Often times, people who work or are working to be professional artists do not know how search engines might affect their business. SEO is a great tool for artists to connect directly to new people who are interested in their work. Whether it be photography, video, writing, theatre, or comedy, SEO can be one of the best ways to increase your overall exposure and increasing your following.
SEO For Photographers & Video Producers
When it comes to visual content, it can be hard to understand how search engines will index and work to understand what you are presenting. With the introduction of tools like Tumblr and YouTube to the internet, we have seen thousands of photographers and video producers use those online platforms to gain followings.
I have experience helping artists in all mediums start engaging new audiences and exposing their brand to new galleries and customers. My SEO services for digital artists can help boost your leads organically.
Use Digital Media Platforms
Media platforms can benefit your SEO in a couple of ways:
- Backlinks for your content
- Organic content reach
- Content hosting
Using platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, video producers can begin hosting their content online and distributing their content through organic Youtube and Vimeo reach. But does having a website matter?
Yes. If you are an online content producer, you should be linking your content back to your website as well as reposting your content. Your content across YouTube and Vimeo and work to boost the organic traffic of your website in several ways, and this is a great way to build a following that lasts.
Optimize Titles, Tags & Descriptions Everywhere
Once you start uploading your content to platforms to host your content, make sure you are optimizing your content for its title, tags, and descriptions. How do you do that?
Start with creating a list of keywords that you want to target for yourself of your brand. I have a couple of articles that are focused around choosing keywords. Try to be straightforward and focus on simple keywords like, “videography in Arizona” and “music video videography”.
When it comes to updating your content, don’t stuff keywords into the title, but use it intentionally across your description and tags. This will help Google start associating your brand to relevant keywords that will start building your website’s ranks organically.
Generate Traffic From Youtube
Youtube is great for video producers because of its organic search engine and methodology for bringing in new users to your content.
Many content producers on YouTube understand how valuable this platform can be, but don’t recognize the direct correlation between YouTube and Google search engines. Since Google’s acquisition of Youtube in 2006, Google has been refining both search engines to work in tandem with each other.
As you release content across YouTube, be sure to link back to your website in the description. This can lead to valuable referral traffic from this source. Furthermore, if you choose to also have a page on your website where your video is embedded, add some content there that is unique, possibly describing your experience or digging into the video with more detail.
Technical SEO Optimizations for Video
Creating a custom schema for each of your video pages will help Google better understand how to rank and display your video. Using schema, Google can display what is called “rich results” to users who are searching for specific keywords. Here’s an example of rich video results of Google organic search: 
As you can see from this search result, Google will analyze if a search query is viable for video results, and will display them accordingly to viewers in attempts to get them to see your results. This article explains how to add video schema to your website pages.
If you are an artist that needs help with implementing some of the more technical aspects of your SEO strategy, feel free to contact me for a consultation.
Good SEO Practices for Writers & Poets
Here are 4 tips for writers and poets who are trying to improve their SEO:
- Post all of your content on your own website first
- Use 3rd Party writing platforms to gain followers and readers
- Point your readers on 3rd party platforms to your writing website
- Ask for backlinks to your content
Use 3rd Party Writing Platforms
Platforms like Medium.com and TheProse.com are great options for writers of any genre to start building a following to bring back to your website. Although organic traffic from Google is an option for bringing people to your work, there are platforms better targeted for people who are just starting off. Google is great once you build a base of traffic.
Make sure to link your website in every post, and even linking to the same post on your website will work! As long as Google can understand that the two pieces of content are related, you should be good.
Getting Backlinks to your Art Content
Backlinks can be one of the most effective ways of building a base of users for your website. Backlinks from publishers and scholarships are some of the highest authority, and writing is a great way to try and secure some of those.
If a publisher is simply reposting your content and not paying you directly for its rights, you are able to repost it on your website and request the other website to link directly to that page.
