Bump in the Art Road

I’m a day late with my posting – thank you for your patience (I like to imagine that you have been anxiously awaiting what words of wisdom I will deliver). I got a bit side-tracked this week with a temporary move and all of the hoopla that goes with that, but I did manage to do some research on SEOs.

I watched a video by Wes McDowell called “SEO is a Waste of Time in 2024” and I would say this qualifies as a bump in the road in terms of one of my goals (learning SEO). He does have a lot of other teaching videos that look intriguing as well, just FYI.

Here’s what I learned (my commentary is in italics):

• Ai and Google’s decisions changed the SEO landscape, making it harder for ordinary people to use.

  • Backlinks are a new strategy – ask other bloggers if you can “guest blog” on their site and link back to yours (this is difficult but important)

• He also recommends using YouTube instead because:
  

  • People like to see real humans (I get this but I have a face that doesn't like being seen)

  • You can double-dip, meaning you are listed on YT and on Google

  • There’s a longer shelf life for videos

  • SEO is less complicated (just use key words in title and description; I have yet to discover what key words to use)

  • It’s less competitive

Keep in mind that that McDowell is selling a service and not products so his goals are somewhat different than for artists but he did talk about blogging/vlogging and gave the following tips on what to talk about (again my comments in italics)

Blogging Topics

• Repelling Content – stop time wasters before they get to you by telling them what you won’t do, etc. An example would be “7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Work with Me.” I could see this applying if I decided NOT to take commissions but mostly this seems to apply to service related business.

• Attracting Content – showcase your strengths and core values, possibly include case studies. This gives me an idea of maybe telling stories behind certain mosaics.

• Sales Content – have a “call to action” button on every page. I remember learning about this when I was taking courses on copy-editing as a possible second career.

  • Be specific about content offered – I should probably mention the depth of originals in addition to outside dimensions

  • Blogs can be shortened and repurposed for Instagram – really? How short would they need to be?

• Pricing Content –

  • Show value and why. Maybe be more specific about how many hours it takes to complete a mosaic? This is also similar to an Instagram post I recently wrote about what goes into pricing giclee prints.

  • Include FAQs. For me this could mean describing my process in detail.

• Guiding Content – how to choose, etc.

• Process Content – these seemed more to do with purchasing a service; listing the steps involved, what the client can expect, etc.

• Opinion Content – About art in general? About the business of art? I think I would have to know a lot more and/or experience a lot more before I had a right to this kind of opinion post.

I might use some of these ideas in future posts - maybe a mid-week one.

After that, I researched another video on SEOs that was far more advanced (although I think it said “beginner” somewhere) but it did include a screenshot of a Google Business search engine. This led me to sign up as a Google business, but I got sidetracked before I could figure out how to find the business search engine.

I’ll add that to my list for next week.

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