Search Engine Optimization for Artists and Photographers Class

For any artist or photographer with a web site, a principal concern is the ability of people to find their site organically via a search engine. That means Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Anyone can build a web site but people and potential customers won't visit it if they can't find it. With so much of the Internet's web traffic being driven by search engine results, search engine optimization is critical to a site's findability. With well over 1.5 billion web sites on the Internet, up from 300 million web sites a decade ago, it's important to understand the techniques and strategies that can be used to improve a web site's standing in search engines. Specifically we are talking about SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

When it comes to SEO, there is SEO good news and bad news and that is that search engine ranking algorithms continually get more sophisticated. This is good news for owners of good, well-designed web sites and bad news for web sites that are not as well constructed. For web site owners, these continually changing algorithms mean that the job of SEO is never done. For example, the decision by search engines to reward web sites using HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) has led to the large scale adoption of HTTPS - which makes for more secure browsing. The same is true with respect to the deployment of responsive, mobile-friendly web sites. As of 2021, changes include an added emphasis on Core Web Vitals (CWV).

As an artist and photographer myself, my journey along the SEO path has been greatly aided by my background in IT (information technology) and web design and development. In creating this class, my goal is to help other artists and photographers improve the quality and findability of their web sites by sharing what I have learned over the years.

My presentation, Search Engine Optimization for Artists and Photographers, will help artists and photographers understand exactly what SEO (search engine optimization) is, what it's components are, and how these components work together to improve a site's standing in search engines. Topics covered include:

• key terminology
• on-site factors affecting SEO
• off-site factors affecting SEO
• page html optimization factors
• image optimization factors
• page content SEO factors
• effective use of keywords
• effective use of internal links
• incorporating social media in your SEO
• SEO tools
• acquiring backlinks
• the impact of hosting, CMS (Content Management System), and CDN (Content Delivery Network)

The length of this presentation is one hour. However, it can run as long as two hours depending on the level of audience participation.

For scheduling and related questions, please use the Artsnova Contact Form.