SEO is something you’re probably continuously improving on your gallery’s website. Here, we will cover the SEO fundamentals that art galleries should know and what Google, Bing, and other engines look for to determine your gallery’s rank in a search index. It’s all about appearing on that coveted first page.
By focusing on SEO, your gallery can attract more art lovers to your site. Increased website traffic can increase sales, especially if you establish a straightforward buyer’s journey. SEO used to be all about keywords. Though they’re still important for SEO, keywords alone won’t cut it anymore. Now, search engines are smarter and want more than just the correct keywords or phrases to produce search results. Now, AI is playing a role, and user experience is a priority.
Your website is key to the sales journey. People often find you on social media, through friends, or at events and then go to your gallery’s website to check you out. When they’re there, make sure it’s easy for them to do things like buy art, sign up for newsletters, RSVP for events, or book appointments. It’s important to get visitors to your site. But if it’s hard to use or doesn’t lead them to take action, you might miss out on turning them into buyers.
Today’s criteria for top rankings within Google and Bing is all about providing the most relevant results to a search inquiry and giving preference to sites most likely to offer the best experience to the viewer. The more you understand how search engines think, the better you can optimize your website to meet their criteria for being page one worthy in the index.
Here are the top four things that affect SEO.
- Relevancy
- Site Structure
- Authority
- Site Speed
Relevancy to the Search Inquiry
Relevancy means ensuring a search engine can understand what your site and page are all about based on the content and keywords you provide. Every page should have enough written content to provide search engines with ample information to determine relevancy to an inquiry.
Yes… This is where your keywords and phrases come into play for your art gallery SEO strategy and structure.
Always write your web copy for the viewer first, but don’t forget how search engines think. Each page should have a headline using a header tag (H1, H2) that briefly summarizes what a viewer will find on that page. Include a few short paragraphs of text on your most viewed pages, including portfolio and home pages. Pages with not enough copy will appear to be less valuable as the search engines crawl your site.
Site Structure helps your SEO
You can help search engines provide more relevant results by paying careful attention to the HTML tags you use on your gallery site. These include title and header tags, image file names, alt text, keywords, and meta descriptions.
A prime example of a mistake I see galleries often make is naming images with irrelevant titles. For example, an image named “img_123.jpg” is meaningless to a search engine. However, “john_doe_paintingtitle.jpg” is more relevant in a search for that artist’s name.
Communicate Gallery Authority
To a search engine, an authoritative site refers to both the amount and quality of inbound links from other websites back to your gallery site and the engagement levels of viewers.
Creating a link-building strategy can often be the hardest part of optimization. However, you are probably already working towards this by sharing your gallery blog on other sites, such as social media and online press releases. Many of your artists might link back to the gallery on their websites. Be mindful of linking to specific relevant pages as often as you link to your homepage. For example, a press release about a show opening should link to the event page on your website. Remember, Google loves relevance.
Authority is also signaled by the levels of engagement. The content you post on your website or social media that viewers want to interact with tells search engines what you are providing online is valuable. Bing tends to put more emphasis on social media signals than Google for measuring authority. Search engines consider both relevance and authority for rankings.
On a local SEO level, your gallery’s engagement and the number of reviews on your art gallery’s Google Business Profile can help boost your rankings. A complete profile that viewers engage with is perceived as having high authority.
How will Google SGE affect your art gallery SEO
Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) is the latest feature that has people working to optimize their SEO on edge. It’s an innovative search method that utilizes generative AI. This means search results include consolidated information from search engine results pages into a single response. You may have noticed the change in your own Google searches.
The idea is that it eliminates the need to navigate multiple web pages for answers while still acknowledging top-page sources in the summary. SGE can also address intricate long-tail search queries. You will still need to continuously optimize your art gallery’s website. Your individual pages will still pop up in results like normal. The difference is that partial content from your site might also be included with information from other websites in the SGE result.
To be included, ensure your website is optimized for easy online reading with the use of headers to break up longer texts, answer questions when possible, and be direct. Being direct is something many galleries struggle with when talking about artistic concepts and using “artspeak”. I get it. That is part of the story of the art, artists, and exhibitions. I recommend being more direct at the top of a page and going deeper afterward. Finding a balance is best for your SEO strategy.
Monitor Gallery Website Speed
The speed at which pages on your website load is a factor that both Google and Bing use in their algorithm to rank search results. Google and other search engines place a higher value on the user experience on a website.
Slow-loading content is ranked lower in mobile search results. The load time for your pages goes beyond keeping image sizes small. The hardware and connectivity on mobile differ from those on a computer.
Ensure you regularly monitor your site’s speed and do the necessary maintenance to keep it loading efficiently. Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to evaluate your website’s performance for both mobile and desktop versions. The analysis you get back will offer valuable suggestions for improving your speeds. If you have a WordPress site, there are many tools available to automate cleaning up your website to help keep load times down. One popular tool is WP Fastest Cache.
Best practices for optimizing your art gallery’s website
Whether your website is built with WordPress, Wix, or an art gallery-specific program like Art Logic or ArtCloud, there are SEO fundamentals that art galleries should include on your pages and content to optimize your gallery website. Become familiar with the backend of the website program to find where these elements can be included as you make updates and add content to your site.
Inbound links
Be mindful of looking for opportunities to add inbound links from other websites back to your gallery’s website pages. Keep them relevant to the page topic, of course. This helps your SEO because it suggests to search engines that your gallery’s website has better, more trustworthy content, and that builds your authority level.
Create unique content
I often see gallery websites use the exact same bio info that is on the artist’s website. And sometimes on multiple gallery websites too. Search engines see this as they crawl the web and could rank your artist page lower because the copy is identical. If you recycle an artist statement and parts of a bio, I encourage you to also include original text that incorporates your gallery’s perspective.
Think like an art collector
As you create content for your website, always try to put yourself in the shoes of your gallery’s typical buyer. Your content should attempt to answer their questions; price, shipping, why an artist or artwork is special and worth the price, how the artwork compares with earlier work or for emerging artists, how the gallery is nurturing their career, etc. Think of what you typically get asked from buyers and ensure the answers are very easy to find on your website. This increases the time people might spend on your site and their engagement. That tells Google that site visitors are happy with the search results.
It’s the digital age. People don’t want to be forced to contact the gallery to obtain what they feel is basic information. Your website should answer everything needed to make a buying decision.
Use keywords strategically
Include your keywords near the top of your text. Also, use them in headers and subheaders, URLs, meta descriptions, and page titles. The alt text for images is also an important keyword opportunity. It can improve the accessibility factor of your website for the visual and hearing impaired, which search engines consider when ranking pages.
Keywords are especially important on your home page and artist pages. Your gallery blog is also a perfect opportunity to use keywords. It shows search engines that the website has a lot of information to share. So many art gallery websites lack enough text for search engines to use for ranking purposes. Which means your results are hit or miss. A blog helps overcome that.
To the Point
When clients tell me they need to find new buyers, I always look at their SEO. It matters.
A good SEO strategy is vital for your fine art gallery to gain exposure to billions of Internet searchers. In the last few years, SEO has become more complex. If an art buyer is looking for a piece by a specific artist, you want your gallery to be listed above other galleries that represent that artist. By focusing on a few simple best practices for SEO, search engines will love your gallery’s website and rank it high.
Explore the Google Search Console tool to see where you stand on many of these elements talked about in this article. The console provides excellent insight.
Seeing optimization results takes some time, and you’ll want to monitor your progress, reevaluate, and test your keywords and load times regularly. Put these SEO fundamentals in place and your art gallery’s efforts will be worthwhile.
Here is a resource to help you audit your art gallery’s website.
The checklist covers specific actions that you can take to audit your website and ensure it stays up-to-date with the ever-changing algorithms of search engines. By implementing these strategies, you can boost your gallery’s index rankings and attract more art buyers from across your region and the world.
Checklist: Art Gallery Website Audit for Optimal SEO
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