There's a lot to be said about search engine optimization, and I'm no expert, but I can tell you that it's very important to make ample use of keywords. In other words, think of what search phrases someone might use if they were looking for an artist such as yourself. Make ample use of those words, without letting it get too awkward. For instance, on the description of an image, calling it
"Greg 18"x24""
is less likely to get hits than
"Portrait of Greg. Oil on Canvas by Jeff Fuchs 18"x24".
The second one contains words you'd use in google when looking for artists. Do this for each image.
Google also looks at the title bar, and assumes that it is a good description of the subject matter on the page. Many Titles, such as Ilaria's, just say "Home". That tells Google nothing about what the page is about, and loses it within a billion other pages named "home". To change the title, look at the page's html code for a tag that says <title>Home</title>. Remove the "Home" text and replace it with "ILARIA ROSSELLI DEL TURCO: Portrait Artist" (notice that the page you're reading says "Portrait Artist Forum" in the title bar, as it does throughout the website).
Use your name often. Look at major sites like Amazon.com. Try to find a page on their site that doesn't say "Amazon.com" on it. They know what they're doing.
Look at your signature here on SOG and other forums. I hate to pick on Ilaria, but it's her thread. Instead of a signature that says www .ilardt. com, try using
ILARIA ROSSELLI DEL TURCO. This helps Google associate the link to the context of your name. This has been used for propaganda purposes by poltical activists. Before the last election, one side had their followers post a link on their websites across the country that said "colossal failure" (or something like that). The link led to their opponent's website. Then, when anybody googled the words colossal failure, they got his website, even though his site does not contain those words.
There's a lot more to it, like getting other sites to link to you. Be sure to ask other artists to link to you. Ask your galleries, your friends, anybody with a website. Try to get them to use your name as the link text, not your domain name. The more links you have, the more important Google thinks you are (actually, the quality of the links comes into play. If CNN links to you, it carries more weight than joe blow's site.)
Hope this helps.
Jeff
Hybrid Mode
