Build Today, Profit Tomorrow: The Secret to Getting to Page One on Google

Building Your Artist Website Must Be Your Top Priority

I had the opportunity to catch up on some business reading today and good thing! I read an interesting article by a successful online blogger, Daniel Scocco and I know you will want to hear about it. You ask, “what could I possibly learn from an online blogger?”—A lot!

As art marketers we can learn a lot from the “stars” of the bloggersphere. Experts like Daniel, have been exploring how to generate top results with Google, with the ultimate goal of reaching that precious Page One on the search directories. They know that shoppers will visit page one in the Google search directory, and (often) never get past page two.

Daniel’s article about “building today, profiting tomorrow”, drives home the need to get your website, or art blog built and online as soon as possible. He reminds us that Google can recognize the age of a website, and that Google will give priority listing to older websites becasue it sees them as being a greater authority in their niche.

Artist websites are niche sites. Niche websites rely on search engine results and are very dependent on pleasing Google. Here’s what I mean:

You might paint or photograph a specific body of work or genre, such a vineyards. In order for art buyers to find your work they will type in the word “wine art” into their search criteria. In order for this potential art buyer to find your site, you will need to be on page one in order to have your website seen.

In the search “wine paintings” there were 4,580,000 matches. Raked in the top 10 (at the top of page 2) are Canadian artists, Leanne Laine and Linda Paul. Usually these ladies are on page one, but today they are out ranked by 3 main competitors (art.com/artistrising.com—big multinational poster dealer, Thomas Arvid—wildly famous wine art painter, and the highly popular “dailypainters” blog. Elimate these 3 biggies and Leanne and Linda’s site would be likely be top one and two on Google, out of over 4 million!!!! WOW!

Over a year ago, I asked Linda Paul and spoke with Leanne’s husband Stephen (who has been responsible for marketing her work online since 2003) about how they achieved such high rankings. Both emphasized that they have had their websites up and running for almost a decade and that they dedicate a lot of time to optimizing their sites for search engines, including regular blog entries and product updates.

Both of these artists are working a full-time career and profiting from their art online. Hundreds of international art buyers shopping for “wine art” online find them first on the Google list and make purchases or place commissions.

As little as ten years ago, there were no blogs and artist websites were expensive to create ad host. These two artists made the leap into the online sales realm at this time and are reaping the profits today. To add more credibility to their ranking “due to age”, neither of these artists used the words “wine art” in their url (back then people didn’t know how valuable that would be, so they used their own names).

So that’s my big point for today, build your artist website/blog today and profit tomorrow. Because age matters so much with Google, your longterm art business success will be dramatically affected by what you do today—you just can’t afford to wait!

Get started building your Google ranking, build your weblog this week by completing these four easy steps:

1. Register a url

2. Buy a website hosting package

3. Install Wordpress and find a free template.

4. Start your weblog right away by making your first post, with an image f your art.

If you’d rather keep painting or making photographs, hire a web designer or ask a friend to do this important job for you.

Ten years from now there will be hundreds of millions of artist websites, stake out your place now, just like the pioneers did ten years ago.

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