SEO Is Scary: How Artists Can Get Found Without Becoming Marketers
By Thea Fiore-Bloom, Ph.D.
SEO can feel like the exact opposite of why you became an artist.
You wanted to make meaningful work, not spend your days figuring out algorithms, keywords, and website analytics.
No wonder so many artists avoid SEO altogether.
But here is the surprising truth: SEO does not have to be a cold, corporate marketing exercise. In fact, the most effective SEO for artists often begins with the things you are already doing — sharing your knowledge, telling your stories, answering questions, and creating meaningful connections to other humans who get excited by your work.
Holistic SEO is about helping the right people discover what you make without forcing you to become someone you are not.
In this guide, I’ll show you what holistic SEO is and how you can begin using it to make your website more visible.
I promise I’ll show you how to get started without losing your marbles.
Why bother? Because holistic SEO, done well, can:
- Get more eyeballs on your art.
- Help you market with more meaning.
- And make you more aware of your unique artistic gifts (as I’ll explain in a minute).
But let’s start with what SEO actually is.
Then we’ll examine how SEO benefits artists in particular, and we’ll conclude by giving you the great links you need to get the ball rolling.
What is SEO?
SEO is just the act of improving the words, structure, and user-friendliness of your website so it ranks better.
Who ranks it better?
The Google Gods.
So these Google Gods send out bots (aka spiders) to crawl the internet all night and drop off their findings to Mt. Olympus in the morning.
The more your site adheres to the top-secret algorithms designed by the Google Gods, the higher you rank in search results.
The higher you rank, the more people see your Google listing and click on over to your site.
Only the initiated at Google know exactly what’s in the algorithm.
But we do know it has a lot to do with making it easier for people (and the little bots) to find the information they need on your site by using Google search.
What Do Artists Need to Know About SEO?
That’s why SEO requires you to learn things like:
- How to use keywords on your site. Keywords are the words in the writing on your site that enable people to find you via search engines.
- How to clarify your site structure using tags and categories so people can navigate your site with ease to find what they need.
- Improving the readability of your pages by writing clear copy, crafting powerful titles, and adding subheadings to your text.
- And finally, doing things like downsizing your giant photos to improve your site speed. Those Google gods shake their fists at slow-loading sites. Why?
- “Your images (and web pages) must load quickly, or visitors to your website will simply click away,” said Carolyn Edlund, founder of Artsyshark.com.
Carolyn Edlund, Artsy Shark founder.
I’m not going to lie to you.
Implementing good SEO takes months, not minutes.
But learning SEO will help you turn your website into an inviting space where users will want to kick back with a bean bag chair and hang out.
And here are four other surprising reasons it’s worth your time to at least dip your toe into SEO.
But learning SEO will help you transform your website into an awesome place a user will want to pull up a bean bag chair and hang out in.
And here are 4 other surprising reasons it’s worth your time to at least dip your toe in SEO.
The 4 Biggest Reasons Artists Need To Learn SEO
The # 1 Reason Why Artists Need SEO
Money
SEO May Be Better Than Social Media Marketing For Actual Sales
Artists use Facebook and Instagram to attract people to their work and sell it, primarily with images.
That’s good.
However, artists who use SEO on their websites use both images and keywords. They often double the number of people who see their work.
That’s better.
Artists savvy enough to SEO are usually savvy enough to encourage visitors to subscribe to their site and send those subscribers regular emails.
That combo is more than good, or better.
It’s fantastic.
Especially for garnering trust and selling art.
Because when it comes to sales, social media plays a huge role, but email marketing has an almost 300% higher ROI (Return On Investment) than social media marketing.
That’s just a fact.
The # 2 Reason Why Artists Need SEO
To Stand Out From The Crowd
Artists familiar with SEO don’t even try to rank for single keywords like “art” or “artist.”
Why?
The competition for such words is astronomical.
“Only a web giant like Wikipedia will rank for the word ‘artist, ‘” said digital strategist Jack Paxton.
“If you rely on super broad keywords like ‘artist’ or even ‘abstract artist, ‘ you won’t have a chance.”
What to do instead?
Go for long-tail keywords.
Long-tail keywords are just groups of keywords that form sentence fragments or questions someone might type in the Google search box.
Say you are an Australian oil painter who paints seascapes.
Paxton suggests you use a long-tail keyword like “best beach oil paintings in Melbourne” in key places on your website.
Because the kind of people looking for artwork like yours will actually Google words like that.
Get it?
The # 3 Reason Artists Need SEO
Holistic SEO Will Make You a More Authentic Marketer
Long-tail keywords are great for authentic marketing because selecting the right ones will help you define and celebrate the uniqueness of our art and our mission.
For example, artist and subscriber Rebecca Bangs has already embarked on her SEO journey.
She has begun to use keywords in her posts and promotional copy.
Rebecca already knows her short-tail and long-tail keywords should orbit around nature, sustainability, and floral art.
Because those are things her ideal buyers may search for online.
But Rebecca recently noticed that many people who follow her and buy her work also love science (as does she).
So, Bangs is wisely planning to organically weave more science into her posts and keyword strategy soon.
Including her love of science will help her stand out and bring in her unique type of reader and buyer.
Good SEO (as opposed to “Black Hat SEO”) isn’t a gimmick meant to trick people into visiting your site or buying things they’re not interested in.
Good SEO (aka holistic SEO ) is meant to be an ongoing process. One that can encourage you to:
- Know yourself.
- Be yourself.
- Celebrate yourself.
- Listen to your audience.
- Appreciate your audience.
- And find the meeting point between what they need and what you love to give.
That’s meaningful marketing.
It’s the kind of marketing you won’t dread.
Marketing that won’t make you want to poke out your own eyes.
(Oh, and while you’re helping yourself attract your ideal audience, discover how to Transform Your Art Newsletter in 3 Questions or add a gorgeous email signature to the bottom of your email for free in this Charmed Studio post.)
The Final Reason Artists Need SEO
Confidence
SEO can make you a more confident artist.
Here’s why.
Holistic SEO encourages you to understand what it is about you and your art that sets it apart from other artists and their art.
Holistic SEO is always asking you to clarify your website’s true mission.
If you examine what is unique about you and put it in writing, something amazing will happen.
You not only remind others of what is wonderful about your work, but you also remind yourself.
Sound good?
Let’s give you links to the free resources you’ll need to embark on your SEO journey.
How To Get Started Learning SEO Today
1. SEO for Artists on WordPress
If you have WordPress, you are lucky, because you get to begin your SEO journey with Yoast.
It’s a free plugin.
I’m not an affiliate for Yoast, but it has just helped me grow my business.
And I hope it helps yours, too.
But like many of us artists, I am a visual learner.
I would never have gone near it if I hadn’t enrolled in the Yoast Academy video course.
This course is the bomb.
Yoast coined the term holistic SEO. They are the best option for helping you apply it to your site.
* Take this course even if you do not have a WordPress website! Just go to step 2.
Step 1: If you have WordPress, click on the free version of the Yoast plugin.
Step 2: Go to this page of Yoast courses and click the free “SEO for Beginners” on the bottom left.
You are ready for take-off.
2. SEO for Artists on Weebly
Reviewers are hard on Weebly when it comes to SEO.
And the Weebly website doesn’t have a user-friendly guide.
But this ultimate guide to Weebly SEO will help.
3. SEO for Artists on Wix
Wix used to have big SEO limitations.
But they have developed a new, intuitive, comprehensive, and free solution to guide you through all the steps of optimization called the Wix SEO Wiz.
To get started using SEO on WIX, go here.
4. SEO for Artists on Squarespace
Squarespace has good internal info on SEO that you should check out.
Here’s a recent YouTube video guide to ranking well with a Squarespace site:
5. SEO for Artists on Etsy
Etsy overhauled its search algorithm again.
This video makes things way easier.
You may also like these other Charmed Studio business-friendly articles for artists, written with humor:
- How To Put an Email Sign-Up Form On Your Site in Under 10 Minutes
- Artists and Priorities: A Magical Method for Organizing Your Time
- Etsy For Fine Artists: Succeed Without Marketing?
- How To Write a Press Release For Your Art
- 6 DIY Videos You Can Make on Your Smartphone To Market Your Art
- Visit My Mostly Free Resources for Artists Page
What do you think? Are you going to try SEO? Or have you already?
Let me know in the comments below! 🙂
Need help improving your writing or SEO?
Head over to my writing coaching for artists page.
I’d love to help you make your art writing shine or help you quickly improve your website so you get more visitors and buyers.
This post may contain Amazon affiliate links. This means if you buy books or stuff via my blog I may receive a tiny commission and do a happy dance. There is no extra fee for you. I only link to items I personally use and love; products that I think help heart-centered artists.
I found this blog post pretty informative, thank you for all the info and free resources. I started gathering information about SEO as an artist when I discovered that the artist name I chose for myself and for the website I am willing to build is different just for a letter from the name of a hugely famous brand of design objects. They are not in the same market as me (I am not a designer and I don’t see myself selling the things they sell in the future) but I realized that my online presence would be completely drowned by their strong presence in google search engines. The option of changing my name for this gives me some sort of existential crisis. Is it a very bad idea having a name so much similar of a big brand’s one? What should I do?
Hi Marta,
Great question.
All artists I know, including myself at the beginning, were nuts about picking a name.
It’s a madness of sorts. It should be in that big diagnostic book, the DSM-5, lol.
In the long term, Marta, the name is not as important as genuinely enjoying making wonderful art and writing a blog that helps you and your readers grow. Relationship building is the main thing that creates success in the arts; ultimately, it’s not just SEO, etc.
There are bound to be mistakes in the process of launching a website, but they are how we grow our art practice or art business.
It is your decision.
But I will be honest and tell you if it were me….
If it were me, and I was up against a super big brand and I was torturing myself about and worrying that I was doomed from the start….and I had not even bought my URL yet – I would definitely find another name and URL for myself.
Why put yourself mentally, if not physically, behind the 8-ball from the very beginning if it is avoidable?
If you already bought the URL and started to build the site and are super committed to it, then you can see it this way:
There is a company with a super similar name to mine that never even came up on search when I was doing the research for my brand name choice. They do come up on search now, and they are even located in my city. And you know what? All is well. We coexist prosperously and peacefully.
Try not to psyche yourself out.
If you have another question, let me know.
In the meantime, be brave, and as a mentor of mine, Steve Chandler says,
“Worry is a misuse of the imagination.Use your imagination to solve problems, not create them.”
You can do this, and do it beautifully.
And you will make “mistakes” and you can choose to see them as experiments you learn from.
We all make mistakes,I am the queen of mistakes!
“My life is full of mistakes. They’re like pebbles that make a good road.” – Beatrice Wood
Hope this helps.
Hi Thea, I finally want to tackle SEO on our website so I right away came back here because I remembered you saying how important it is! And wow I actually feel ab bit stupid not knowing about that method before :D. I need to learn so much 😉
A Happy New Year and blessings to you 🙂
You may “feel a bit stupid” Scharle, but you are one smart cookie. And a brave and awake cookie at that. The majority of independent artists NEVER dive into SEO. They sometimes believe what they are being told by the folks selling them websites on their platforms. That being something like…”Hey, relax, The SEO is taken care of for you by us, you dont have to do your own SEO, just go back to sleep.”
But in my opinion, it’s not true. In general, If you dont do your own SEO, you don’t have SEO.
Yes SEO takes work and courage to try something new. But it gives great, great rewards. It can allow you to draw new customers without having to rely on social media. It lets you build your house on your own real estate.
So stay brave. 🙂
“If you want something you have never had, you must be willing to do something you have never done.” -Thomas Jefferson
Thank you Thea! This article is full of valuable information.I think I will try it out on Etsy first.
Thanks Sylvia, Good luck with Etsy SEO, not my bailiwick but I hear it is a powerful tool for opening up further sales on Etsy.
I like that you focused less on the technical details (which can confuse even a very technical person) but rather on why’s and what’s. Great content as always
Thanks Max! What a cool observation, I never thought of it like that but it’s true. First you have to be convinced of the WHY and the What if you are ever going to have the energy to make it more than 5 minutes throught the HOW of SEO.
This blog was so full of amazing information. It’s so important for marketing. When I first wanted to tackle my SEO my eyes glazed over. I gave up. Hopefully this will motivate me to check it out again. Your blogs are a wonderful mix of generosity, humor, inspiration, business reality and relevant subjects. Not to mention well researched and that great writing. Thank you.
Ahhh, I am going to read your comment aloud to myself, like an affirmation, when I am feeling down Denise! Thanks so much. SEO is daunting, no doubt. But the way into it, for soulful people, seems to me, is to be seeing it all as starting and going through you and out to the kind of people who would get you. Keep thinking of it as a process where you are expressing your wonderful uniqueness and making magic for yourself and occasionally sending out a GPS (via keywords) about the exact coordinates of that magic to those of a like mind— not the whole world. Does that make sense? Ask me if you need help.
Makes a lot of sense thank you so much.
Of course. You know I just write about what I need to know, lol!
Great job Thea! You are now an expert in SEO consulting! Bravo!
You are too kind! Thank you, John. I am far from an expert but I have taken a deep dive. It seems the more you get into it the more other things you could do. Endless. Have to just do a bit then surface for oxygen. But if you or Meng do a blog someday, at least I can help better than I could before. 🙂
Great article. Just found a good free tool I thought I’d share. All Hashtag Generator. You put in keyword and it tells you the top hashtags with it.
Here are their top hashtags for artists: #art#tagblender#artist#artistic#artists#arte#dibujo#myart#artwork#illustration#graphicdesign#graphic#color#colour#colorful#painting#drawing#drawings#markers#paintings#watercolor#watercolour#ink#creative#sketch#sketchaday#pencil#cs6#photoshop#beautiful
Thanks, Gina for reading and for leaving that link. I would love to talk to you about what kind of SEO you are going to do for budbudzz. That should be interesting.
Also, you are so kind to use my art 😀 !!
Your art is wonderful Kikoe. I think it is a perfect art partner for the Charmed Studio. I feel lucky to know you and be able to showcase your work.
Thanks so much for making this, I’ve saved it to read over soon. I’m super busy right now with some family stuff but I really appreciate you writing this for us mortals ;D I would love to put this into action – already have the free yoast app up.
You are going to kick butt doing SEO. Just start that Yoast course and if you have any questions don’t be shy, just email me. I am no expert but I have already learned a lot from making 3883 mistakes already. 🙂
I love this post. First, Mount Olympus!! LMAO. But more importantly, the good SEO encouragement section is awesome. It’s a good artist reminder statement even without SEO. 🙂 This was really helpful. I just started with word press….thanks to you. 🙂 And am very excited to look into this. I”m going to have to read through this a few more times. Lots to take in. Thank you for your thoroughness and awesomeness as always.
Mt Olympus! Ha!Ha! Finally, all those mythology education dollars I spent are being put to use for 5 minutes.:) Thanks for the encouragement. I am so stoked you are on WordPress!!! Yippee! So many tutorials you can access now. I loved the idea of holistic/good SEO that Yoast has. It made me able to withstand all the techy stuff and keep learning. Let’s talk about the mission of your website soon okay? And who you picture as your ideal reader?