Marketing your website
with Search Engine Optimization
How can we introduce new people to your business? It’s important to keep exploring and devoting time to free marketing avenues. Participating in local events and collaborating with like-minded people & businesses is key to growing your business and establishing yourself within your community.
It is no surprise growing your business online will take the same amount of effort and devotion. A website is like a house plant, you have to take good care of it to see healthy steady growth. A great way to keep working & interacting with your website is learning about Search Engine Optimization and how it can benefit your business.
What on earth is Search Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art and science of getting pages to rank higher in search engines such as Google.
Because search is one of the main ways in which people discover content online, ranking higher in search engines can lead to an increase in traffic to a website.
Let’s simplify this science into actions we can all implement to help our businesses.
How SEO works
Googles search engines use a complex algorithms to determine the relevance and quality of websites when users search for specific keywords or phrases. For example someone searches for Canadian Ceramics Artist in Google.
The results of googles top ranking page will be pre determined by the relevance and quality of the websites that mention the keywords Canadian Ceramics Artist.
To drive more business to your website, it is important to implement various techniques and strategies to align your website's content, structure, and technical aspects with these algorithms.
links
Links from other websites play a key role in determining the ranking of a site in Google and other search engines.
The reason being, a link can be seen as a vote of quality from other websites, since website owners are unlikely to link to other sites that are of poor quality. Sites that acquire links from many other sites gain authority (called "PageRank" in Google) in the eyes of search engines.
Content
In addition to looking at links, search engines also analyze the content of a webpage to determine if it would be relevant for any given search.
A large part of SEO is in creating content that is targeted towards the keywords that search engines' users are searching for.
page structure
The third core component of SEO is page structure.
Thankfully, I have taken care of this for you so you can focus on your craft and website content. When designing your website, I added relevant keywords in the titles, URL, headers and descriptions of each page.
acrylic painting by James Zimmer
Taking action
Keyword Search
Keyword research is often the starting point for SEO and involves analyzing how popular a keywords are, what keywords competitors rank for, and what other keywords potential customers are searching for.
I would recommend visiting Google Trends to research and learn what keywords will have the most impact on your business. You can even search multiple keywords & subjects to compare their popularity. This will help with ideas and keywords to use in your brand journal.
Identifying the terms that searchers use in Google search and other search engines provide direction on what existing content can be optimized and what new content can be created.
Create Quality content
Once potential keywords are identified, creating good content comes into play. This can be updating existing content, product descriptions or creating new pieces of content in your Brand Journal.
Because Google and other search engines prioritize high-quality content, it's important to research what content is already out there and create a compelling piece of content that provides a positive user experience. Sharing your ideas, perspective and original techniques will give you a chance at ranking higher in the search engine results.
Good content also has a greater chance of being shared on social media and attracting links.
Friendly links
Links from external websites are one of the core ranking factors in Google and other major search engines. There are lots of different techniques to get this digital stamp of approval but my favourite is through authenticity.
By staying true to yourself, getting involved in your community, promoting other Artists and businesses the love and support will come back tenfolds. The more you give the more you get. While staying authentic to yourself and shining a light on the things you love, people and businesses will recognize that and want to share it with the world.
Obtaining high-quality backlinks will improve your Search Engine optimization. Driving excitement the point people want to share your website with others goes beyond the Art or Product you sell.
Sharing your journey will inspire others and attract links from other websites.
Art by Jenaya Jenkins
Brand Journal
A brand or artist journal is the perfect place to share your journey with the world. An easy and convenient way to share your all your new ideas in one place. A neat section of your website to post new content and use the magic of keywords we just learned about.
Creating quality content and marketing it to your audience will consistently draw new eyes to your website and give the opportunity for others to share and support what you do.
painting by Brenda J Smith
What are you working on, whats on your mind, whats next for your business? These are great questions to ask yourself to brainstorm ideas for your brand journal.
Make your ideas even more impactful, you can do some research and find some popular keywords related to your idea on Google Trends. Please don’t think about this as a dreadful task or a school project, the goal is to have fun sharing your ideas with the world so don’t forget to have fun.
There is no wrong way to do it, so stay true to your voice.
Brainstorming
Bringing your ideas to life
How to turn your ideas into quality timeless content.
Start by thinking your idea through, determine the Goal of your piece and create a checklist of everything you need to accomplish that goal.
If your goal is to promote a recent Gallery that hosted your Art. What do you need to create a captivating piece of content you will want to have some photos of some of your art at the gallery, some pictures of the venue and maybe even some art from another artist that you saw and enjoyed.
Now for the written component, talk about your time at the gallery and what you enjoyed. This is where the keywords come in handy. Try and naturally incorporate some keywords you researched into your short or long text. If you mention the gallery name, next time someone googles that specific gallery your website will now appear in google. If you see other artist that you admire and mention them, next time someone searches their name in google your website will appear.
You have captivating images of your time at the gallery, a nice written component the final touches is to direct your readers to the desired content with links. In this particular example, you can create a hyperlink to your available paintings, guide people to visit the gallery or even promote other artists work / website.
The possibilities are endless, for the brand journal. The more you do it, the easier it will be and the better you will become.
WHat do you think ?
Please do not hesitate to ask any questions, reach out for help or share some ideas with me.
I’m always happy to help :)