3 Tips on SEO for Artists Learn how to increase traffic to your website! Mamta Gholap

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is not something that is typically taught at art school, but it can be just as important to your career as finding the right glaze fit for your clay body.

So in this post, an excerpt from the Pottery Making Illustrated archive, we are presenting some tips on SEO for artists from Mamta Gholap. –Jennifer Poellot Harnetty, editor

Website Optimization for Artists

One aspect of successful online marketing is making your site more visible by understanding and using Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which is used to target customers. SEO is the practice of making adjustments and updates to the content and links on websites so that they will receive more traffic and rank at the top position of Google or other search engines’ search results. SEO focuses on rankings in the organic (non-paid) search results. Moving up in these rankings means your site will be more visible and likely reach more people. This is why SEO for artists is so important.

SEO for Artists – Tip 1

Optimizing Keywords: The layout of your website and the content that it publicizes can affect how highly it ranks in search-engine results pages; however, it’s more important to utilize relevant keywords on a web page and discover the foremost keyword that each page will target. Incorporate the keyword as naturally as possible throughout the page, without overstating it. Use keywords that describe processes as well as the objects you make. Your foremost keyword might be a single word, such as “mugs” or a phrase such as “plates and bowls.” Long phrases are useful for new brands with online marketing because they encounter limited competition from other websites.

You can use Keyword Planner, a free Google Ads tool, to search for keywords and see how a list of keywords might perform. Keyword Planner is useful for both new and experienced advertisers. It’s like a workshop for building a new search network campaign, a group of search-related websites where your ads can appear. Keyword Planner can also help you choose competitive bids and budgets to boost your campaigns.

SEO for Artists – Tip 2

Social Networking: Creating high-quality social-media content and believing that your website, in turn, will receive attention isn’t how it works. Be proactive. To boost traffic toward your website, utilize social-media channels to promote your content. Twitter is typical for short and tempting links, whereas posts on Facebook and Instagram can benefit your site by helping it to show up in personalized feeds and search results, and seem remarkably effective in niches. Attract customers by posting product images to visually focused sites like Pinterest and Instagram.

Respond to comments on social media without spamming them. Be considerate on Twitter and you will receive tweets and retweets in return. In other words, being responsive, prompt, and courteous wins you goodwill, increases customer engagement, drives traffic toward your website, and builds an image for the brand.

SEO for Artists – Tip 3

Marketing Funnel: Once traffic is coming into your website, you want visitors to take an action, such as buying a product or signing up for a workshop or classes. Locking up straightforward and powerful funnels not only generates traffic to your website, but also converts a subset of visitors into a group of customers that frequently return to the site to make additional purchases. Funnels start with capturing a broad audience then narrow it down to those who will take the desired action. Basic principles of the funnel approach include brand visibility to a large number of people, drawing the most relevant and interested customers into the funnel for better customer experience, discovering more about expected customers, and nurturing them to increase promoter activity and customers’ lifetime value. The steps in a funnel are:

1. Build Awareness: The audience notices your business or offers. Maybe they have seen an ad/link on Twitter or Facebook.
2. Maintain Interest: The targeted audience is momentarily aware of your business presence and they decide to find out a bit more about your business/practice/website. Maybe they read your blog post.
3. Consideration: Now the audience is interested in your business but not yet ready to buy—maybe comparing your products against the competitors’.
4. Conversion: Now your targeted audience is ready to buy your products from your website.
5. Loyalty: The same customer is regularly buying your product instead of choosing your competitors’.
6. Advocacy: A customer recommends you to potential buyers, joins your Twitter thread, and protects your business reputation.

Broadcasting regular newsletters and promoting offers through email is a great way to funnel and direct traffic to your website. Provide useful information and links to pages on your website where people can make a purchase, such as through blog posts and landing pages (pages developed on your website for promoting particular offers).

**First published in 2019.