While researching the start up the Creek Road Pottery, I quickly came to realize that running a business would be much more than making pots. Months before I even thought about creating a pottery I went through the Business Model Canvas course given by Steve Blank on the Udacity website. The class was very helpful in organizing and researching the many areas of a business that would need developing. One area was developing Revenue Models. Within the many revenue models, there was Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
When I was perusing my degree in ceramics, we learned a lot about art and little about marketing ourselves and the work. At the time, it was believed that the way to make money and sell art was through galleries, trade shows, and studio storefronts. Many who went on to pursue their masters degrees ended up teaching which gave them a position of recognition through the university they were employed. Others would leave the field due to lack of finances, student loan debt, or have to take on other jobs outside the art field to earn a living for themselves. But today all of that has changed, and if the artist can put on a few hats or have processes automated, handed over to paid services, or use applications, the jobs can become manageable once again. Below we will look at some applications that can assist the artist in writing content geared toward SEO.
Yoast SEO Plugin
One of the simplest tools that helped SEO management when creating posts or pages was the Yoast SEO plugin. This plugin built for WordPress has a simple install and came with a host of features that helped with content writing, page analysis, Meta and Link elements, XML sitemaps, RSS optimization, and much more. The Yoast SEO also grades the post and ensures that keyword usage in the headings and content. It also gives a list of most used words in the post so that the writer can make changes to up the ranking. This plugin also shows the total word count of content and also monitors SEO for title and descriptions of posts. With the plugin writing content, creating titles, and descriptions much easier. And with the color coded indicator buttons, it was easy to see if my attempts at SEO were on the right track or not. However, SEO cannot be adequately managed without better content. With Google’s new standards, the search engine will be far more selective about how it ranks post and information.
The Grammarly App
Another tool that is very useful for SEO, content creation, and management is the Grammarly program. Grammarly has a free version that installs as a plugin to most browsers and also has an extended paid version with many added features. These features allow the user to make informed decisions about how to use words, grammar, punctuation, and flags wordiness. It also claims to enhance vocabulary and grammar usage. As Grammarly flags issues, the user can remember how to use words or punctuation. Also, there is a built-in search that can detect plagiarism and alert the writer or content provider that a text was copied. If you have written content outsourced, it may be wise to paste it in Grammarly to see if the text is original or copied.
Shopify SEO Manager
Artists who sell online have plugins that one can install with the store packages. One of these would be the Shopify SEO Manager. Since SEO is important to ranking and sales, stores like Shopify, Etsy, and others have both plugins and free classes and resources on how to post items and create descriptions for products. Many have Google result simulators, page speed integration, site map management, and SEO issues scan built in. Many times when creating a post or descriptions, the artist would fill up the meta tags with as many keywords as possible. Now with the new Google SEO standards, these types of loaded fields will have a lower ranking. Even though these plugins can be somewhat costly, they offer simple solutions to the user to alert them if they are compliant or not. Users also post case studies, which can be very informative. Although some of the studies are sensationalized, one case study that I found very helpful was the creation of ThinkPup.
So as one can see even though it may take some time to learn SEO, there is much more help by the way of applications and plugins that can make writing content and listing products much easier for the artist. These programs also can not only save time but take the guess work out of SEO, and if keywords or phrases meet the search requirements. The artist is then able to use some of this free time doing the things they enjoy, which is making quality art for his customers.
By Al Wayman
