If you’re like most artists with a website, you started out with a dream that collectors would actually find you through search engines. But the reality for most artists is:
Your website floats alone in cyberspace with almost no visitors!
While there are many techniques you can use to share your website with potential buyers, such as mailouts, email, personal networking, and social networking, search engines are very important because they can market your work 24/7 to a global audience. This can grow a consistent stream of visitors for you to build relationships with and sell your art to.
It also means you can spend more time in the studio and connecting with arts professionals and buyers personally. Now – wouldn’t that be great?
To attract visitors who are interested in your work, your artist website needs to be optimized to rank highly in search engine results. While a full optimization can take considerable time and money, we’ve put together 3 simple tips for you which will help you take some big strides forward with your search engine rankings!
Tip #1 – Use Search Engine Friendly URLs
Make it easy for search engines to understand your pages by using search-engine friendly URLs. Search engines are remarkably like humans when it comes to their reading preferences! What this means is very simple:
Don’t use a URL naming structure like: artistwebsite.com/1589556content/image_00897.html
Instead use something that would make sense to a human such as: artistwebsite.com/paintings/maui_beach.html
This is so simple but it makes a huge difference to your SEO success.
Tip #2 – Stellar Page Titles
Page Titles are very important in search engine optimization! Why? Because search engines weigh the importance of the content in each section of a web page differently. It is believed by many experts that Page Titles have the highest weighting or importance of any text on a page. If the page title says, “Oil Paintings Of Taos by Jim Jameson” search engines will most likely decide that this web page has information about “Oil Paintings Of Taos” and “Jim Jameson”. They will draw this conclusion more quickly than if that same text was used elsewhere on the page.
Don’t waste your most powerful Keyword optimization opportunity. Here are some tips to keep you on track:
The Page Title should describe what the page is about.
Each section of your website should have a Page Title applicable to it’s content. For example, a gallery section of an artist’s website might use a Page Title such as, “Oil Paintings Of Baja California By Robert Bell”.
Conventional wisdom suggests that search engines weigh the keywords at the front of the Page Title as having the most importance. The take-home from that is simple – put your most important keyword phrase at the front of the Page Title.
Tip #3 – Use Simple Natural Strategies to Build Incoming Links
In human social situations people tend to judge us by the company we keep. If we’re seen hanging out with powerful, successful people we’re seen as influential and successful as well. People think of us as “important”. If we are surrounded by many people, we’re seen as “popular” and if we’re not….. I’m not saying this is necessarily a good thing – but it is the way life works!
So it is with websites – if your artist website has a good quantity of incoming links from other websites, search engines will see this and rank you as being somewhat “important”. The more incoming links you have, the higher your website’s importance. And links from high-ranking high-traffic sites count for more importance too. What it all really means is this: If many other sites are linking to your website, you must have some relevant, high-quality, valuable content – and search engines will reward you with higher rankings in search results.
So – how do you build your incoming links? There are at least 101 different ways but here are three that we recommend to start with:
Focus on the highest quality content and images on your website and keep it updated regularly. When people link from their website to yours they are recommending your site. Make it easy to recommend! This might seem like an obvious point – but it is actually the most important. Consistent high quality images and content over time is noticed!
Tags: artist website