You finally have your web portfolio looking perfect. In fact, it’s dazzling. Which is why you don’t understand why traffic to your website remains sluggish. Has this happened to you? As a creative, you likely have the elements of great design mastered and your color palette and font choice are stunning. But there’s one thing you might be missing, which could be why you’re not getting more visitors…
Website text optimized for search engines. In other words, SEO. Utilizing SEO means making sure your design portfolio can be found by people who are looking for your unique set of skills. When someone does a Google search for your skill set, the results at the top of that list are people who have SEO figured out. Or they used a team (or service) to make sure the text on their portfolio site used proper SEO terms.
So what can you do to make your art or design portfolio and services more easily found through searches? Here are 3 ways to make sure your design portfolio is optimized for search engines.
1. Know what people are searching for when they search for your skill set.
Artists and designers (as well as many other professions) use industry lingo. Whereas your average Google searcher will input terms that he or she is familiar with. An artist or a designer will state that they are an expert at Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator. But a potential client will simply search for“book cover designer.” They won’t necessarily search for what program you use. Wordtracker is one way to find out what people are searching for. You can also hire this out to a professional SEO service if you want a shortcut to the highest ranking words related to what you do.
2. Add SEO to your images.
There’s more you can be doing with your images outside of using them for their visual appeal and advertising purposes. But if you upload your image and that’s the last thing you do to it, then chances are you’re skipping this vital step. You should be renaming your image file to include a keyword that people might be using to find you. For example, “book_cover_sample_design.jpg” is a better option than “bcsd1.jpg.”
Also, add in title and “alt” text. Title text is what will appear if someone hovered over the image on your site. If you aren’t fiddling with this when you upload your image, then what appears will be the filename. You don’t need to use underscores in your title. This title should look nice to the eye, and again, it should use keywords. Image “alt” text is what a web browser will display if for any reason your image itself is unavailable.
3. Use a blog to get in all those SEO keywords.
If you’re like many people who are introduced to the possibilities of SEO for the first time, you might become a little over zealous. But unnatural-sounding or keyword-stuffed web pages won’t rank high on Google searches either. So how else can you get in all those terms people are looking for while keeping the tone and text of your site sounding natural?
Aside from being an essential way to establish your authority, you will rank higher in Google searches when you blog. Showcase a step by step of you implementing a customer’s design request. Use screen captures to keep it visually interesting. Create a how-to. Talk about industry trends. Discuss and compare price ranges in your industry. And as you do this, you’ll almost automatically be including all the terms people look for when searching for someone in your industry.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. While you might not rank on the first page of Google overnight, you will definitely rank higher than you were previously. And taking these three steps will greatly improve your chances of being found by your next client.
