Following on from the SEO tips for portfolio websites part 1 and part 2, I failed to include any mention of domain names, including where to buy them and what to buy etc. There are a few important things to consider…

Geographical Location

As I’m sure you know, each country has it’s own domain name ending, for example, .co.uk for the United Kingdom and .au for Australia etc. Depending on which of these you choose will depend on where you are found in the search engines. Except for .com’s which are international, search engines will usually filter out foreign domain names from your country, and will look more favourably on national domains when using that search engines.

So if you are a designer based in the UK, and you only think it’s worth getting noticed in the UK for your work, then a .co.uk domain may be best for you. If though, you run an international art community website like Artybuzz, then a .com domain is probably for the best. Hopefully you get the idea, but simply ask a questions if not…

Where To Buy

SEO

When buying a domain, you should also think about search engine optimisation (SEO). One of the most important factors in appearing in search engine results is your domain name, or web address. So you may consider buying a domain name that is actually a target key phrase of yours, for example, if you are an illustrator based in Manchester, then you may consider buying manchesterillustrator.co.uk, or something along those lines. It’s worth bearing in mind, even if you have your name followed by your artistic talent then it will help.

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Following on from Part 1, of this SEO tips article, this second part should help you even further with your portfolio websites’ SEO.

Page Content

Although your portfolio site may consist of a lot of images, this does not mean that you cannot do well in the search engines if you follow the steps below. The important thing to remember is to follow these steps whilst making sure that everything actually makes sense and reads well…

Heading Tags: Enter your main target key phrases into your H1 heading, and enter any others into your h2 and h3 tags if you use them

Text: It’s good to have some text, perhaps a short description of yourself or your work. Make sure to include your keywords and phrases where possible, ideally you will want your key phrases to make up 2-6% of your total text.

Alt Tags: If you have images, then make sure you use ‘Alt Tags’ to describe them, as this allows search engines to understand what a picture is and what a page is about. So use your key phrases as alt tags, but don’t use them excessively and dump all your keywords into an alt tag.

Links: If possible, use links to other parts of your site and use your target key phrases words as the link.

External SEO Techniques

One of the most important things about doing well in the search engines is the number of sites linking in to your website, so try to build these up gradually and honestly, directory websites are ok, but don’t use ‘link farms’ and other link building services.

You should also follow some key steps when it comes to getting links…

Relevant Sites: It is pointless to get links from a site completely unrelated to your own, so try to find websites that are suitable and match your own websites content.

Google Page Rank: Generally, websites with a higher ‘Page Rank’ or PR are better to get links from, so make more of an effort when trying to get a link from a site with a high PR.

Text is better than Images: Text links are better to get than links from images and banners.

Anchor Text: If possible, try and make the anchor text in the link to your site read similar to your target key phrases.

Round-Up

If you follow these simple steps outlined above then you will have a good chance of achieving success in the search engines, so give your site an overhaul and see the improved results after you make the changes.

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This is part one of a two part post, which will later be followed by a video ebook on SEO. Here goes for part 1 anyway…

Whether you are a designer, illustrator or an artist, getting the SEO right for your website is crucial to achieving success on the web. There is no point in having a website that is never found; it means that passing traffic and business is lost on a daily basis, and is effectively like building a great new shop and then keeping the shutters down.

This short blog post will give you some great tips on how to ‘lift the shop shutters’ on your portfolio website, and get yourself noticed by making sure you meet the criteria below that will allow you to achieve success.

Research

You need to make sure that you are targeting the right keywords for you, your business, or your industry. To do this, it is usually a good start to do a brainstorm about what you are about and what people are likely to search for when looking for your products/services.

Once this is done you can think about fine-tuning your keywords and phrases. To do this, type ‘keyword tool’ into Google and choose the top result. This tool allows you to type in any phrase or keyword and get the monthly search volumes for your country and globally, as well as a host of alternative words and phrases for you to choose from. So it allows you to choose the best words to target easily.

META Tags and Page Title

Once you have chosen your target key phrases for each page, you need to start implementing them on your website or blog. Many platforms allows you to enter your page title and META description and META keywords somewhere, and if you have a custom built site then these can also be entered into the code quite simply by yourself or your webmaster.

The important thing to remember is to include each of your key phrases and words in each of the above, so be consistent, and adhere to these limits:

Page Title – No more than 70 characters long

META description – between 130 and 160 characters

Meta Keywords – max of 5 comma separated key phrases/words, and no more than 4 words between each comma

To read part 2 of this SEO Tips Tutorial, please click here.

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There is no point in writing something that will never be found, so for this reason alone, getting the SEO right on your blog is very important indeed.

So if you are a blogger, below is a quick video tutorial that should give you some quick advice and simple techniques to implement and to think about when writing your blog posts….

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If some of you have been a bit daunted by the prospect of updating all your old artworks to make them available for sale as cards then don’t worry too much. Rather than taking ages, there is a quick short-cut to doing things, as demonstrated in the video tutorial I have made below.

Without all the chatting that I’m doing below, you can probably update all your work in just a couple of minutes, so give it a go…

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Routines are often seen as a bit boring and tiresome, but small routines executed effectively can yield very good results, and this also goes for adding your work to Artybuzz.

Below, we have created a few steps to make sure that adding your new piece of work is exciting for everyone else as it is for us to see one of your new creations. These quick and easy self promotion steps form a nice little routine that you can put into action after uploading a new piece of work to Artybuzz, so why not give it a go and see if you get some results:

Step 1 – Upload your new piece of work

You know the drill, but think also about the tags you add (make sure they are useful keywords) and also how to name your work if you don’t normally think about that.

Step 2 – Share it!

Sharing is a great way to get both people you know and news fans looking and buying your work. Go to your individual piece of work or your profile, and share it on twitter, facebook, myspace and any other websites that you use. This will let your friends and family know about your new work, as well as it showing up in many other streams online.

Step 3 – Bookmark it!

Bookmarking is a really good way of getting new people to find your work. Using social bookmarking services like Stumbleupon, Delicious and Digg means that you can bookmark your individual work pages and also your Artybuzz profile, which can then get picked up by people who have never seen your work before… meaning potential new fans and buyers!!! We provide links for you to share on these service on your profile and art pages, so be sure to give it a go and watch your work page visitor numbers increase!!!

Step 4 – Add to Groups

As well as getting people to notice your work and then view it on Artybuzz, it is also important to get it noticed on Artybuzz itself. One of the most effective ways of doing this is by adding it to relevant groups. People view and add work to groups all the time, so adding yours means it can be seen in other places on Artybuzz as well as in the normal results. To do this, you can simply search for groups using the search box at the top of each page to find relevant groups to add your work to. And if you can’t find the correct group, why not create your own?

Step 5 – Comment

Commenting on other people’s work is also another great way to get your own work noticed. As well as being able to view some great artwork yourself, commenting on it gets people replying to you and importantly looking at your work at the same time. This can lead to sales, so it’s worth doing a quick whip round of commenting every time you upload a new piece of work.

Have a go at following these steps and compare it to previous work uploads that you have done, you’re sure to get more visitors and sales, so let us know how it goes.

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When selling on Artybuzz, or when showing people an image of your work, you obviously want it to look its best. The hours you have spent painting a picture, drawing an illustration, or finding the right subject for that perfect photograph could all be undermined when selling or showing your work on the web, simply because your image on the web doesn’t do the actually work you have produced justice.

To try and help stop this, we have put together a few simple steps and tips on how to photograph artwork and make sure your work looks the best it can:

Step 1 – Taking the Photograph

If you are a painter, illustrator, or any kind of artist that works in traditional mediums then you will want to make sure your work is photographed properly to do it justice. A few key tips when it comes to how to photograph artwork are:

- Make sure it is lit well (bad lighting can ruin the look of a picture, so light your work well, and make sure the light is spread evenly, avoiding shadows).

- Make sure you photograph it head on (so it does not look distorted)

- Make sure you photograph the whole image (you don’t want precious corners to be cut off!)

An alternative to taking a photo is to scan in your work, though obviously if it’s big this can’t be done.

Step 2 – Using Photoshop to Make Your Image Resemble the Original

Following on from how to photograph your artwork, using photoshop to tweak things is also a good idea. If you don’t have Photoshop, then GIMP is a free alternative that works in a very similar way (you could also try and get a copy of Photoshop from a nice friend of yours who might have it).

Listed below are a couple of easy steps that won’t take much time but will improve your image dramatically:

Cropping

If you have photographed the background behind your work, then you will want to get rid of this to tidy it up and make sure that a good print can be made from your work. To do this, select the crop tool (as seen below) and drag it over your image. You can adjust the parameters of the shape by pulling the arrows, and once you are happy with selection, double click on it and it will crop for you.

Auto Levels

Following on from how to photograph your artwork and then crop it. One of the easiest and most effective ways of improving an image is by using the ‘Auto Levels’ option. To do this, simply go to the top menu and click: Image >> Adjustments >> Auto Levels. Doing this will fix any irregularities with lighting and colour, and will usually improve your image. This technique can be used on photography, paintings or anything else that you produce. An example can be seen below:

Curves

Curves are another reasonably simple tool that can be used to manipulate the monotone colours in your images. To use this tool, simply go to: Image >> Adjustments >> Curves, and then pull the lines (seen on the right below) to see your image change, if you don’t like what you have changed just click Ctrl+Z or press cancel.

This tool can be used to highlight different shades and produce dramatic effects that can often improve your image, or give it a whole new dimension of depth, as seen in the example below:

Seen above is an extreme example of the use of curves, being more subtle can have softer effects. Curves can be used on photography, paintings, or any kind of art to produce interesting different effects. They may be for you, but if you want to play around a bit more and produce something a bit different then it might be worth a try.

Hopefully this helps you understand how to photograph artwork better, and will help in the future.

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Today we are interviewing Carolyn Edlund from ArtsyShark. Her blog provides some great advice and features to help both new and existing artists improve and achieve greater success. We wanted to concentrate on getting some of her opinions and advice on how new artists can do better, and interviewed her below to get her opinions on a few issues…

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It is often hard for struggling artists to get noticed. What do you suggest to emerging artists to get their work out there?

Selling your work and becoming known in the world of art isn’t an easy job.  If you are passionate about creating a full-time career, you need to embrace the fact that you will have to market yourself. Marketing can take up to half your work time. There are many ways to promote your own work, and I suggest trying as many of them as possible. Enter shows. Approach galleries. Volunteer. Exhibit in art shows. Participate in events going on in the art community. Networking is essential to meeting and getting to know people who have the power to show your work, recommend you and make purchases. Don’t just show up once – become involved and show that you are serious.

An online presence is essential as well. Produce and maintain a website that looks professional, with an up-to-date gallery of work which is professionally photographed.  It’s a good idea to have a blog and update it frequently. Use SEO techniques, links to other sites and participation in social media to get your name out there and recognized. Participate in online sites where you can offer your work for sale and be part of an artist’s community.

People, including artists, often get de-motivated if things are not going as expected. Do you have any suggestions?

Have you noticed how life never exactly meets expectations? You can set yourself up for disappointment by having unrealistic goals, and expecting other people to behave in certain ways. Becoming overwrought emotionally can be a real drain on creativity. When we take things personally, we blame ourselves, and that gets unhealthy.

If you are feeling frustrated and unmotivated, take a break. Go out into a natural setting, like a beach or into the woods. Walk or relax into the peaceful calm that is nature. It can be very centering. I also suggest reading Eckhart Tolle’s books – he has an amazing perspective on life and is a very calming influence. Then go back into the studio, and allow yourself to just play. Experiment with new ideas, and don’t give yourself any goals. Sometimes you come up with totally new directions by not planning ahead.

New artists often struggle to find their own style. What is your experience?

As an art student, I tried many different things without having my own “style” yet. It is part of maturing as an artist that you go deeply into working in one direction, and sometimes you change that direction. My medium was clay, and I created series of works, trying many different things to develop an idea fully. I would imagine that artists in all mediums do that.

It also depends on what you want to do with your art. My goal was to earn a full-time income selling my work. Therefore, my customer’s tastes strongly influenced my design line. I had a production studio making ceramic jewelry, much of it whimsical, and if something wasn’t selling, it was discontinued.  I became very detached from my work, because it became more of a “product”, and everything was made in multiples, many times by the hundreds. I had a production staff, and eventually employed a designer as well. I was more of an “idea person” and a businessperson. I came to understand fully that art is a business and if you want to sell your work to make a living, you must be a smart businessperson.

About ten years ago, I closed my studio and am not creating art any longer, but am very passionate about helping other artists who are launching their careers. I hope that my blog at Artsy Shark is helpful to our next generation of emerging artists.

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Blogs are great for getting you and your art noticed. ‘Blog’ is short for weblog, and is basically an online platform where you can talk about anything you like. Blogs usually concentrate on niche subjects, like a specific kind of art for example, but many companies, individuals and others have blogs for a number of reasons.

Having a blog is a great way of keeping your customers and your fan base informed of what is going on with you and your work. You can talk about what you are doing, about major issues or events in your area, show off your latest work to people and more.

As well as keeping your current customers and fans up to date with what is going on, if you write interesting content, you can use your blog to draw in potential new customers too. If you continue to write an interesting blog you could easily have followers from all over the world checking in on what you are saying on a regular basis. This builds a trust between you and readers, even over vast distances. This trust often leads to sales of artwork, often because people know the story behind the work which makes it a lot more appealing to people (this be looked at in greater detail later).

There are a number of platforms that allow you to start a blog really easily. Blogger.com is a very quick and simple way for anyone to create a blog, and you can have a blog online and ready to go in minutes using this website. If you want a bit more functionality for your blog however, Wordpress.com may be a good option for somebody who wants to get their teeth stuck in a bit more. With increased functionality comes a bit more work, but once you get used to things it’s pretty simple and straightforward. If you don’t like the look of these first two, then Typepad.com is another option.

Concentrate on writing good content and you will eventually gain a good following of loyal readers which you can then turn into customers and influence a whole range of things. This can all help you in achieving your future goals, so give it a go… and give Artybuzz a mention in the process if you want to!

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