SEO FOR ART

How to use SEO to be found online by collectors, potential customers or visitors

SEO, or search engine optimization, is a term that indicates a series of techniques that aim to make a website suitable for searches, especially on Google.

In fact, Google, through its algorithm , scans the entire world of the web, filtering suitable contents and eliminating those that do not respect certain rules , showing the results to the user who enters keywords.   

For artists, gallery owners, professionals and institutions, implementing an SEO strategy means directing users to their website , which is indexed, or which appears in Google searches.    

It is not enough to produce quality content such as high-resolution images, articles for the blog, etc. if these do not comply with Google’s rules: the result will not be up to the economic and content production commitment, which read and viewed.   

Let’s see what are the fundamental steps for a successful SEO strategy in the art world:

1. CHOOSE YOUR KEYWORDS: first of all, as with any marketing tool, you need to be clear about the behavior of your potential audience . In this case it means using some online software such as Google Keyword Planner, KWPlanner , or Keyword Tool , which allow you to have an overview of the keywords searched in a certain period, complete with user demographic statistics . But be careful : choose generic keywords such as “art”, “paintings”, “museum” etc that have large volumes of research, it means, more often than not, having too much competition : as much as we can try, competitors will always be first of us in Google searches. Instead, it is better to use more specific keywords for our business, but with a good search volume. An example could be the “contemporary art museum in Bergamo” , or “ abstract oil paintings on canvas” or, for the galleries, the names of the artists represented or protagonists of the next exhibition.              
2. WHERE TO INSERT THE KEYWORDS : based on the keywords chosen, all the content on the site is structured , from marketing texts to blog articles, to get to the images. The latter in fact have attributes called “alt” which are very important for the search of the images: it is always better to change the name of the file with a specific title such as “Title of the painting, oil on canvas, 40 × 50” , or the title of an exhibition represented or the service offered as an “art advisor ” etc. For blog articles, on the other hand, pay attention to the tags that must be consistent with the keywords.      
3. SNIPPET PREVIEWS: this term refers to the individual “cards” that appear on Google after a search. Snippet Previews consist of an “SEO Title” , a permalink and a “meta description”, which must respect a certain number of words, but also be clear and effective. An example of a title would be “ Name Surname | Abstract Painter | Buy Online ” or “ Gallery Name | City Name | Abstract Paintings “        
4. THE LINK BUILDING: literally, the “construction of connections” means making the site appear in other authoritative sites or blogs. The Link Building can be through interviews, marketplace as Artsy for artists, event sites for museums and galleries . This practice not only increases traffic, but also favors indexing on Google.     
5. THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA: even the social media such as Facebook , LinkedIn , Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube are very important as they appear on Google search pages. It is therefore essential to create an SEO strategy that also integrates the keywords in the social editorial plan or a possible production of video content.     
6. FOCUS ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE SITE: the structure of the website must be ordered, conceived as a tree architecture that starts from the home page and is divided into successive levels, up to the individual pages. This favors not only the navigability by the user, but also the reading of the contents and the “ sitemap ” by Google.  

Taking into account SEO in the construction of a website or in the production of content, means meeting the searches of users, in particular of an audience potentially interested in art.

And you, are you ready to optimize your website SEO for art ?