SEO: What's all the buzz about?

This week: the sixth in an eight-part series.  Read the other parts here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"SEO" (Search Engine Optimization) is something just about everyone asks us about. It really just means doing stuff to your website and tailoring your online marketing to get better results in search engines, so your prospective customers find you first.

SEO can involve many things, from simple to advanced techniques, but for any artist (or any business for that matter) it starts with constructing a website that is "search engine friendly" so that you end up at or near the top of the search results. 

I'm not an SEO expert, far from it. I DO create template-based websites that are very search engine friendly and that work very well, and it's a great start. Of course, once our clients start to grow and prosper (with our help, natch) they can then start pursuing SEO at a higher level.  

But for those of you now competing with a lot of other artists who have products and services that people are searching for with general search terms (like, watercolors, art classes, murals, public arts projects), you'll need an expert to help you if you are relying on your website and online marketing efforts to fuel your business. Sure, you could try to do it yourself and after hours (and hours) of learning and research and many more hours doing things like search phrase research, SEO writing and editing, link building, directory submissions, and measurement and analysis to give you the best results and then repeating it all next month, and the month after that, and the month after that ...

Oh wait, now you're becoming an SEO expert and not running your business.  See what I mean? Remember about "opportunity cost" (I mentioned it in a prior article in this series.) Get an expert. Start here because if you know me at all you know that I don't recommend anyone or anything unless I think they are absolutely STELLAR.  So go visit www.mastermynde.com, owned by my SEO Guru (and really nice guy) Leif Jason. HE is an expert, seriously.

Here's what I know for sure:  A cleanly-designed website with well-worded page names, text and headings goes a long (long) way to helping you in the search engines and making it so that people can find you easily. Especially if people are searching for YOU because your other marketing activities:  Business cards, postcards handed out in person and mailed, email newsletter, online social networking, in-person networking/socializing, open studio events, gallery shows, etc. As an artist you absolutely MUST have a variety of marketing strategies in place, please don't rely on just one, it rarely works very well.

So what are YOU doing about your SEO? Write a comment here, or call (310-649-4434) or email me if you think you might need some help with this or anything else!Next issue: How to cost-effectively create marketing materials for online and print use.


All my best to you and yours!