The question you need to answer is this: are you having fun playing with the 20% on Facebook, while ignoring the much larger network of people you can reach via the "dark social network?" [...]

There are many people out there selling courses, doing webinars, and pushing products that teach artists how to do SEO. Many artists see it as a path to the promised land of "traffic" and sales. I can see why: for those of us who did business in a world before Google, the idea is enticing... set everything up "correctly" and watch a steady stream of customers come to your site. But, unfortunately, for most artists, that path won't work. [...]

Over the years I've thought of different ways to get a targeted audience to my site. Some things worked, some didn't. Blogging about other artists is one way to do it. [...]

The things we focus on get bigger and more important in our lives, as if they gain energy from the attention we give them. Those are the things we think about. The things we fix. The things we worry about. The things we improve. I ask again, what are you focusing on? [...]

After you've generated your xml sitemap, you have to let Google know about it. I'll cover that in another installment, however as a side note for FASO customers - you don't have to worry about submitting your sitemap to Google, we automatically create and submit your xml sitemaps for you. So the bottom line is (for FASO customers), you don't have to do anything to take advantage of xml sitemaps! [...]

...make sure that your links are relevant. What's relevant? Your art, your website, another website featuring your art -- the theme to this is you, you, you, which goes against everything your mother spent the formative years hammering in, but you are the product that you are marketing. It's difficult to do this without drawing attention to yourself. [...]

Of course, the more we know about something, the more secure we are with experimenting and doing something different – it’s when we’re unsure of ourselves that we depend heavily upon the voices around us, some of which are helpful, some of which are shriller than they are knowledgeable, others of which are trying to sell us something. Trust your instincts. [...]

Find your back road. The one where your kindred souls travel. And then sell them the "Best Artwork on the Planet." [...]

Anyway... my approach and wish for my website are at odds with the 'norm' that everyone seems to be following, I know. I'm not interested in the least in 'traffic' as many are. What I have always wanted to get out of the Internet is a chance to connect...to have conversations...to meet people. A connecting of minds, without any pretense or third party involvement. This challenge became the game. [...]

Just because it’s complex and ever changing doesn’t mean that you can’t give it a try, though, and the best way to do this is to do what we did last week: just get started. Writing anything is better than writing nothing. [...]

I can't give you any better advice on how to market and sell your art than Seth's last sentence, "When in doubt, when your (art)* marketing isn't working, the answer is easy: go one circle in." [...]

But, by offering something of value that is exclusive to your newsletter, you can convert anonymous blog followers into newsletter subscribers. [...]

Keep in mind that your artist website may benefit from blog posts about your art-related influences (assuming your art blog is located on your artist website). For example, your blog/website may receive traffic from specific searches due to art blog posts you have made about famous artists -- or even lesser known artists who happen to have high online visibility -- who have influenced you. Point blank -- those blog posts may help to increase your website ranking based on those specific searches if people discover your content when searching... especially if you utilize social networking websites to introduce others to your art blog articles in general. That is a good reason to get over the intimidation that many artists feel when considering art blogging. There is so much to gain... you just have to start posting in a way that is less intimidating. [...]

So go ahead, call yourself something kicky and cool – The Staggering Stegosaurus Studio – but somewhere, make sure you add your name, a very important part of you, to your brand. [...]

I found the process valuable as it made me write down, in one place, a lot of information I had scattered across our blog posts and in my head. Since we don't know how much of the information will be used in the actual article, the interviewer, John Parks, kindly gave me permission to post my answers here even before the article is published. I've cleaned up the raw answers I sent him (there was a deadline) and expanded a bit upon them. I hope you find some useful information in them. [...]

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 how to be successful with search engines. [...]

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. [...]

Hilary Senhanli Engaged the FASO Community and her Web Traffic Soared. So did her email newsletter subscribers. That's something you don't get with Wordpress or Blogger. [...]

Don't clutter artist websites with "cleverness" like animation and moving visuals. Keep it simple and visitors will look at your artwork. A proper online presence for every artist begins with a good old-fashioned website. Your art website is your "home base", your "hub." If you branch out into other online tools...great...but individual artist websites are where art collectors begin and end when connecting with artists. As such, make sure that your website utilizes a design that is clean and consistent. [...]

Want the ultimate SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tip for artists? It's this: make sure that your name is so important, as a visual artist, that Google would be embarrassed not to have your name come up on page one when it's searched for. [...]

Scenario: Leo Davinci has an artist website at leodavinci.com and wants to start blogging. He is also wants to make sure that he sets up his blog in a way that helps him the most with search engines. In other words, he's concerned about SEO...There are a few options available to Leo for starting a blog [...]

In my last article, I outlined some of the factors that we think Google uses to determine how to rank search results. This needs some more discussion. After all, if you're going to "optimize" your website for something, it helps to know the factors you're optimizing for...What you need to understand is that there are actually two types of SEO - on-page SEO and off-page SEO. [...]

I've become known as the "anti SEO" art marketing guy. That's because I've been quite public in my opinion that, for the most part, SEO is not a great use of an artist's marketing time...but...in the interest of "giving the people what they want", I'm starting a series called "SEO for Artist Websites" that will be a regular feature in FineArtViews from this point forward.....or at least until I run out of things to say. [...]

I've been thinking more about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and artists...So I decided to look up some Alexa data on what keywords drive search traffic to several artists I know are successful and selling their art. [...]

The funny thing is, this sometimes leads artists to complain about other people who are actually promoting them for free by "stealing" their images and displaying them on other websites. Ironically, artists also complain that Google isn't indexing/showing enough of their images and they want Google to index more of their images. You can't have it both ways people, sharing is sharing. [...]

Arguably, the most important factor in SEO is earning good inbound links to your website from other websites...Here's an easy way for you to earn an inbound link from us. [...]

It looks like I owe the fine folks over at artmarketingsecrets.com and the author Daniel Tardent some apologies....and an explanation. [...]

The foundation of your online art marketing strategy is making great art. duh...That's why I made that number one item on the list in my previous post How to Sell Art...I broach this subject now, because another art marketing blog that I sometimes read posted the following statement a few days ago, "Google is the foundation of your online art marketing strategy."...I don't agree. Google is NOT the foundation of an online art marketing strategy for the vast majority of artists - making great artwork is the foundation. [...]

It seems that a lot of artists set up a website and then think, "hmmm, I need some traffic" - and embark upon learning about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques, perhaps buy some Pay Per Click (PPC) Ads, and then get frustrated when artwork doesn't magically sell. [...]

Our service, FineArtStudioOnline, has rolled out clean urls. URLS are the addresses that appear in your browser's address bar when you access web pages. And there has been a real movement lately to make URLS clean and simple.  Some experts believe that Clean URLS help with Search Engine Optimization as well. Our clean url project had several goals: 1.  Make the URLS shorter 2.  Make the URLS more relevant 3.  Make the URLS easier to remember 4.  Get rid of characters that search engines don't like such as: ? . & # etc Our application was originally developed seven years ago and used to have urls like the following [...]

If you've sent me a Facebook invitation, I apologize. I'm sure I haven't yet responded. Why not? Because, I've decided not to use FaceBook. For that matter, I'm not using Myspace, LinkedIn, Ning or any of the other countless social networks out there. Why not? Mainly because I see absolutely no compelling reason to use FaceBook. The Internet itself is a social network, using something like FaceBook seems artificial and unnecessary. Perhaps it made sense when it was a hang-out just for college kids but it's a tool that [...]

We seem to come back to this theme repeatedly:  Focus on ideas that really work for artists and don't get too hung up on search engine marketing.  We've addressed this idea many times in past posts such as What if Google Went Away?, Google Alone is Not Marketing, Less is More, and in our Web Traffic Driver series (which is not finished, by the way). We don't harp on this because we have anything against search engines, heck we love search engines (if you're reading this, Google, we LOVE search engines).  But, we sincerely want you to focus your energies where they [...]

We all know that your web site will live or die by the amount of traffic it receives.  So it's natural to want to focus on search engine marketing.  Artists are constantly asking us about "keywords", "search engine optimization", "improving rankings" and what art sites get the most "traffic." We understand the temptation to focus on these things; however, sometimes we think people get focused on search engines to avoid the hard work of real marketing....the hard work of "getting down in the trenches" and getting to know your customers personally.  It would be nice to think that now we live in [...]

We all know that web sites and blogs live and die because of traffic. This puts Google, as the Internet's de facto start page, front and center in most artists minds as a traffic-driving strategy. However, Google should not be the only.....nor even the main focus of your online marketing efforts. We've written about this subject before in our articles "What if Google Went Away?" and "Google Alone is Not Marketing."  This series will explore specific ideas to drive traffic to your web site....some will work synergistically with search engines like Google....while others will not be depended upon search engines at [...]

We all know that web sites and blogs live and die because of traffic. This puts Google, as the Internet's de facto start page, front and center in most artists minds as a traffic-driving strategy. However, Google should not be the only.....nor even the main focus of your online marketing efforts. This series will explore ideas to drive traffic to your web site....some will work synergistically with search engines like Google....while others will not be depended upon search engines at all. All of these strategies will work with or without search engines. Today's strategy is Review [...]

This blog has covered the importance of using words in your html with your images so that search engines can "see" your image.  See the following posts for our past views: Search Engines Can Only Read Text Use Image ALT Tags For more information we send you over to Empty Easel, another art blog.  This week they cover the search engine/image subject in their informative post, How to Increase Traffic to your Art Blog by Describing your Artwork for Google. Sincerely, Clint Watson Software Craftsman and Art Fanatic PS - remember that our service, FineArtStudioOnline, handles all this image tagging for you automatically. [...]

Last week we posted a piece titled "Less is More" - which essentially argued that every artist should have their own, stand-alone web site and that the big "online gallery" type art sites should be considered more as advertising as less as a replacement for a "real" web site.  Yesterday, another, very well written art blog, Empty Easel, referenced that post and, while generally agreeing with our main point, they seemed to differ with us just a bit.  We encourage you to read Empty Easel's post Are Personal Websites the Best Way to Promote Art Online?  Their post brought up several other items [...]

Traffic to a website is important.  Without traffic, there's really no reason to have a web site...but what's the best way to get traffic to your site?  And who are the visitors that you're attracting? In the art marketing arena, I'm becoming concerned about the tendency of artists to focus almost exclusively on search engine strategies and particularly on Google as their primary, and in many cases, only marketing strategy. In fact, I covered this not long ago in my post Google Alone is Not Marketing. When I visit online forums where artists discuss online marketing, this seems to be the focus of [...]

Yesterday, we discussed the fact that Search Engines Can Only Read Text.  So what do you do with your images?  The answer is in using ALT tags.As more people take advantage of the image search features on the various search engines, a good technique for improving your search engine results is to use ALT tags on all your images.An ALT tag is a bit of text embedded in the HTML code that tells the search engine WHAT your image is.For example the simplest way to add an image to your web site is with the following HTML:<img src="yourimage.jpg">However, let's say that [...]

Search Engines send "spiders" crawling over the internet, "reading" the text from web sites and organizing that text into the useful results that we use. At this time, search engines can only "read" text.  Why do I bring this up?  Simple.  Any content that you think is important for a search engine to find must be text  (hint - all of your content is important). This means: 1.  Important content shouldn't be "hidden" in flash 2.  Important content shouldn't be "hidden" in images 3.  Important content shouldn't be "hidden" in video 4.  Important content shouldn't be "hidden" in audio files 5.  Important content shouldn't be "hidden" with fancy [...]