Artists Portfolio/Gallery Website – Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Checklist

(This is a guest article by Richard Wilde, owner of the SEO company SEO Merseyside, and the founder of the artists community website www.artybuzz.com, a website that allows artists to sell their work as giclee art prints, canvas art prints, mural wallpaper and more)

As an artist, you may have a small checklist put together to make sure that your impact on the web is fine tuned for success...

— Great artwork lovingly created over the years – Check!
— Domain name purchased – Check!
— Beautifully put together portfolio website to showcase work online – Check!
— Search engine optimisation well planned and implemented – Erm... maybe not...

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Many people forget the importance of optimising your website for the search engines, or SEO as it is more widely known. SEO is extremely important, and if it is not implemented then you will be completely lost on the web. The fact people ignore it is very strange, you wouldn’t write a book, get it printed and then not put it in a shop for people to see and buy, or you wouldn’t organise and hold an exhibition and then block out the windows and lock the door. SEO is about getting yourself seen and noticed on the web, which is just another marketplace like any other space where you show your art, so put a little bit of effort in and reap the rewards... because many artists don’t so you can gain a strong advantage!

SEO is not a dark art and by following this key checklist below, it will be a good start for your portfolio website, or any further reading on the subject you would like to do...

Research

You need to make sure that you are targeting the right keywords for you, your business, or your kind of art. To do this, it is usually a good start to do a brainstorm about what you are about and what people are likely to search for when looking for your products/services.

Once this is done you can think about fine-tuning your keywords and phrases. To do this, type ‘keyword tool’ into Google and choose the top result. This tool allows you to type in any phrase or keyword and get the monthly search volumes for your country and globally, as well as a host of alternative words and phrases for you to choose from. So it allows you to choose the best words to target easily.

Page Titles and META Tags

Page Titles and META Tags help search engines understand what your website is about, so make sure these are implemented in your code or content management system to achieve success. Also, follow these simple guidelines:

Page Title – No more than 70 characters long

META description – between 130 and 160 characters

Meta Keywords – max of 5 comma separated key phrases/words, and no more than 4 words between each comma

Page Content

The wording on your web pages needs to reflect what you want to be found for in the search engines, so make sure you mention the words and phrases you want to get found for in your website’s content. Also, if you have images then make sure you use ‘Alt Tags’ on them to explain what they are. Also, if you use ‘heading tags’, make sure your H1 tag reads the same of similar to your key target phrases.

Images

For many gallery and portfolio websites, images form the bulk of a websites’ content. There are a couple of things that can be done to your images to help Google understand what is on your page, they are...

Alt Tags – Every image has an ‘alt tag’, this is basically an alternative text to the image, and is what a search engine bot reads and interprets to understand what’s on a page. So use your keywords in your alt tags, but don’t over-do it, keep it short!

Image Name – it is also useful to name the image file the same as your alt tag for consistency.

Unfortunately there is no substitute for good old fashioned text to help search engines understand what is on your page and help you move up the search engines. A way around this may be to include a short description about each image, letting people know how it was created etc, while at the same time subtly entering keywords and phrases.

Links

One of the most important things you can do with regards to moving up the search engines is to get links to your site. You should follow some simple steps when trying to get links though, those being...

Relevant Sites: It is pointless to get links from a site completely unrelated to your own, so try to find websites that are suitable and match your own websites content.

Google Page Rank: Generally, websites with a higher ‘Page Rank’ or PR are better to get links from, so make more of an effort when trying to get a link from a site with a high PR.

Text is better than Images: Text links are better to get than links from images and banners.

Anchor Text: If possible, try and make the anchor text in the link to your site read similar to your target key phrases.

Don’t use link farms – Whatever you do, don’t use these and if you don’t know what these are then it should stay that way, forget about them.

Round up

If you follow these steps and maybe do a bit of extra reading if you wish, then this should stand you in a good position against other artists doing a similar thing to yourself.

Finally, if you didn’t understand any of the phrases mentioned above, just type them into Google; there is info all over the web for this kind of stuff and it is not complicated so you can find your answer really easily.

Playing with fire in Atlanta

I went down to Atlanta last week to help Kathleen Plate, of Smart Glass Jewelry, experiment with incorporating enamels into her glass work. Kathleen uses recycled glass bottles as the primary medium in her work. She slices the bottles into rings, then slumps them in a kiln, resulting in smooth-edged, organic glass rings that she then turns into jewelry and home décor items. The work is beautiful, but working in glass limits what Kathleen can do because of  the limited color palettes of the glass bottles and because of the properties of glass as a material.

We worked for two days experimenting with enamels on copper, silver and glass. Kathleen was not particularly drawn to the metals, but was intrigued by the idea of using enamels directly on the glass rings. We had some technical issues in our experiments because the enamels we had on hand were better matched to metal than to glass, but with some experimentation with enamels with different expansion rates Kathleen will most likely get a good result. This will allow her to add new colors to both her jewelry and décor lines.
You can visit Kathleen’s website here: http://www.smartglassjewelry.com/


I also worked with Jen Cleere of Fetching Tags, teaching her enamel basics. She is adding a new line of pet memorial containers to her collection of pet-related crafts. These beautiful, hand-crafted wooden boxes will incorporate customized inset enamel medallions. It was exciting to see how working in enamels opened up a load of new possibilities for Jen’s creations. I can’t wait to see the finished products! The weather was so nice we set up and worked outside, with the kiln sitting on her goat milking table. I had never done enamels with 5 week old kids bleating in the background, but I rather enjoyed it!
Click here to visit Jen’s website: http://www.fetchingtags.net/

While in Atlanta, photographer Terry Greene shot some of my newest jewelry pieces for me. I also got a call from the Montclair Art Museum, requesting that I do a trunk sale in the museum store. So it was a very productive week!

If you make it (well), they will come

I have spoken with several artists lately who are frustrated by being pigeon-holed into a particular style or medium when trying to market their work. Some of this pressure comes from galleries and retailers who have had success selling the work; if it sells well, keep it coming! Some of it is self-imposed, if something sells why make anything else?

In the commerce of art and craft, in order to match potential buyers with products, those products must be put into categories the buyer will understand, and as an artist expands her work the buyer wants it to be done in a somewhat predictable way. From a marketing perspective this makes sense. 

However, I think there is an inherent conflict between the structure and function of the marketplace and the way most artists are wired. We create work out of the need to explore ourselves and the world around us, but if we want to take our work to the marketplace, this exploration can be stymied as we second-guess ourselves and try to predict if a piece will sell. 

I have seen many successful artists fall into creative crisis because they have lost the connection with why they are artists in the first place. They have traded passion for production, which may be preferable financially but not necessarily emotionally.

I think the work and creative process should always come first. If we create good, thoughtful, technically strong work, it will sell. We may need to find a different market if we change mediums, style or techniques, but that shouldn't dissuade us from allowing ourselves to grow creatively.

What do you think? 

Do you think about your market when you start a new painting? If so, is there anything wrong with that? 

How do you find the balance between considering your marketplace and keeping your work fresh?

How have you found a new market when your way of working changed? 

I would love to hear from you!

Promoting Online – How Your Art and Ideas Can Spread Faster Than Ever

(This is a guest blog post by Richard Wilde, founder of Artybuzz.com, an online artists community that allows anyone to exhibit, sell and buy great artwork. Please visit Artybuzz.com to read my post about Personal Branding for the Artist.)

If you are an artist and you’re not using the internet to your full advantage, then you are missing out on a huge amount of publicity, opportunities, sales and influence as an artist, no matter what kind of work you produce.

Good old fashioned exhibitions are great, but if you really want your work and ideas to spread faster and further than they ever have done before, then use of the internet is probably the most effective way of doing so.

I recently wrote an ebook on how to market your artwork, and talked about many marketing ideas, including how to promote your work online. Below, I’d like to expand on some of these points and add a few more especially for readers of this blog. If you take these ideas and implement them consistently, then you will start to see a growing pattern in the popularity of your work on the web, which will open so many more doors.

Blogging

If you don’t have a blog, then seriously think about getting one. They are great for keeping your fans updated and finding new fans as well. Also, if you are passionate about something, it will show through in your writing, and your niche market will find you and tell others about you; spreading your ideas faster than you ever could do on your own.

Social Networking

Ignoring Facebook, Twitter and many other niche social networking platforms is madness if you want to do well online. These platforms are generally free and provide so many functions to help you get your artwork noticed, sold and also gain bigger followings of fans and admirers. My website, Artybuzz.com, provides some social networking features like being able to create groups for your kind of art, and also networking opportunities with other artists. It’s not as advanced as Facebook obviously, but it’s good if you’re an artist who wants to interact with like minded people.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is also a good way to get your work noticed. Sites like Stumbleupon, Digg and Delicious all allow you to ‘bookmark’ your work on the web with keywords and phrases. Then when people search for these kind of words, web pages with your work on can get picked up and seen by new people who may have never have found your art if not.

Add Your Work to Other Websites

This may not be for everyone, especially if you just want to keep everything on your own website, but adding your work to other sites that list, show and sell art is a great way to make sales and get your art noticed in places you wouldn’t have done previously. If a website has good quality work on it already, it won’t devalue yours, so I personally don’t see a downside to doing this.

If you apply these tips above then you are likely to gain more success on the internet. The golden rule is to be consistent and focus on quality in everything you do. People like to see regular patterns, so if you do the above regularly then it will get noticed and people will come back for more. So don’t just write a blog post or write something on twitter once a month for example, it’s basically pointless.

I hope this article will be of some use to people, and if you would like to read my full ebook exploring these ideas and others further, feel free to download it and share it with others at www.artybuzz.com/ebook.php. If you are an artist or art enthusiast, then you are also very welcome to join the community I have at Artybuzz.com... if you join, take these ideas on and add your work and comment on others to get yours noticed as well.

More on LinkedIn Groups

I have had a LinkedIn account for several years, but once I set it up I neglected it for the most part. About a year ago I went in and updated my information. Within a week I was contacted by two galleries out of the blue who asked to see my work and I got a consulting project.  

While I don't always use LinkedIn to its full potential, recently I have signed up to participate in several LinkedIn groups, mini-networks within LinkedIn, organized around common interests. I get weekly emails that give a digest of the discussion threads for each group. I have actively participated in two of these threads that have been of great interest to me- one about artists who work with charities in fundraising, and one about how blogging can benefit artists. 

Both discussions have provided practical, technical and creative advice as well as collaboration with other artists/business people to trade web links, share tips and even guest-blog on each other's sites. I have been blown away about how friendly the people in the groups are and how open they are to both asking for and giving advice. Through these groups I have access to hundreds of arts professionals that are more than willing to answer my questions about business, techniques, legal issues, and creativity. 

So… if you are already on LinkedIn:

- Update your information regularly.

- Add your website url, blog, Facebook page, Twitter name, etc. to your LinkedIn profile. 

- Join some groups! It's easy: log into LinkedIn. Click on the "Groups" tab. In the search window, type in some keywords to locate groups you may be interested in. Scroll through the results and click on groups you want to join. That's all there is to it!

Some groups I belong to are: 

American Ceramic Society, Art Business, Blogger's Network, Green Design Pros, MuseumLink, NJ Association of Women Business Owners, Visual Artists and their advocates, Sculptors, and Metal Clay Artists.

If you are not on LinkedIn… it is a professional networking site, similar to Facebook but it's all work and no play! Seriously, there are great tools to help you expand your contacts and build professional relationships. It is free and easy to sign up. Give it a try:

www.LinkedIn.com

Are you a slave to your medium, techniques or processes?

Good or bad, the trend right now in "art" is that the idea is what matters, the execution only matters in that it supports the idea. The materials don't matter at all, unless the idea is about the material. Since the materials don't matter, and the execution is an open prospect, it doesn't really matter who does the production, or who touches the materials, as long as the artist is the foreman of the project and makes sure the final product is true to the idea.

This allows artists to use whatever media they like to express their idea. Because it is acceptable for the production of art to be a team effort, the artist is able to call upon the expertise of an engineer, a welder, a paint specialist, a chef… whatever is necessary to execute the work even if the artist doesn't have those skills herself. A fabulous example of this is Cristo's and Jean-Claude's The Gates that was installed in New York's Central Park a few years ago. Hundreds of people worked at various stages of production to pull off such a large-scale endeavor, but the transformation of Central Park was a successful execution of the artists' idea.

There is a downside to the idea being all-important, though. Where does that leave technique? Many artists secretly practice their craft not because of the ideas of art, but primarily for tactile reasons- because they are in love with pigments, or they dream about getting their fingers into clay (of course none of us would ever admit to such carnal motivations!). For many artists, to do work that is only about idea and abandons technique would be creative suicide. And if all that is required of art is an idea, it doesn't mean that idea is a good one! It is all too easy to just be clever, or cynical, instead of adding something important to the conversation.

Roberta Smith wrote in the New York Times, in her article "Post-Minimal to the Max," February 10, 2010: 

What’s missing is art that seems made by one person out of intense personal necessity, often by hand. A lot but not all of this kind of work is painting, which seems to be becoming the art medium that dare not speak its name where museums are concerned.

(Read the full article here.)

Smith points out several painters who are managing to push painting along, even as they are under the radar of the temples of the art world. 

On the other hand, on the craft side of things, while there is some movement toward more conceptual work, in my observation the world of craft as a whole has yet to break free from the bonds of material, technique, formalism or pedagoguery like the "art" world has. Much of the conceptual work in craft can still be traced to specific schools or teachers, and the trend has not yet splashed into the craft zeitgeist. The question remains as to how far the conceptual envelope may be pushed if function is one of the definitions of craft. (If you make a ring out of razor blades so that it really cannot be worn, does it cease to be jewelry and instead become "art"?)

An inherent part of craft is function, so in that sense I believe there should and will always be some connection to material, but it can be an unexpected material, and it can be fabricated in unexpected ways. When we put a particular technique before the idea, or don't experiment and push the boundaries of the techniques we learned in school, sometimes our work can suffer by those limitations and ends up looking like a knock-off of our teacher's work. Instead of crafts people experimenting with newly developed materials, processes or technology, we often eschew them before we even know what their possibilities are. Why are we so afraid to break out of the boxes we have created for ourselves?

In craft, some people feel guilty (or self-righteous) about simplifying production processes by having work cast, using technology, or using assistants. Many craft shows require that all work and components be made by "the artist's hand," but unless one has their own silver mine, tannery or mill, it is impossible to comply with such a request. There is a moralism about "the artist's hand" in craft that disappeared from the "art" world decades ago. In reality it's a standard that is almost impossible to follow to the letter if one is trying to make a living from selling their work. I don't know a single craftsperson who makes a living from selling their work without the use of production processes that take place either outside their studio or with the help of at least one assistant. 

The craft movement of today actually started in the late 1800s as the Arts and Crafts movement. It was a response to the mass-produced objects of industrialization and the decorative excesses of the Victorian age. The movement's claims were that functional objects had inherent beauty in their form, that materials should be respected for their organic qualities, that making work by hand was a good and noble enterprise, and that good design was a democratic right and that even the poor should be surrounded by aesthetically pleasing objects. Despite these lofty ideals, almost every piece made by the Arts and Crafts gods Stickley, Hunter, Morris and the rest, were not one-of-a-kind pieces made one-by-one by hand, but were made in mass production in small factories by a host of workers under the direction of the designer. 

My point is that whether we see ourselves as being on the "art" or the "craft" side, or maybe with one foot in both realms, it's easy and comfortable to settle into current trends or the familiarity of a technique. But that can be deadly to the quality and relevance of our work. Unless we force ourselves out of our comfort zone now and then (whether it be strict adherence to a philosophy or a technique), we will just churn out the same old stuff. I would like to see the "the artist's hand" find its way back into "art," but I think the craft world would benefit from being liberated from some of its self-imposed rules of formalism and pedagoguery.

I would love to hear your comments!

Lead balloons

I used to play the trumpet in a swing band. We played a number of venues around New York City just as swing music was making a resurgence in the late 1990s. There were some great musicians in the band, and we practiced a lot, both on our own and as a group. What amazed me was that we could give the same quality of performance to several audiences, but the reaction could be completely different. There were a few times where something magical happened and the connection we felt with the audience exceeded a musical performance and lifted us, collectively, into a place of transcendence and deep communion.

As an artist, achieving that "place" of transcendent connection with my audience is an ever-present goal for me. It is a transitory place and rarely encountered. But having been there, I like how it feels to have someone have a new experience as a reaction to my work. Even if it is something as simple as liking a pair of earrings that I made, if someone responds or "gets it" I feel that I have done my job.

I have shown my sculpture enough times that I know the range of engagement people will have, some will connect with it very deeply right away, some people are inquisitive but some effort is required to engage, some people understand it but just plain don't like it. And sometimes the work goes over like a lead balloon. I recently had a show opening where few people engaged at all. Ironically it was the strongest body of work I have put up in a long time, so the self-doubt I would normally feel in such a situation was kept at bay. The show looked great in the space. But it was the wrong audience for my work and I suppose was expecting too much from them.

Marketing is the process of using all the skills we have to create the conduit for our work that will allow the transcendent connection we strive for as artists. It is the process of finding and priming our audience so that they are as receptive as possible to our ideas and creations. It is an open-ended experiment, and sometimes we completely miss the mark.

Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug, sometimes you're the squeegee that has to scrape the bug off the windshield and figure out a better way to go about it next time around.