You’ve created a dynamite artist website, but business is still slow. Is it because no one likes your work? Perhaps. But, more likely, it’s because you aren’t ranking high enough on Google’s search engine results. The remedy is simple: employ Search Engine Optimization (SEO) best practices to make your art known.
If you’re new to the world of SEO, here are some of the basics:
Keywords improve rankings. When people input search criteria, they use relevant keywords. For example, searchers may be looking for great art galleries in Michigan, so they’ll type, “Art galleries Michigan.” Each of those words is a keyword, and if you have those keywords somewhere within your website, your website will appear in the search results.
Link building drives traffic. A popular strategy in SEO involves posting articles on guest blogs and linking within those articles to a certain outside website. This technique promotes traffic on your website and gives your site more credibility.
If you know these two things about SEO, it’ll be enough to get you started with your own strategy. As you do so, consider these expert tips for improving traffic, rankings, and conversions on your art website:
1. Use Local SEO to Attract Galleries and Buyers
As you know, one of the biggest goals of an artist website is to attract the attention of prominent galleries and buyers, preferably in your area. In order to accomplish this, you need to use local SEO, utilizing keywords and links that reflect your geographic location. This will primarily apply to your landing page content, which should include prominent keywords about your location and expertise. For more tips about using local SEO, check out this blog post from online art magazine, “Empty Easel.”
2. Blog
Blogging is one of the best ways to implement keywords and links to attract relevant attention to your website. Most of the time, when people stumble upon your website, it will be because a relevant blog post came up in the search results.
Use your blog posts to play up keywords and links. As a general rule, you’ll want to target one or two keywords per blog post, and include three to five links to credible, outside sources.
Also, your blog posts need to be relevant to your website. For example, check out Park West Gallery’s blog. The gallery is based out of Michigan, and each of their blog posts is connected to their business. They blog about clients, upcoming exhibits, featured artists, and other prominent art stories. As an artist, your blog posts should run along the same lines.
3. Gain Inbound Links
Gaining inbound links to your website is one of the best ways to improve your web traffic and ranking. Your links should come from authority websites (sites everyone recognizes), like Huffington Post or Art Business. In combination with your other SEO strategies, link building is an excellent way to make your name visible.
4. Rank for Your Name
As an artist, you understand that your business is your name. Therefore, if you’re looking to build your name as your brand, it should be used as a prominent keyword. When you search your name with Google, it should come up first. If not, use these techniques to help you get it to the top of the list.
5. Create a Social Media Presence
Finally, recognize the power of social media in attracting attention to your website. Building social media profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and more will help you reach a wider audience and bring more attention to your brand, which is beneficial for you since, as you know, being a successful artist is about gaining recognition.
Though this is just the beginning of a long SEO journey, these simple tips will help you get started. It won’t be long before you begin to notice a significant difference in your web traffic and conversions.
