Not many artists love the term SEO. If asked to choose between working on SEO or working in a studio, most artists will ultimately go for working in a studio.
However, SEO is very crucial as long as you are operating on the Internet. It doesn’t matter how proficient your artwork is. If you cannot optimize it for your target audience, then the website might never be successful.
Avoid the common notion that if you display your artwork online, Google takes care of everything else. The truth is, there is fierce competition for the first page Google results, and without adequately optimizing your site, you might never get there.
Search engines will consider several factors for ranking results such as content length, page title, uniqueness, readability, social shares, size and quality of images, offline popularity, among many other issues.
Below are some five excellent SEO tips for artists:
1. High-quality Content and Credible Hosting
Search engines will not teach you how to be an artist but will assist showcase your prowess in your field. So, it is up to you to sharpen your skills and then produce high-quality content. An easy way that most artists use to rank on the first page of the search engine is listing their profile on credible and highly-ranked sites that engage in art portfolios.
Hosting your portfolio or art website on a well-established hosting provider with great user reviews on Google, and you can get a high ranking.
The other overlooked hack is creating high-quality content. You can achieve this via blog posts on your website. Update your followers with engaging and useful content about what you do, the upcoming sales, and any promotions or events on the way. People also love infographics, statistics, and research facts. Incorporating these into your content will help you to grow your SEO ranking.
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While you should write for SEO, you should not stuff keywords in the text. Always focus on addressing audience needs when writing. Google might even penalize your site for keyword stuffing. Have in mind that long-form content thrives well and ranks higher than short-form content almost all the time.
You could also add H1 and H2 tags in your content and strive to make it readable by breaking it into smaller blocks and paragraphs.
2. Define Your Audience, Targets, and Keywords
Take some time to think about the audience for your art. Are they the edgy, the young generation, excited about lower-cost items, or probably homeowners searching for an investment item? Bear in mind that your audience and their enthusiasm will determine your SEO keywords.
You will use the keywords on your images, tags, and content. The more specific you will be on the keywords, the better it will be for your website. However, as you look for keywords, avoid overly generic words as these are highly competitive.
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If the competition for a specific word or topic is too stiff, you can be sure that your chances are very slim in ranking for the same. Ensure you drill down to more specific keywords, otherwise known as long-tail keywords. Add more information, such as your location, to make the keyword unique rather than just an artist or a painter signature.
Several online tools can help you search for keywords such as KWPlanner, Google AdWords, and Moz. These tools will provide you with the keywords people are searching for, their volume in search engines, and even how competitive they are.
3. Meta Descriptions and SEO Titles
To some artists, this hack could be technical, and you may require a copywriter’s services to assist you. Meta description and SEO title are what pops up on the search engine result pages. Controlling these two parameters will help your website rank higher and let your prospects know what they are clicking at.
If you use WordPress for your website, then Yoast is a resourceful plugin that will let you alter the meta description and SEO title easily. Keep these tips in mind regarding meta titles.
Add your artist name in the meta description and the SEO title
Keep the text concise and clear
For some pages, consider adding focus keyword in both areas
Place the vital information and keywords at the beginning of these two parameters
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4. Cultivate Patience and Consistency
Almost everything on the Internet is about instant gratification and fast results. Do not expect SEO to work in the same manner. SEO is known to take several months from developing the links to building an authoritative and credible website.
SEO is not a sprint but a marathon that will eventually pay-off in the long run. Like any contingency diet plan or exercise, you need to be consistent in SEO to see positive results. You need to practice patience. However, while waiting for results to show up, you should stay consistent in everything – updating your content, sharing your site and content on social media, and building cornerstone content.
Ensure your content on the website is useful and relevant. Remember to do it with passion as SEO is not glamorous, but it will significantly benefit your art business.
5. Stay Credible
People always try to figure out quick ways to get to the top of the search results. This method is known as “black hat SEO.” However, if you want long-term results, you need to build your SEO from scratch.
Avoid creating fake pages to trick Google and avoid keyword stuffing. Link farming is also another common practice that will badly hurt your site’s SEO. Plagiarized material on your website is signing your business’ death sentence.
You should avoid these “black hat” rules that violate SEO algorithms. For your website to thrive on the Internet, make your website clean, attractive, and organized to boost your SEO performance. Provide value to your customers and employ the various SEO methods to grow your credibility and audience.
Final Thoughts
SEO is not a one-time project but a continuous procedure you should practice every time you upload new pages or content. Even the SEO experts cannot guarantee you overnight results. You need to develop your site in a search-engine-friendly way, and you will realize a steady influx of visitors to your website.
