WordPress Content Management: Learn how to optimize website content for search engines and site visitors
SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization, where one optimizes their website to make it not only search engine friendly but, first and foremost, visitor friendly. When learning SEO, it’s much easier to understand if you know how search engines work.
In very basic terms, there are two main components to the search engines, the crawler and the algorithm. The crawler, which is also referred to as a spider, or a robot, or simply just a bot, is what goes out on the web and fetches the info. The algorithm is basically the ranking formula that each search engine uses to determine the relevancy of any page that the spider finds.
Basically, what happens is that the crawler follows links, gathers info, and adds that info into their database, or in other words, they find pages, read what’s on them, and index that info into their database.
If you simply remember that they find, read, and index, you’ll get the idea of things.
The Internet is mostly a word-based medium. Since artist websites consist mostly of images, it is important to become skilled at making search engine friendly images. This is easily accomplished by learning to use Alt & Title attributes. With SEO for artists, you are also going to learn about keywords, meta descriptions and hyperlinks. And finally, how to make use of the SEO plugins All in One SEO and WordPress SEO.
#1: SEO Friendly Images
Have you ever browsed through Google Images and found images titled as “img_8474”? We all have; we’re going to make sure that they are not yours. Your images should also have your name and the name of the artwork in the title of the jpg. Like so: ©your-name-art-name.jpg
Traffic to your site can grow substantially with search engine indexing of your images. The first thing you need to know is that a search engine robot can not see that your image is a landscape, or oil on canvas, you have to tell it with words.
In WordPress, each image you upload to the Media Library provides you with the ability to define ALT and TITLE attributes. This provides search engines with text they can read, find and index your images. I’m sure a definition of each will help you understand the purpose of each.
ALT text attributes: The alternative text (ALT) attribute provides a text-only description of an image. This is an example of what the robot sees instead of your image
< img src=”coffee.gif” alt=”Coffee Cup” / >. Adding the alt text “Coffee Cup” tells the search engines to index this image with other pictures of coffee, or cups, or coffee cups.
TITLE text attributes: The title attribute specifies extra information about an element.
The information is most often shown as a tooltip text when the mouse moves over the element.
There 2 tutorials that show you where to add ALT and TITLE attributes: Insert Media section and add description in create gallery section.
I searched my images for use in the examples below using the search terms “Kim Bruce Fine Art” and “Encaustic Abstract Landscape” respectively.
In the first example Google indexed my image using the Alternative text that I provided. This image was originally inserted into a blog post using Upload Media in the post editor. Note the Alternate Text that I entered on the right and where Google used it on the left.
The next image below is from a NextGen Tag Gallery. I tagged the image for use in the blog post Encaustic Abstract Landscape. Google used the SEO page title to index this image. Also note that the jpeg has my name attached as well as the name of the piece.
When you search either “Kim Bruce Fine Art” or “encaustic abstract landscape” the other images in the tag gallery will also show up. This is because I tagged the blog post with “encaustic landscape”.
The biggest thing that I see on artist sites is a home page that only has an image, slide show or gallery in the content area and no text at all. This is why adding the ALT and TITLE attributes are so important. But it should also be pointed out that if you wrote a sentence or two, these words would go along way to helping people find you through keyword searches and is important for your meta description. Not to mention the value added for your site visitors. Ask yourself; does your content inform, presell, sell, educate, entertain, etc
Watermark your images
With the advent of the image based sharing site Pinterest it is now more important than ever to have properly titled images. But if you are compelled to add an extra line of credit on your images use a visible watermark.
Typically the watermark is your name with © and /or © domain name and is discreetly shown in the bottom right corner. NextGen Gallery has watermarking capabilities that can be set under the options menu. NOTE: watermarking can not be reversed in NextGen Gallery, but you can restore your original image if you change your mind. See the watermarking tutorial.
#2: Meta Descriptions
Most people are confused about how to use meta descriptions. Basically, meta data serves two purposes:
– tells search engines what your site is about
– shows up in search results which in turn tells people what your site is about
Your Meta Description, specifically, doesn’t actually affect your placement or ranking in the search engine results, but it is extremely important for what appears on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). The meta description is what people read to help them determine whether or not to click through to your site. High rankings are meaningless if nobody clicks on the links because the description isn’t appropriate.
A couple of key points to keep in mind when crafting your meta description:
You are limited to 140 characters. If you do not specify a meta description, the search engine will either, automatically use the first 140 characters of your page or post for the description, or will examine the on-page content for what it thinks is the best description to use. This isn’t always a good thing especially if you don’t have any text content.
You want to have a naturally worded meta description. This is where the SEO plugins come in handy by making it super easy to create this for each page and post, without having to do any coding. Remember, it will be a person reading the description, so make sure it makes sense to a human, not a robot.
Let’s use another meta description as example. Jane Doe is a Calgary artist that creates vibrant abstract landscape works with oil on canvas.
These are actual search results using the keywords and phrases listed.
“Oil on canvas” About 24,500,000 results.
“Oil on canvas artists” – Google returns About 15,500,000 results.
“Oil on canvas artists Calgary” About 148,000 results.
The last search result has narrowed thing down and I think you can see where I am going with this. Things to keep in mind when using keywords and writing your meta descriptions; be more specific, target your local market, target your style. Perhaps you work very large and that is a key selling point of your art, use that in the meta description.
#3: Keyword Placement
Don’t over use keywords in your meta description. Not that keywords should be over used anywhere, of course, but this is an exceptionally bad place for it.
Content is the most powerful tool you have in your search engine optimization strategy. Relevant content, optimized for keywords, and published frequently can shoot your website to the top of the search engine results.
The principal thing that I see on artist sites is a home page that only has an image, slide show or gallery in the content area and no text at all. This is why adding image ALT and TITLE attributes are so important. But, it should also be pointed out that if you wrote a sentence or two, these words would go along way to helping people find you through keyword searches. Not to mention the value added for your site visitors. If you look at your existing web site and think like a reporter and ask questions such as who, what, and where, you’ll be able to answer those questions by creating a descriptive keyword phrase.
Keywords are not just for your meta data, which is what many people erroneously believe. Keywords are part of how search engines determine the relevance of your site for a particular search. And just as important…they help the searcher know if your site is a match for what they are searching.
There are different opinions on how often you should use keywords in your content. As a general rule, keywords should be used naturally, not forced into the content so that it reads awkwardly or unnaturally to a human being.
Many beginners are tempted to place their keywords in every single sentence. That generally creates an article or page that’s extremely difficult to read. Instead, write your content and then go back and position your keywords. Make sure to sprinkle other relevant keywords throughout your content as well. A good test is to read the content out loud. If it sounds awkward, you’ve probably over done it.
Use your keywords strategically. There are a few prominent places to position your keywords so they’re recognized by the search engines. These locations include:
- Your Page Title
- Any headings or subheadings in your content
- The first and last paragraphs of your content
Here are some tips to help you compose with keywords (which can also be used in your meta description)
- Start thinking and writing about your self in the 3rd person.
- WHO – NEVER write “Welcome to my web site” on your home page. If you want to use a welcome message, write “Welcome to “your name’s” website.
- WHAT – Broaden the welcome message by telling visitors what your work and site is about
- WHEN – Tell visitors that you have an exhibit coming up and post a (internal) link to your events page
- WHERE – Include where you live and or where your upcoming show is and (external) link to the venues website.
- WHY – what makes your work unique and why would someone want to buy it.
Now you have a Home page with a message that could read like so:
Welcome to (what) of (who) located (where). Please (internal link to your contact page) (who) if you would like to know more about (what) or are interested in purchasing (why).
(who) is very excited about his/her upcoming solo exhibit (what – name of your exhibit) at (where – external link to venue site) (when – provide dates). Please see (internal link to Events page) for details.
#4 How to Use Heading Tags
Just as books have chapter titles and sections within the chapter, so do websites.
Your site title will be using the H1 (heading 1) tag, which is the tag assigned the highest priority. Your site title is at the top of every page of your site and is usually the same as your website address or domain name.
Your page or post title will be heading 2 (chapter title) and is automatically applied by WordPress. That’s because your site title is using the heading 1 – H1 tag. If you have any other headings (sections) underneath that, they would be 3, 4, and 5, and so on.
If you have a long post that needs to use subheadings, make sure you actually tag them, and tag them according to a hierarchy. You can tag them inside the editor by using the Format dropdown menu, illustrated below.
By tagging these headings, Google and other search engines will know that these are break points inside your article where more information is provided. It will also say where that information is.
The following will be useful to you when choosing what text styles to apply in your content:
- Heading 1 through to Heading 6 – in most themes headings within a post or page will start at Heading 3 (H3), going down to H6. The higher the value, the more important a search engine will consider it, but remember that H1 is usually reserved for the site title at the top of the page, and H2 for the post or page’s title.
- Use Unordered or Ordered lists for lists that are relatively short, but resist the temptation to use them for lists of paragraphs – instead, use the Heading styles.
- Use Bold and Italic in moderation. Do NOT use bold as a substitute for heading styles – bold is not as important to a search engine.
- Some themes may override your styling decisions – for example, enforcing alignment, what an italic actually looks like and so on. You should experiment with this.
- Most themes will highlight links in a different colour and with hover properties – you shouldn’t need to worry too much about these.
- What something looks like in the visual editor and how it will look on the page are quite different, unfortunately – make good use of the Preview button before publishing.
#5: Linking Strategy
There are two different types of links – Internal and External. Every time you link to a page, post or other site, you are validating the relevancy of every single page or post you are linking from.
This is referred to as “SEO Juice”, which is internet slang referring to the substance which flows between web pages via their hyperlinks. Pages with lots of links pointing to them acquire lots ‘SEO Juice’ and pages which link to highly ‘juicy’ pages acquire some reflected ‘SEO Juice’.
Internal Links are cross links within your own site. For example, one post may contain a link to another blog post or page on the same topic. Developing internal links is a great way to teach the search engines of the relevancy of your site, as well as assist the human reader in finding valuable information. Just make sure that you are linking to related posts and pages. You may want to select a few pages to focus on to start with.
External links are when you link from your site to another site. While there are lots of sites you like, don’t link to all of them from your sidebar. This just gives away your SEO juice to the other site. Use external links sparingly and strategically as mentioned on the Create a Hyperlink tutorial. (Oh, I just made an internal link 🙂
*A note about Social Media and Linking..
While the links back to your site from Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn may not do anything for your official search engine results, they can do a lot for sharing useful information and driving traffic by bringing people to your site. The more useful your information, the more likely people are to pass it on to others. There’s nothing like word of mouth advertising.
Just remember to use social media as a place you can “give back” as well. Don’t think only of driving people to your site. Share useful links and helpful information from other people and sites. You’ll be seen as a true contributor of value, and therefore be considered more trustworthy.
Text link Descriptions
Every time you put in a link, always make sure the link has a description.
I selected one of my links here, clicked on the Link button to edit it, and then I inserted a title that describes a link.
This link is pointing to the artist themes page, so I’ll simply added the alt text “Artist Themes by Artbiz.ca.” Hover your mouse over the link and you will see it as a tool tip.
The link is within my site so I set the target to same window. If it is an external link you may want to check the box next to “Open link in a new window/tab”.
There are mixed opinions whether you should have external links open in new windows or not. If you have a page with a number of external links, by the time your site users clicks all the links, they may have a multitude of browser windows open. If this is the case have links open in the same window. They can then use the browsers back button to get back to your site. However, I see nothing wrong with having one or two links open in new windows.
#6 How to use the SEO Plugins
With every WordPress install Artbiz includes either one of two great SEO plugins. Both are easy to use and provide tips so that you can insert good SEO. The plugin is configured for you (if I installed it) so all you have to do is provide some meaningful content.
The image below demonstrates the bare minimum that should be on your image page. The text you use on a page is best placed at the top before your images. This is what the robots read first, right after the page title.
In this image you can see the NextGen Gallery short code that calls in all the images within a gallery. This could just as easily be a single image, video or slideshow.
How to use All in One SEO
The master settings for All in One SEO will add a meta description to every page that you do not provide a custom description.
Master Settings for All in One SEO will add the same SEO to all pages and posts that don’t have their own custom descriptions.
The image below describes the fields available on every page and post of your WordPress site. Use them to add meta descriptions and keywords specific to the content on that page.
Related Resource: Video at All in One SEO Website
This video was made on an earlier version of WordPress so it looks a bit different than your admin area does but the usage of the plugin is still valid.
How to use WordPress SEO
WordPress SEO by Yoast is one of the strongest search engine optimization plugins for WordPress. But only if you use it. The plugin provides a form under every page and post on your site, all you need to do is fill it in.
The screenshot below is of the form under your page and post editor. By default it will formulate a meta description from the content. To edit just click on the area and it will become editable. When done click outside the editable area to close.
Use this SEO for Artists tutorial to help guide you through the process, it may take some time but will be worth it in the long run. Best practice is to start using the form as soon as you start adding your content making it part of your process.
FAQ: How long does it take for my site to show up in the search engines? And what ranking will I get?
Answer: WordPress will dynamically submit your website to all the major search engines for free! Sites can take up to 12 weeks to get indexed. Every Artbiz website comes with all the tools necessary to make your website as visible as possible to the search engines, however we cannot guarantee what keywords will result in a search match or the ranking of your site. Be wary of those that promise otherwise. It is likely that you will achieve good results if you are somewhat prepared.
The last tutorial in the Content Management section looks at Sidebar Links
HI Kim,
I see that the boxes for SEO at the bottom of each page include Title and Description but no line/box for Keywords.
Thanks,
Cory
Refresh and look again, it should be there now.
Hi Kim
I have content descriptions for each of my paintings at a more detailed level now and would like to add this content. Would I do this in my tags under gallery or is there an SEO page where I can do this? The tags in edit gallery do not seem to have enough space for all this text. Regarding adding `text’ to my pages, the other question I had was whether or not all the text has to appear directly on the site or is there a background place for adding this content?
Vandy
The tag area in the gallery is for keywords Vandy, not a meta description. The description for the gallery images is meant for a short title, medium, size, not the story about the painting.
If you want to tell the story behind each individual painting I would suggest that you write a blog post for each painting to compliment your portfolio. This be a great way to not only inform and educate your visitors but search engines love blogs and you’ll get more indexing as a result.
Any text you add to the Yoast meta description under the editor will not be on the actual page but rather in the source code that searching read.
Hope this helps
It under the editor Vandy and I see you have already filled it in. The main one under SEO > Titles & Meta is if you want to set a global meta description, anything you enter on individual pages/posts will override the global one.
To create a landing page for your blog:
1. Create a new page call it Blog
2. Go to Settings >> Reading and select it from the dropdown menu as the landing page for your blog
3. Go to Appearance >> Menus and add the page to your menu
4. Go to POSTS and start blogging
That’s it
Hey Kim!
How soon after registering your website and domain name does your site begin getting indexed?? I thought this was a good question for SEO tutorial since I’m guessing registering your site with Webmaster, setting up XML Sitemap and loading SEO info has an affect on that :>) So it’s probably a good idea to get those three things going relatively close to each other since the indexing probably begins near the time you Verify your site with Webmaster??
All those things will help Brian, but Webmaster tools are not for the faint of heart and not really required for the average user. WordPress SEO does submit your sitemap for you, uploading it to Webmaster is just a reinforcement.
There is no guideline as to when sites are fully indexed and Google is always changing. Your best practice is to provide SEO for your landing page asap because when the search engines do come that is where they go first.
Hey Kim – I am configuring my SEO plugin now… the Master Settings for All In One SEO – the Home Title and Home Description – do NOT have to match the Site Title and Tag Line in general settings of your WP dashboard correct? I watched a video tutorial on setting up All In One and the guy opened two tabs and just copied and pasted the info from his General Settings of his WP Dashboard to the Master Settings of All In One. Looked fishy to me!
Also – do you NOT fill in the Home Keyword section for the Master Settings?? It looks like you chose to leave that blank in this tutorial.
Thanks Kim!
Almost Finished :>)
Asked and answered… if anyone else has similar confusion?? According to my online resource – Google doesn’t utilize the Home Keywords field from the Master Settings anymore. Just the Title and Description. Good luck everyone!
So you will fill it in uniquely on every page.
Adding the master meta description is the lazy man’s way of doing SEO. It’s good to set up because it will be used for all pages and posts that don’t have custom meta data set. It makes your site stronger and more likely to get indexed where you want it to if you write SEO for every page.
If I remember correctly our site URL’s, briantruex.com for example – are already present in WP General Settings when you set up the site. So is it OK to just leave it alone if use Brian Truex Fine Art for the ALLinONE Master Settings?? Or should they match?
Thanks Kim
Brian Truex is in your domain name and your site title, that’s good. So yes leave it as Brian Truex Fine Art
Wow!! The Preview Snippet in the updated version of All In One is awesome!!! It shows you exactly how your page looks on google now. For example my blog page looks like: odyssey blog | briantruex.com – Google uses your site URL from Site Title in WP General Settings to automatically place after your Page Titles. NOW I get it!!
Sorry for the confusion Kim…
SEO was my Achilles Heal the first time I failed to get my site going. Now I get it and I LOVE it!! The All In One SEO shows you how your page looks to Google as soon as you update it… so if you’re not happy you can make changes in a second.
I googled a few of my Chicago Artist friends and they’re online presence is a MESS. All the images have Zero descriptive content – which means they’re @ the bottom of the index. They’re lucky if their Name is with their images.
I can’t say enough good things about Kim’s Tutorials… really looking forward to my Dramatically Improved online presence! Thanks again Kim… looks like I got it right this time :>)
You’re doing a great job Brian. Once you get your head wrapped around the idea that each page on your site is unique with unique content then writing a sentence about it for search engines doesn’t seem as overwhelming.
I am happy to hear that the tutorials are of value. Thanks
Hi Kim, I have been enjoying the tutorial and learning a lot. I have just finished completing the All in One SEO descriptions, keywords, etc., for individual pages of my website, so thanks for the tips and guidance. A major question in my mind remains, though: my nextgen galleries are in my store and there’s nowhere to put in SEO for them, or for specific images that I can find. Suggestions about how to do this? Is it possible? Also, for now, I have left the “Store” and “Shopping Cart” pages of the All ln One SEO back end blank for now — should I fill in those pages, too? Many thanks, Rick
Rick you can add tags and alt&title text to your images inside Gallery > Manage Gallery. You should also name your actual jpegs with a meaningful name and not leave them with the generic name that they come out of your camera with. In the media library you can also add alt & title text.
Your Main Store page should have the SEO filled in. I don’t think it is necessary to apply SEO to a shopping cart.
Thanks, Kim, for the prompt reply. I’ll see what I can do to add tags, etc. I’ve already redone the images in my Media Library with the addl info.
I was wondering what your thoughts are about using Share buttons on a site — so that people who happen to come across your art can then post a link to Facebook, Twitter etc.
It seems like a good idea from a traffic point of view, however one does not want to look tacky… Your thoughts Kim?
You have the plugins already installed on your site Susan.
The Social Profiles widget will add icons and links to your Facebook, Twitter and others. All you have to do is drag and drop it into a widget area and fill in your social media url’s and save.
You also have a plugin that will allow people to share your blog posts. I activated the option so it shows on your blog home page, go have a look. If you want the share buttons to appear on your pages as well (most people don’t) then go to Sexybookmarks in your admin side bar set your options. You can change any of these options for what appears on your blog as well.
On aside I noticed that you have not created categories for your blog posts yet. Please have a look at this tutorial and scroll down to #6 http://artbiz.ca/school/content-management/create-a-new-post-in-wordpress/
Hey Kim – since Susan brought up Social Sharing… I am a little stuck! Testing my SS-Plugin was my last step before starting to advertise my site. I was sooo happy w/ Media Feather, LIGHT, looks great… no plugin conflicts :>)
Unfortunately – it grabs random images from whatever page I am sharing and makes it available as a thumbnail when sharing to Facebook. That wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t Grabbing My Transparent Custom Header! OMG looks terrible. I have a few queries started but not counting on that.
Any suggestions for other LIGHT SS-Plugins to try?? (that don’t look like crap) Or an idea on how NOT to have my header available for thumbnails? I’m a little hesitant to try Sexy Bookmarks cause that really slowed my site last time – atleast according to the Metrix Analysis.
I even tried using the short code for an individual page and it STILL grabbed the header :>(
I don’t know that plugin Brian so I can’t advise. But I can tell you that my new fav social sharing plugin is AddThis. Once you install the plugin you can open an account with them and get stats. Just enter this into the search box under install plugins AddThis Social Bookmarking Widget. You can see it live on http;//artbiz.ca