Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is Not Scary.
Firstly, what is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
When you edit (fine tune) your web pages to accurately describe the content on the page, you’re optimizing for search. Search engines will scan your website, index the content, and use it to deliver [what they feel] are the best results to the searcher – hopefully your web pages!
Why is this important?
The better you rank in Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc., the more “free” natural (aka organic) web traffic you receive. And we’re all hoping that those shoppers convert into buyers.
WWGD – What Would Google Do?
Google is clear about the steps that website owners should take in order to rank highly in natural search results. And while search engine optimization isn’t hard nor scary, it’s a marathon and not a sprint; building your website or webpage’s online credibility takes time.
RedBubble keeps pace with the changes being made in the search engine optimization arena, however, it’s important to note that RedBubble – and your own – organic search engine rank will fluctuate due to the searcher’s country of origin, season, competition, and a variety of other factors.
Credibility
One of the elements that factors into your website or Profile page organic search rank is credibility – your content’s relevance as related to the shopper’s search query. E.g., does your St. Kilda artwork page have a descriptive title, page content, and tags that make it a relevant match for the shopper’s “St. Kilda photograph” search query?
Another factor that determines page credibility is the number of links into your page(s). Known as “inlinks,” these are links from credible (content-relevant) websites to your RedBubble pages or to your personal website. If I had to choose one, I would choose quality links. Quality links mean that prescreened customers are clicking from a related piece of content to your artwork – which increases the chance of a shopper converting into a buyer.
How can we increase the number of inlinks to our RedBubble Profile and artwork pages (as well as our personal websites and blogs)?
Start with directories
Google, Yahoo, Bing, DMOZ, and other directories allow website and page owners to submit their website URLs. There’s almost always a free option, so if you see a pay-for-placement option, look around the page for a “basic,” free option.
- Google Add URL
- Yahoo Site Submit
- Bing
- DMOZ.org
You can also list your art business as a local business with these websites.
- Google Local
- Yahoo Local (choose the Basic listing)
- For larger US cities, Yelp.com
Reach out to friends and contacts
You can trade links with friends, contacts, or other willing website owners. If you approach third-parties, take the time to review their content, relate to the owner, and explain the benefits of reciprocal linking. There are far too many link exchange scams online for an unsolicited and unsubstantiated request to pass muster.
Write and distribute articles, press releases
We chatted about writing for press here, but you can start by posting your writing on RedBubble.
If you’re not confident in writing about yourself or your art, start by writing about a local event, an art opening, museum visit, or another topic that’s important to you. Be sure to link keywords (anchor text) in your articles to work in your RedBubble portfolio. E.g., if you’re writing about Yosemite National Park, link to your images of Yosemite.
Commenting creates conversation
Comments on RedBubble encourage fellow artists, and they prompt members to view your profile and artwork. Take that same idea and apply it to websites outside of RedBubble.
You can use Google Alerts to find websites that talk about topics related to your artwork. If the topic applies and there is a space for a comment, be sure to add a relevant note with a link back to your work or Profile page.
Become the expert and share
You have a lot of valuable information stored in that head of yours. Now is a good time to share your expertise in a journal entry, articles on friends’ websites, etc.
“Test the water” with a RedBubble journal entry; be sure to solicit feedback. Then paste the amended story as a Facebook Note or blog entry. Ask friends to pass along the article to others that might enjoy it. Again, pepper the article with links to relevant artwork (anchor text) and add a small “by line,” biography, and website link in the footer of the article.
Smart tagging with anchor text
In short, when you or someone links to your artwork or Profile page, it’s exponentially more effective if the link text – the anchor text – relates to the headline and body copy on the destination (landing) page.
E.g., if you link from text that says, “tiger photograph,” link to a page that includes text, art, and other content related to a tiger. Search engines interpret this as a relevant link and therefore worthy of higher placement in search results. If many websites link from “tiger photograph” to your page you’ll rise in search engine results.
Never give up
Don’t get discouraged if you receive little to no feedback or results from your first efforts. It takes time to build an audience, and there are rewards to be found in the maturation of your writing and in the discovery of new websites, resources, and in meeting new contacts.
And remember, even the world’s most successful artists are bad at some things.
Ideas come from you
RedBubble members always have great ideas, so please comment below. If you can relate the content to your work, be sure to add a link! :-)
Thanks.
Regards,
Jason
F.A. Moore
Nice article thanks. Maybe Google would like to hop to my link to Digital Fine Art of Women by. F.A. Moore. ;)
MuscularTeeth
good list of things there ! great read.
Julian Escardo
Ty for always providing valuable information…....!
Yvonne Less
Thanks for these great tips!! :)
LeilaniMelayna
I will be sure to make an effort to put my best foot forward on this one…for me it’s my right foot!
Smiles Leilani
Janis Zroback
I did the google directories/links in 2007 to my personal website….. it is also more effective to use your real name, or at least one that is the same for all your art work…
Jeff Newell
awesome advice Thanks for watching out for us RB
Karin Taylor
really can’t thank you enough :)
Karin Taylor
I’ve noticed a lot of folks aren’t tagging at all which is a big shame for them… :(
sometimes i let them know, or check whether they’ve just forgotten, but it gives little hope for them being found methinx
Matt Simner
Great stuff as always. From my own experience, tags are very important as Karin says – remember you can also do multi-word tags now, e.g. ‘art deco’ – just separate with commas.
The biggest thing for me though is to get a good keyword-rich title and description, as the combination of all of these radically improves your chances of the work being ranked higher in search results. As Jason says it’s definitely a marathon and not a sprint. It’s worth just scanning your work titles and asking yourself – ‘what would I search on to find this image?’. This would then form the basis of your keywords and title :)
littlearty
Thanks for sharing.
Rebecca Bryson
This was very very informative. Thank you so very much ~Rebecca Bryson
H M Bascom
I have 1444 inlinks, and I still don’t rank as high as I would like. More, better tags perhaps? Thanks for the info
Milton Gan
Awesome stuff RB! Can’t thank you enough for the incredible support you deliver on a regular basis!
marciareuben
This is an eye opener!.....thanks for sharing.
GloriaDK
Thanks for taking the time to give us this information and the comments are helpful as well for one who isn’t computer literate regarding web sites etc.
Genevieve Robey
You can also get your news (from your blog etc) indexed on Wotnews – wotnews.com.au – it ranks very highly in Google and drives traffic to people’s websites. It’s a news monitor and search engine. Here is the page that indexes news about the art industry http://wotnews.com.au/news/Art_Industry/. You can also set up alerts/daily email to get news on topics you’re interested in. (disclaimer – I’m the Ed of Wotnews, so I’m very likely biased!).
Nuh Sarche
THANK YOU…
Here also my last journal ybout: The Crucial Features of Link Building For SEO
Elf Evans
Nice words, work(s) here to give thought to.
Silvia Ganora
Thanks a lot for sharing. Great advice!
ozlat
SEO can be fun believe it or not :)
KathO
My personal website has risen to page 1 on google’s organic rankings after I went through & tagged all the most important pages & photos properly, so it’s well worth taking the time to do. I’m now getting enquiries directly from my website which is great.
alkukitz
And the beat goes on and on. Thanks Guy!
Kathy Nairn
Excellent post. I’m in the process of creating a new website and ironically I just spent a few hours following the suggested format (from the web site’s tutorial) on SEO. Whew! Lots of thinking to do for that and this post was validation that I key’ed in the right direction.
.
Secondly, I’d like to mention that when I inherited the RB group Cards ~ Best of Your Best I was promoting ‘tagging’ as part of the submission requirements. It wasn’t long before I realized that out of our entire group membership, there was only a small percentage that bothered or wanted to learn more about tagging. We eventually dropped the mandatory tagging and now only ‘suggest it.’ However, when moderating submissions, I do take note of the tags and as Karin Taylor mentioned, it is a shame re the numbers that are not bothering with relevant tags. When I first started sharing the ‘tagging’ aspect at the group level, I noticed that RB’s search feature was resulting in many of the works from our group. It was a good start anyway.
.
Again, thanks for the article and links.
Gregory John O...
Good post . Thanks
butchart
ok… so i’ve tried adding google webmaster both to my RB account and my Bubblesite…. and neither one will work.. i get the message that Google cannot locate the page to verify….. i used the html method and followed the instructions without errors.. it must be an RB thing?
selling replied
We’ll review the HTML instructions. However, RB as a whole and the Bubblesites were registered with Google Webmaster Tools by RB staff. The site was last indexed by Webmaster Tools on August 18.
butchart
i’m computer savy challanged…. it’s probably something i’m not doing right… thanks for your response… i cut and pasted the html that google told me to use and used the ”..”..: rb link system but it just says page not found….. i’d even be willing to let you sign on under my username if you have the time…........
Shirley Hirst
This is great, thank you so much!!!
Dan Biggins
Some really good advice here, many thanks. As a web professional of 10 years, I can’t stress the importance and value of relevant content. This is why blogs are such a good idea – they contain plenty of relevant keywords which people are likely to search for, which in turn will boost search rankings in Google and search engines in general.
The way the site is built is important too – page titles containing keywords, semantically structured content using , etc tags for headings (which in turn contain keywords), alt elements on images (which again should contain keywords…it’s all very well naming an image 1.jpg, but naming it london-tower-bridge-sunset.jpg is much better).
Using keywords in page names is a good idea too. If I was building a biography page for a photographer based in Liverpool, I’d save the page as liverpool-photographer-biography.html, instead of a generic name such as bio.html. The page name contains relevant keywords to the site, which again Google will lap up.
As a side note, always use hyphens instead of underscores to seperate keywords in page names / images. For example, liverpool_photographer_biography.html will be seen by Google as liverpoolphotographerbiography.html…the chances of anyone searching for liverpoolphotographerbiography in Google is slim…!
Flash websites are all well and good, but the content is generally invisible to search engines, whereas HTML pages can be “read” and indexed by Google, Yahoo! etc.
Hope this helps – there are lots of other factors contributing to good SEO, and as the article states, it’s a (somewhat laborious) marathon and not a sprint.
If anyone would like any more advice regarding their site, please drop me a Bubblemail!
Kathy Nairn
I wanted to add something here and thank Mr. Biggins for the additional information.
The SEO Text Browser and SEO Score is a free tutorial and test for your personal websites. Just found it via DomainTools.com on the WhoIs.com web. According to the SEO score of my site, I have a wee bit more work to do on my tags. The cool thing about the SEO Text Browser is that you can check your rating and it will help you figure out where you need to re-condition.