly. 

Despite the ever-changing rules of engagement, in all the years that I've been blogging - there remain 5 constants in the world of SEO. So, here are 5 actions you can do to make your SEO better.

5 ACTIONS TO IMPROVE YOUR ART WEBSITE'S SEO

1) GREAT, CONSISTENT CONTENT.

I know you've heard this before...it's annoying...but it is true.  BUT did you know that it takes at an average of 3-4 years for a business to begin to gain ground, 7-10 years to actually hit a stride? 

There is not a magic pill, not a magic formula. It took Monet 17 years before he finally made it into a show with his impressionistic style.

An art career is not for the weak, it is not for the lazy: to persevere you have be persistent, passionate and a presence on the web. [period]

YOUR ART WEBSITE SEO ACTION: CONTENT PLANNING AND EXECUTION. 

1. Write down how often you want to post/create a piece of artwork and 
2. Write down the subject for each post/artwork.
3. Create evergreen content (meaning it can be referenced all the time and doesn't change).  
   Don't worry about how many times people say to post - that has changed and will continue to change - you do what you can. It is a marathon, not a sprint. Slow, steady, and consistent. You need to be consistent in not only your artwork, but also posting about your work on your website and social media.
4. Make sure you include SEO Title and Descriptions according to the recommended lengths.  Here is a nice, short, sweet, actionable article to create titles and descriptions correctly SEOProcessor.com
5. Work the plan you created.

 

2) PERFORM A SITE AUDIT

I love the site ubersuggest.com ! This is my go-to site to evaluate how my site plays in the webspace.  If I have an idea for a painting, class, blog post, etc., I go here first to see the keywords, suggested keywords, and their search data. 

If you want to see how your site is performing, where traffic is coming from etc., this site is a wealth of information.  While I do use Google Analytics as well, ubersuggest.com really simplifies what the data actually means.  

I also used ubersuggest.com for SEO issues, which because of this site, I've learned I have a lot, but all of them are fixable. Just takes time and patience (remember, marathon, not a sprint.)

YOUR ART WEBSITE SEO ACTION: PERFORM A SEO SITE AUDIT AND CORRECT WHAT YOU CAN. 

Go to ubersuggest.com and click on SEO audit, enter your domain, wait for the results and start working the issues.  Marathon, not a sprint....that will become your new montra. 😃 

3) KNOW YOUR COMPETITION

First, do you have a niche?  If not, get one - you cannot be all things to all people, you are not Fine Art America, or Amazon, or iCanvas etc, you are your own brand and your artwork is a reflection of you. Once you've figured out your niche, then find your competitors.  

a. How to find your competitors: For example, I am a Pet Portrait Artist - when I put the keyword into Ubersuggest Keyword Section "Pet Portrait Artist" the top three sites that come up, at this point in time, are Etsy, MyPoochFace and PaintYourLife.  

b. Find the keywords your competitors are using: Now that I have my top three competitors, I want to see what keywords are driving traffic to their site.  To do this, I then add their domain to the Overview search bar in UberSuggest - scroll down and boom! There are the SEO keywords that I need to pepper all throughout my site by adding to site content in places, add to the SEO description in places, create articles with these words etc.

YOUR ART WEBSITE SEO ACTION: FIND YOUR COMPETITORS AND WHAT KEYWORDS THEY ARE USING. 

Use ubersuggest.com to search for your niche (landscape artist, glass artist, children portrait artist, anime etc., ) ; then, find your competitors and look for what keywords they use to get traffic to their site.  This site contains a wealth of data for you to consider and evaluate how you want to use.

4) ADD A SITE MAP TO GOOGLE.

Very important step that most artists do not do.  But first what is a site map:  Here is what Google has to say about sitemaps:

A sitemap is a file where you can list the web pages of your site to tell Google and other search engines about the organization of your site content. Search engine web crawlers like Googlebot read this file to more intelligently crawl your site.

So, if you want people to find you, Google needs to index your site.  To build a sitemap, you'll need to do a bit of research, because there are different tools to create a site map based on your hosting provider.  Here is an article from Google on what to do Build and Submit a site Map.

YOUR ART WEBSITE SEO ACTION: BUILD AND SUBMIT A SITE MAP TO GOOGLE.

If you've never done this, block out 2 days (16 hours) without distractions.  During this time evaluate which tool you want to use to create a site map and then create the sitemap and follow the steps on Google Search Console.

Relax, you really cannot screw this up, you won't break your site etc., all you need to do is to Google your hosting provider plus the words "create sitemap" and you should get what you need plus videos to show you how. Again, marathon, not a sprint.

5) GET AUTHENTIC BACKLINKS.

A backlink is a link from another website to your website. What this essentially tells Google is that others value your content and will likely increase your visibility. Not only that, but because you now have links on multiple sites it helps increase traffic to your site.

To see your current backlinks visit ubersuggest.com and enter in your domain and view your results.  

Note: social media links do not count as backlinks, but are valuable to drive traffic, which as a byproduct enhances your search results.

YOUR ART WEBSITE SEO ACTION:

 You need to start working with other website owners to get your content out to new audiences.

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