The Art (and Science) of SEO

Keywords for Visual Artists

Going back to you and your art, think about what people search for that could be relevant to you?

It could be:

• Your name (followed by the words such as art, artist, visual artist) 
• Your business name (if you don’t trade under your personal name)
• A particular artistic style (‘portrait’, ‘abstract’, “Australian landscapes’)
• Your location (eg. ‘…based in Maleny and drawing inspiration from the Sunshine Coast hinterland…’)

The above tips may seem trivial, but it’s surprising the number of businesses we work with that struggle to ‘rank’ for their own business name simply because they haven’t stated it clearly, in prominent places across their website.

Creating Content That Works For SEO

Hopefully, you now have a better idea of the importance of having the right keywords included in your website content. 

A website can be an outlet for creativity and, if you are good with words, that could lead to poetry or other literary masterpieces! 

Sadly, creativity is often misunderstood by search engines! 

Search engines use algorithms, machine learning and AI (artificial intelligence) to ‘understand’ and ‘rank’ webpages. The algorithm isn’t big on ‘dad jokes’ (even worse than my kids!) and other creative writing. For the most part, it interprets content quite literally.

Let’s go back to plumbing! 

Think of a plumber called “Pipe Prince” – with a website URL of PipePrince.com.au. Let’s say their homepage title reads “Our Pipe Prince will rescue you from your pipe distress”. 

Someone (maybe a Disney tragic?) is trying to make a funny pun by connecting plumbers and princes! The problem is that the search engine doesn’t see anything about plumbing, plumbers, Brisbane, or fixing leaking pipes. So, the less ‘creative’ plumber websites will feature high in search results and our poor Pipe Prince will be left wondering how he’s going to afford the mortgage repayments on his castle.

People simply search for plumbers, not for ‘pipe princes’!

Does that mean we can’t be creative? 

You actually can add creativity to your content. Humans will read it. As long as you have relevant keywords that will make it easy for search engines to work out what you actually do and what sort of keywords they should match your website with, you can write creatively. 

Do pictures say a thousand words?

To humans, the answer is yes! But not to the Google bots! 

AI is still not great at ‘reading’ images. When adding images, always use relevant descriptions in captions, the ‘alt text’ and even in the file name. 

For example, an image file saved as “img12345.jpg” should be renamed “Tropical beach scene – oil painting by Artemisia Arts Brisbane.jpg” – Google won’t read the picture but will read the file name – make it relevant.

The same goes for image captions and descriptions. Adding relevant keywords will give more context to the search engines, so they better understand you and your website. Image descriptions and captions can be the same as the file name – for example, “Tropical beach scene – oil painting by Artemisia Arts Brisbane”. 

Content Hierarchy 

When we talk about content, it’s important to keep in mind that Google (and other search engines) will scan and ‘read’ millions of sites all the time. As they ‘read’ your content, they will prioritise your URL, your title, your headings, your subheadings and your text – in that order!

What does that mean? 

Let’s say we are trying to optimise “Artemisia Artist’s” website. Artemisia paints portraits and wants to increase her commissions of portrait work. Some of the keywords they will be targeting include: her own name “Artemisa” followed by the word art, “portrait painting”, “portrait commission”, etc. 

From a hierarchical perspective, it’s really important for these keywords to be in the URL, the titles and the headings. 

They can also appear in subheadings and general text, but if they ONLY appear in the subheadings and the general text and not in “more important places”, there is a missed opportunity and a more optimised site will likely rank higher in search results. 

Links, Links, Links!

Picture this: a New York Times reporter interviews you for their piece, and puts a link to your website into their article.

Apart from the symbolic gain for your brand, there’d also be tonnes of high-quality traffic directed your way.

But there’s another, less obvious value that’s arguably even more important in the long run. The gist of it is:

Google sees links as votes of confidence.

By linking out to you, a reputable site lends you some of its authority and reputation.

It’s as if one of the top artists in your niche mentioned your name in public. Except that the link is written down for everybody to see – including Google!

If you can get into the New York Times, that’s fabulous. But if not, there’s no need to despair. You will do just fine by getting local. There are tonnes of opportunities to get mentioned if you know where to look:

• Collaborate with other artists who also have websites. Guest posts, joint projects and ventures are all good opportunities to give and receive links.
• “Traditional” news and media – from local newspapers to radios and TV stations. They’ll bump up your visibility but also (hopefully) link out to your site from theirs. 
• Local online publications (news portals, blogs, podcasts) will also give you a great and relatively easy opportunity to get links. Don’t be shy here. You can approach them and pitch your own ideas. They are always looking for new stories to cover!
• Finally, do what you’d be doing anyway – take part in different exhibitions! Except this time, you have a website that the galleries can link out to when they mention your name.

Here Lies the Magic

This guide is just a (hopefully) light introduction to SEO with a few tips that you can begin to apply.

Before you begin, here’s my final tip.

SEO is both an art and a science. The science is about understanding that search engines use algorithms to ‘understand’ and rank webpages. The art is about getting into the mind of the person who might be searching for you and what you do. And blending the two together is where the magic really happens!