The Lovers (Section) ~ Paul Gauguin 1902

In Part 1 we explained why Search Engines are important for artists and the role they play in the “Attraction phase” of your online art marketing. In this post we’ll look more closely at strategies to be successful with search engines.

Most artist’s websites (most websites in general in fact) rank poorly in search engine results. If your website doesn’t show up on the first page you’re missing opportunities. If it’s not on the second page you’re basically wasting your time with search engines.

So, how do you rank highly? Here’s what we’ve learned in our 6 years of designing artist websites:

The Major Search Engine Traffic Success Elements

Here are the three major keys to ranking highly in search engine results:

Optimized Website Structure: Your website must be built and structured such that search engine robots can easily find and index the information on the site. Basically it must be easy to read and understand and should where possible avoid elements that are invisible to search engines. Simple also works much better for human visitors – the worst artist websites from a human perspective are almost always the ones which are overly complex or clever rather than simple and visual!

Optimized Keyword Selection: Your website must include the appropriate words and phrases to describe you and your style of art. These “keywords” and “Keyword phrases” need to be placed in the most powerful sections of your site. In addition, it’s important to ensure that the keywords you use to describe your art are the same as those being used by people searching for your style of art in search engines. There is no point in optimizing your website for terms that no one is searching on – that is like advertising beef in a town of vegetarians!

While we are on this keyword topic it is relevant and important to mention niches. At the core of SEO and of any serious marketing effort lies the concept of your niche. It is very difficult to be commercially successful as an artist if you simply describe yourself as an “Artist”. On the other hand, if you can tightly define exactly what sort of artist you are and the style of work you create it will help you significantly. It helps because your message stands out to buyers who have an interest in your style of work. The saying, “Get rich in a niche” is just as true for art as it is for any other business and you need to embrace it and use it in all your art marketing activities. Being able to describe your niche is central to success with choosing SEO keywords.

Optimized PageRank: Search engines must decide that your website has a high “Relevance” to the search term. To a large extent this is a measure of the quantity and quality of incoming links (from other websites) to your website. Just as in human social situations our importance is judged by the number of our friends and their degree of social power, so too is your website ranked by the company it keeps!

These three factors  work together to create a “sweet spot” of maximum search engine rankings. Think of it as a recipe for a cake with 3 ingredients. If you have all three in place and bake at the right temperature for a sufficient time you can be fairly confident of a superb afternoon tea! If on the other hand you miss an ingredient the cake may not rise or it maybe it will taste really bad – not so good for business.

What we have noticed with SEO is that various websites will come and go from the page 1 search engine results. The sites that stay there invariably have all three foundations solidly in place so it really is worthwhile to do it properly if you want consistent results.

Sounds simple enough doesn’t it? The truth is that it is quite simple, but it does take commitment on the part of the artist to do the research work and get the website optimization done. But then commitment and effort are what separates commercially successful artists from the rest.

If you are one of those seriously committed to success you have some options with how to implement SEO. You can research your own plan and spend thousands of dollars of your valuable studio time and you might be on the right path. You could also consider our Artist SEO Success System, a 21 day program which takes the guess-work out of exactly what to do and can get you solidly on the path to search engine ranking success. At $97 it really is unbelievably good value and we have a bunch of very happy artist customers who say so. Here are just a couple:

Daniel – Thank-you for your Artist SEO guide and workbook. I have spent a small fortune learning SEO from various experts. Your book does an excellent job of distilling the most important parts down to step by step actionable tasks. Wish I had found you first, it would have saved me thousands. Awesome value. Tim ONeill, Nebraska

As an creator of educational materials and online courses (in my day job, I have a Masters in Instructional Design) I am totally impressed with the guide and workbook. It is so well written and thought out and CLEAR! I can tell you guys did a ton of work… Bravo! …. Kristen Hoard, California

Thanks for taking the time to read and absorb this series on SEO. There is never enough great art visible in the world and I hope that you will make use of some of these concepts to improve your marketing and get your art out there where it belongs – seen and sold!

Lovers ~ Pablo Picasso

If you’ve been reading recent art marketing articles regularly over the last year you may have noticed an occasional minor clash of ideas on the topic of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Artists. I confess to being one of the culprits in these sparring matches!

My experience from working with clients at Beautiful Artist Websites is that SEO IS very important for artists – just as it is similarly important for any modern business wanting to increase its exposure to potential buyers. It is also a topic that is not well understood by artists and this is why I took several months out of my schedule to write The Artist SEO Success System.

In this post I’ll explain why SEO is important for artists and precisely where it delivers its true value. In Part 2, I’ll give you a brief introduction to the three foundations of SEO so that you can get started on optimizing your own artist website.

So why is SEO so important for artists?

First of all, lets demolish a myth or two.

Many artists say that SEO is a waste of time because Word-of-Mouth marketing is more powerful. Let me say that from my experience nothing else compares with word-of-mouth – a referral from a happy client or partner is undoubtedly the “gold standard” in marketing. It comes with an instant level of trust and positions you much closer to closing a sale.

But if that is the case why do other businesses engage in so much extra marketing and advertising activity? Why would they do that if word-of-mouth is so powerful?

The answer is because they want to grow their business as much as possible (as should you) and they recognize that if they only use word-of-mouth they are missing many potential clients. Do you want to miss out on clients?

Search Engine Marketing is part of what we call the “marketing attraction phase”. This is where you attract potential clients who generally don’t know about you at all. They don’t know your name – they only know that they are looking for art of a certain style. They could be individuals or they could be art dealers or art licensing reps. The point is – they want what you have but they aren’t connected to anyone who knows you so they will never hear about you through word-of-mouth.

The “attraction phase” can include a number of different marketing methods including SEO, Social Networking, Snail Mail marketing to galleries and dealers, networking with local arts organizations, galleries, etc. The optimum mix depends on your art and personality.

You should also be clear that the main goal of any attraction-phase marketing technique, including SEO, is not to create an instant sale. This is where artists often get confused and disappointed. Instant sales do happen, especially in the lower price-points – but what you really want is to lead them into the next phases of your art marketing process where you build relationships and create a customer for life. That is what you should be aiming for!

Just for your reference, the phases of our art marketing model are:

1. The Attraction Phase
2. The WOW Phase
3. The Relationship-building Phase
4. The Sales-Close Phase

You can read more about these phases in our free report, “7 Steps To Sell Art Online“.

But lets get back to SEO and some hypothetical examples of how it might help an artist commercially:

Gillian is an oil painter who lives in Northern New Mexico and paints landscapes, many of which are focused close to the town of Abiquiu. (Note: If you haven’t had the opportunity to visit this town you should mark it on your list of places to go – it is right near Ghost Ranch and Georgia O’keeffe’s desert home – just gorgeous landscape!)

Gillian has a website which she has optimized for search engines. During that process she discovered that many people google “Abiquiu Paintings” and “Ghost Ranch Paintings” and so she optimized her artist website to rank highly for those phrases.

Gillian has opened the door to several big potential opportunities:

- A gallery director scouting for new work of Gillian’s style and subject matter may very likely google “Abiquiu Paintings” and “Ghost Ranch Paintings” as part of their search strategy. When Gillian’s website ranks on Page 1, it means they can find her and look at her work. If Gillian’s work is great and her website does its job she may get a call from the gallery director. This is priceless attraction-marketing for free!

- Similarly, an art licensing rep may be looking for work similar to Gillian’s for a new line of home decorations at Target Stores. Search engines would be part of their strategy.

- Finally, tourists who have visited the area and fallen in love with it often get home and realize that they really want a piece of art to remind them of their experience at Ghost Ranch. What do you think might be one strategy they might use? Search engines – of course!

Now, as I mentioned above, search engines are just one of several attraction-phase marketing techniques you can use – but they are very powerful. So why would you want to miss out on the potential business with a website that doesn’t rank highly for the phrases applicable to your work that are heavily searched? Why would you risk missing out on a serious percentage of your potential new visitors?

You wouldn’t right? That would be plain crazy! But that is exactly what MOST artists are doing with their websites! And the most insane part of this is that SEO is not really that difficult to master, IF you know what to do.

Today I’ve covered WHY search engines are an important marketing tool for artists and WHERE they deliver they strength. In Part 2 we’ll discuss the 3 foundations of Search Engine Optimization to get you started.

If you’re serious about more success with your website you can also check out our “Artist SEO Success System” – a Complete 21 day program to comprehensively SEO your artist website. Created exclusively for artists it lays out a complete plan and can save you $thousands in lost time.

Editors Note: This article (written by us) was first published in Fine Art Views in October 2010.

If you weren’t on the call and haven’t listened to the replay I highly recommend you do so. If you think I’m kidding about how valuable this is, here are a couple of  testimonials from that call…

From Shawna Erback…

Thanks to your tele-seminar with Tara Reed, I am now in first place and first page when I search for “licensing studio”, “art licensing studio”, “artist licensing” and “artist licensing studio”.  Before I listened to your ask call my website looked pretty on the outside but was a mess on the inside and thanks to you I now have seo optimization! I listened to that call more than once taking notes and will listen to it again and again to keep things fresh.  Thank you Thank you!!

From Sue Allemand…

SUPER SUPER SUPER! That’s all I can say! I never expected to get this much out of Daniel’s call! I understood EVERY WORD! He makes it so simple to understand! And to think — I spent hundreds on supposed “promotion” companies who claimed to submit you to X amount of search engines – numerous times over a certain amount of time, fix your meta tags, get you X amount of reciprocal links, etc…  and NONE of what they CLAIMED I needed (and what I paid for) was in Daniel’s top 3 for SEO!! Unbelievable!

I confess that I’m not normally one to self-promote as outrageously as I have above! I’m an Aussie by birth and we are trained to be somewhat self-effacing. When I landed in California 15 years ago I had to learn self-promotion 101 very fast otherwise I would have been eaten alive!

But seriously, the reason I am pushing this whole SEO topic strongly is because it is SO IMPORTANT for you as an artist and there isn’t a lot of comprehensive SEO guidance available focused on the art community. This interview with Tara was exactly that – SEO For Artists.

So, why is SEO so important? Many artists and even some art coaches think it’s not relevant to art because art is somehow “different”. Nothing could be further from the truth. When you sell art that is business – and SEO is a major force for business success online. Let me give a hypothetical example of how it might work for an artist…

How Search Engines Help Artists – An Example

Susan is an oil painter who lives in Northern New Mexico and paints landscapes, many of which are focused close to the town of Abiquiu. (Note: If you haven’t had the opportunity to visit this town you should mark it on your list of places to go – it is right near Ghost Ranch and Georgia O’keeffe’s desert home – just gorgeous landscape!)

Susan has a website which she has optimized for search engines. During that process she discovered that many people google “Abiquiu Paintings” and “Ghost Ranch Paintings” and so she optimized her artist website to rank highly for those phrases.

Susan has opened the door to several big potential opportunities:

• A gallery director scouting for new work of Susan’s style and subject matter may very likely google “Abiquiu Paintings” and “Ghost Ranch Paintings” as part of their search strategy. When Susan’s website ranks on Page 1, it means they can find her and look at her work. This is priceless attraction-marketing for free!
• Similarly, an art licensing company may be looking for work similar to Susan’s for a new line of home decorations at Target Stores. Search engines would be part of their strategy.
• Finally, tourists who have visited the area and fallen in love with it often get home and realize that they really want a piece of art to remind them of their experience at Ghost Ranch. What do you think might be one strategy they might use? Search engines – of course!

Now, in all honesty, search engines are only one method used by businesses and individuals to find what they want. But they are very powerful – so why would you want to miss out on the potential business with a website that doesn’t rank highly for the phrases that are heavily searched? Why would you risk missing out on possibly 50% or more of your potential new visitors?

You wouldn’t right? That would be plain crazy! But that is exactly what MOST artists are doing with their websites! And the most insane part of this is that SEO is not really that difficult to master, IF you know what to do.

A lot of powerful people think that search engines are important for your business. Here is what Qi Lu, President of Microsoft’s Online Services Division said recently…

Search Engine Advertising is the most powerful economic force on the internet.

Those are important words and as an artist I would certainly want the most powerful economic force on the internet working for my art career! So, if your website doesn’t already rank highly for search terms that actually bring customers here is what I would suggest:

Start by listening to the recording of Tara’s SEO For Artists Teleclass. It’s free, and as you can see from the testimonials above you could actually learn some useful info. This is really required knowledge for any serious art marketer.

If you are really serious about selling more art via high search engine rankings on your artist website, consider buying our Artist SEO Success System. It is a complete 21 day program to comprehensively optimize your website for search engines – and it is 100% focused on artists. At $97, it is not cheap but it is tremendous value when you think of the potential market you can open your website to (learn more). And yes – we have many great testimonials about this product too! Here is one that just came in this week…

I’m going through the workbook and doing a lot of the exercises which are really great.   As an creater of educational materials and online courses (in my day job, I have a Masters in Instructional Design) I am totally impressed with the guide and workbook.  It is so well written and thought out and CLEAR!  I can tell you guys did a ton of work… Bravo!  …. Kristen Hoard

As art marketers and artist website developers, our job is to give you the tools to create business success with your art. I’m handing you this one on a silver platter – so please make use of it and go sell some art. I can’t wait to open the champagne and toast your success!

Note: This article was originally published as a guest post on Tara Reed’s Art Licensing Blog

On a side note, Tara Reed recently wrote a great article for us on the subject of YouTube Marketing Videos For Artists. This is a must-read if you are thinking of creating video to promote your work. Now, lets compare a few video styles and get your reactions to them. All are focused on the topic of Search Engine Optimization to give a good basis for comparison.

Example 1

In the first example, the fabulous Tara Reed recently acted a command performance in her video, How SEO for Artists is Like making a Google Field Goal:

Example 2

This next example is one I put together as a selling video on our Artist SEO Success System Landing page.

Example 3

Finally another example of SEO handled in an even more comedic tone. This one is really funny – you have to watch it!

The question I have for you is: What works for you in a marketing sense? What I mean by that is what would actually cause you to buy something? Does the entertainment factor make a difference to you? Or will you just enjoy the entertainment and then go on to find the lowest price wherever you can?

Please share and leave your comments below!

If you’re like most artists with a website, you started out with a dream that collectors would actually find you through search engines. But the reality for most artists is:

Your website floats alone in cyberspace with almost no visitors.

That’s not good enough! Artist websites are not just great showcases – they should and can also attract a steady stream of potential art buyers for you to build relationships with and sell your art to. While search engines are just one method of attracting new visitors to your website, they are incredibly important because they:

1. Are a very low-cost form of promotion
2. Market your work 24/7
3. Market your art to a truly global audience
   

So, as much as we recommend that you also do all the other attraction marketing techniques like mailouts, personal networking, and social networking, ranking highly in search engine results on your style of work must be a serious part of your marketing strategy.

You can learn how to bring search engines, the most powerful economic force on the Internet*, to your artist website with the complete do-it-yourself SEO system, “21 Days To Bring Search Engine Traffic To Your Artist Website“

Created exclusively for artists by our sister business Beautiful Artist Websites, “21 Days” is based on 5 years of experience building premium artist websites, together with BAW’s own success in consistently ranking #1 in organic Google search results. It solves the big problems that confront artists with SEO and delivers powerful results.

It’s very well done, informative, and easy to understand. I’m determined to be successful with it.  Donna Rossi, New York

I have spent a small fortune learning SEO from various experts. I wish I had found you first – it would have saved me thousands. Awesome value.  Tim O’Neill, Nebraska

Make a commitment to a new level of seriousness and success in your art career by optimizing your artist website for search engines. Learn more about the SEO System.

Note: We very rarely post commercial offers on Art Marketing Secrets however we believe that poor website search engine results are a consistent and compelling problem for nearly all artists and that the problem requires a serious commercial solution. That’s why we took the time to spend 9 months of our lives creating this new product! For FTC compliance, please note that Art Marketing Secrets and Beautiful Artist Websites are sister businesses that will jointly benefit from any sales of the product discussed in this article.

* Quote from Qi Lu, President of Microsoft Online Services Division

IMPORTANT! – This will only be available for 48 hours until 12 noon PST Monday 12/21. After that it will disappear into our digital archives. Watch the replay now – and take notes!

This webinar replay is now closed and archived. If you’d like more information about SEO for Artist Websites, please visit our SEO For Artist Websites Information Page or contact us!

If you’re like most artists with a website, you started out with a dream that collectors would actually find you through search engines. But the reality for most artists is:

Your website floats alone in cyberspace with almost no visitors.

Artist websites are great showcases and there are many strategies you can use to share your work with potential buyers – such as mailouts to galleries, email, personal networking, and social networking. All are very worthwhile, must be a part of your marketing plan, and require a big commitment of consistent effort.

But search engine traffic – the holy grail of online marketing that most of us dreamed of – eludes us still. Why is that when according to Qi Lu, President of Microsoft’s Online Services Division:

Search (engines) determine where users go online and search advertising is the most powerful economic force on the internet.

Are artists so radically different from other businesses that the most powerful economic force on the internet won’t work for them in some beneficial way?

We say no! While it’s true that search engines by themselves will not make your art career, they certainly can and should play a role in connecting you with some of the people who could help you make your career happen – people you could build relationships with and sell your art to.

Interested? Join us Wednesday December 16 at 6pm PST for a live webinar on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Success Tips For Fine Artists and learn simple powerful techniques to help you bring more quality search engine visitors to your artist website.

You’ll learn:

• The 4 stages of the online art marketing model and in which ones search engines can really show their marketing power.
• The 3 essential elements that contribute to Search Engine marketing success and why you need all of them.
• 3 Simple Tips to quickly improve your search engine rankings

This presentation is limited to a small group so please register now in the form below or on our Events Page and be sure to join the webinar a few minutes before the scheduled starting time. We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

Note: If you can’t see the sign-in form below please refresh the page in your web browser.

This topic is really very simple. In human social situations people tend to judge us by the company we keep. If we’re seen hanging out with powerful, successful people we’re seen as influential and successful as well. People think of us as “important”. If we are surrounded by many people, we’re seen as “popular” and if we’re not….. I’m not saying this is necessarily a good thing – but it is the way life works!

So it is with websites – if your artist website has a good quantity of incoming links from other websites, search engines will see this and rank you as being somewhat “important”. The more incoming links you have, the higher your website’s importance. And links from high-ranking high-traffic sites count for more importance too. What it all really means is this: If many other sites are linking to your website, you must have some relevant, high-quality, valuable content – and search engines will reward you with higher rankings in search results.

Put simply: If your keywords are reasonably well optimized (especially page-titles) building incoming links could mean the difference between showing up on page 1 or page 15 of search engine results. And you DO want to be on page 1!

So – how do you build your incoming links? There are at least 101 different ways but here are three that we recommend to start with:

1. Focus on the highest quality content and images on your website and keep it updated regularly. When people link from their website to yours they are recommending your site. Make it easy to recommend! This might seem like an obvious point – but it is actually the most important. Consistent high quality images and content over time is noticed!
2. Link Locally! Network with your local and online communities and exchange links. We are all so involved in our online worlds that often we forget the power and influence of our local communities. Almost every local business, school, and government office has a website and they can all be a source of links to your site. Connect with fellow artists in your area or via social networking and exchange links. Perhaps your old school or college has an alumni page on their website where you could include a short update and website link. A local government office or chamber of commerce might be very happy to add you to a listing of local businesses. This is very very simple – all you have to do is “think outside the box” and be willing to ask! Linking locally can be very powerful because these are the people who probably know you best.
3. Join several free online gallery sites and include a website link for your main artist’s website in each. This also has the upside that your work might actually be seen by a potential buyer. Some of the larger online galleries tend to have higher levels of PageRank (think importance) and can be helpful to your incoming link strategy.

This is far from a conclusive list of ways to build incoming links – but it will get you started. Linking locally is a very important strategy because the people in your local community are very likely the source of some of your best connections. As always – be consistent and follow your plan and success will be yours in time.

This is the last article in this series of Artist Website SEO Strategies. We hope you enjoyed and look forward to your questions and comments!

Starry Night - Vincent Van Gogh 1889

In today’s article I was tempted to take on the whole subject of the role of keywords in optimizing your website for search engines. That topic however really belongs in a more comprehensive guide to SEO as there are many aspects to consider. Instead I have chosen to focus on one specific SEO keyword strategy: Page Title Keywords.

Page Titles are VERY VERY VERY important in search engine optimization!! Why? Because search engines weigh the importance of the content in each section of a web page differently. It’s fair to say that it is universally recognized that Page Titles have the highest weighting or importance of any text on a page. If the page title says, “Oil Paintings Of Taos by Jim Jameson” search engines will most likely decide that this web page has information about “Oil Paintings Of Taos” and “Jim Jameson”. They will draw this conclusion far more quickly than if that same text was used elsewhere on the page.

We’ve taken a few shots at the practicality of Flash websites lately but Flash website owners will be happy to know that many Flash sites allow you to specify the Page Titles. While the rest of your site may appear as a blank page to search engines the Page Titles should be quite visible and readable.

Page Titles are not headings. They are the titles you see at the very top of your website’s page. Just to be crystal clear take a look at the image of one of our pages below:

The Page Title in this case is, “SEO For Artists | Art Marketing Secrets”.

I am truly staggered by how poorly the Page Titles on many artist’s websites are optimized. As an example, many websites I’ve seen just use the artist’s name in the Page Title. Or worse – sometimes the page title actually has text which is applicable to the website developer’s business or to a specific software package that was used on the site.

Don’t waste your most powerful Keyword optimization opportunity! Here are some tips to keep you on track:

1. The Page Title should describe what the page is about. You’ll note that in our example above, our Page Title, “SEO For Artists | Art Marketing Secrets” suggests that there is information on this page about (1) SEO For Artists, and (2) Art Marketing.
2. Each section of your website should have a Page Title applicable to it’s content. For example, a gallery section of an artist’s website might use a Page Title such as, “Oil Paintings Of Baja California By Robert Bell”, while a bio page might use a title like, “Robert Bell – Artist Biography”
3. Conventional wisdom suggests that search engines weigh the keywords at the front of the Page Title as having the most importance. The fallout from that is simple – put your most important keyword phrase at the front of the Page Title. In the earlier example, I placed the phrase Oil Paintings of Baja California at the front of the title because I wanted maximum weight applied to that phrase.

There is also the question of how to add or edit your Page Titles. It’s one thing to know what you want to have and another to actually implement the changes. Here are some thoughts:

• If your website was designed for you by a web designer: Ask them to make the changes for you. It should be very simple and inexpensive
• If you use a portfolio service where you upload and edit your own site: Check with the administrator of the service on how to edit the Page Titles
• If you’re website is based on a blog platform: It will very likely have preset rules for how Page Titles are displayed. Check with your user guide or post a question on your blog’s support desk or forum and you will be able to find out quickly how to edit the Page Title format. Some platforms like WordPress have SEO plugins which give the user much flexibility in how this is done.

This is very very simple and will get you started with your search engine optimization more quickly than any other strategy. So go ahead and brainstorm some great Page Titles and get going with your SEO! And as always we welcome your comments and questions below.

Eagle Nebula - Pillars Of Creation - Hubble Telescope

One of the most effective ways to get attention to your work is to create controversy! Just look at some of the great artists of history and you will find an abundance of it. Today we had some minor controversy ourselves – the folks over at Fine Art Views gave us a gentle slam for suggesting (in our article Artist Website SEO: Dont Ignore The Pink Elephant!) that Google is a major foundation for online art marketing.

First of all, they were a bit nitpicky (their words!) because they took our comments out of context – suggesting that we were saying that optimizing your website for Google is the most important part of (all) your art marketing. I think we were very clear in our article that we were referring to the importance of SEO as a foundation in “Online” art marketing – “online” meaning website, email marketing, search engine marketing, social networking, etc.

Of course, as Fine Art Views suggests, creating great art is the first important thing an artist needs to do – that is a given. And no question that face to face offline art marketing of your work and your art website together with having a great story counts more than anything. You will find all of these themes very much supported in a number of articles on our site.

But when we talk specifically about ONLINE art marketing, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is very important. Most artist’s websites perform very poorly in response to search engine queries and it doesn’t need to be this way.

Today’s art market is very diverse and while a big segment of it is served through the traditional relationship model (especially in the high-end original works) there are also times when a buyer knows exactly what they want and may use Google or Bing or Yahoo Search as their starting point.

Some specific examples are:

• The Market For Reproductions (prints, limited editions, etc). And we’ve often seen buyers of limited edition works turn into original buyers over time.
• The Tourism Art Market – Example: “Bill, I miss Tahiti so much – where can we find a beautiful luxurious Tahiti Ocean Painting for our cabin?”
• Some Commissioned Works & Architectural Works – Example: Where can I find artists who specialize in Architectural Stained Glass Art?
• Specific Subjects – Example: Where can I find an artist who specializes in Owl Sculptures?

Why would you as an artist exclude a potential market or a way of being found when you don’t need to?

From the above examples you’ll also see that it is not enough for an artist’s website to show in search results when a search on their name is performed. It is equally important that their website shows in results when a search on their style of art is made. As an example, an artist who specializes in Owl Sculptures would do well to have their website rank highly in search engine results for “Owl Sculptures” and “Sculptures of Owls”.

Summing up: When you market your art ONLINE, optimizing your website for search engines should be a key part of your marketing plan.