Digital Painting SEO tips-Keywords part one

We are going to take a quick peek at keywords.  First, what are keywords?

Keywords are the words or phrases that a potential client types in the search engine to find you. These keywords are what the search engine algorithm finds to deliver the desired content to the person seeking information.

So if you are a digital artist specializing in children’s portraituresome of your keywords might be, children’s portraiture, commission a portrait, children’s paintings ect. The idea here is to figure out what your client base would put in the search engine search box to find you.

Using keywords is critical. Search engine spiders rely on these words to find your site.  This is one of the big challenges to using a cool looking flash site. They sure are pretty but a very simple site with lots of content,  that is, copy that will answer your potential clients’ questions will smoke a pretty website in terms of traffic. As visual artist that is a challenge. We need a site that is representational of our work but still has lots of content. That is one reason you really have to have a blog. Dump the flash website and replace it with a site that you can add plenty of keyword rich copy. Hard to swallow I know.

Using the proper keywords is just as important. For example if you are an artist  I probably would not use artist as one of my keywords. Why? It is way to competitive and you really don’t stand a chance of anyone ever find you when they type in “artist” in the search engine box. It is way to competitive. A better way for you to do this would be to narrow it down. Use “Children’ s Portrait Artist, Denver” instead. You will have a much better shot at someone finding you with that keyword.

So ideally you want to use high traffic and low competition keywords.  And the only competition we should ever be concerned with are the websites in the Top 10 of the search engines. Outside of that is pretty much useless.

So how do we find keywords and where/how do we use them?  That will be the next post. Then we can get back to backlinks again. Bored?  Check out some of the tutorials or brushes on the resource pages.

Why do we want to learn SEO and optimize our blogs, images, videos or websites anyway? What does all of this have to do with my art?

Great question. If you just want to create awesome digital art or learn to use some of the best painting software, you don’t have to trouble yourself with any of this boring stuff. If you want people to see your latest digital masterpiece, fantasy art, children’s portraiture or to commission  more work using the internet, it becomes critical.  The good news is that many simple little steps can make a huge difference for you. Also in terms of the marketplace, you will have an advantage over those who you compete with.

So hang in there with these articles, they will be short and simple. They have to be as I am certainly NOT an SEO expert.

In the last post we addressed the question of backlinks, that is, what are they?  In the next few posts we can determine if they are important and why.

The question is; are backlinks necessary for a high search engine ranking?

An easy answer is, maybe. We haven’t really talked much about keywords yet but the backlink question is directly related to how competitive the keyword is that you are talking about ranking for. If you are trying to rank for a super competitive keyword, you will have to have a ton of backlinks for that keyword.  If, on the other hand you are trying to rank for a less competitive keyword, the backlinks in that case may not be as important. Learning to optimize your web-page properly could be enough to get you there. We will be talking about some ways to optimize your web pages and blogs down the road.

Also, don’t fret. We will definitely have much more in terms of digital painting tips and techniques, digital painting software uses and reviews as well as some digital painting video tutorials. Hang tight this stuff will be worth it.

Digital Painting SEO tip #1.

I am currently having a blast teaching some classes at our local community college. Also I am currently taking an SEO class online. I want to post a short series on SEO (search engine optimization). This will be pulled from questions that come up in the classes. The class I am teaching is a beginner’s class and like always has a variety of levels of understanding.

My titles of the posts will be optimized for what we do here on Digital Paint Magazine Blog, but the tips and techniques are obviously good for any web based business. Some will be items to implement other questions will be vocabulary type questions.

The first is. “What are backlinks?”

Great question Backlinks are a clickable link on one site that points to another site. Hhhhruh?

Okay if you check out the links area on our blog you will see links to John Derry’s Pixel Art Blog, a link to Marilyn Sholin’s  Digital Painting Forum and many other’s on the side bar here. Those links on this page are backlink’s  for whoever it is pointing to. So there is a backlink for John and a backlink for Marilyn using the example just from the sidebar on our front page.