Shopify SEO: Why Shopify Collections Are a SEO Super Power

Optimizing Shopify collection pages is an underrated secret for improving SEO on your Shopify store.

Collection pages are like virtual aisles that group related products together, making it easier for customers to find what they're looking for.

In this video, search engine optimization expert Kai Davis and I discuss how to use Shopify collections to drive more SEO traffic to your ecommerce store.

In our conversation, Kai Davis shares how to think about and optimize your Shopify collection pages to reach more of the right shoppers in Google search.

Kai Davis, founder of Double Your Ecommerce, is a seasoned expert in Shopify SEO and Growth Marketing. With over a decade of experience, he has helped over 100 Shopify merchants expand their businesses.

Takeaways

• Optimizing collection pages is a powerful strategy for improving SEO on Shopify stores.

• Collection pages act as virtual aisles that group related products together, making it easier for customers to find what they're looking for.

• To optimize Shopify collection pages, it's important to add a collection description, write a specific SEO title, and include a headline at the top of the page.

• Internal linking to collection pages from blog posts or other pages on the website can improve SEO.

• Google Search Console and Ahrefs are useful tools for tracking the performance of collection pages.

Why collections are a SEO super power for your Shopify store

(written by Kai Davis)

Almost every single store I work with isn’t creating enough collection pages.

Collection pages are a great way to get new, targeted landing pages ranking in Google.

I find that most of the time, stores see the highest amounts of revenue from search come through their collection pages. That means that the searchers who start their browsing journey on collection pages are often more valuable than customers who come in through blogs or product pages.

So why aren’t stores leveraging collections more effectively? Most of the time, they just aren’t thinking about them correctly.

How to think about collections

Collections can rank very well in Google for categorical terms, which are terms or phrases related to the products you sell.

That means collection pages are a great way to attract more search traffic to your site.

You want to rank your collection pages for category terms, for example:

• If you’re selling quilting supplies, these are terms like ‘notions’ or ‘quarter panels.’

• If you’re selling chocolate, these are terms like ‘chocolate truffles’ and ‘chocolate bonbons’

• If you’re selling greeting cards, these are terms like ‘mother’s day illustrated greeting cards’ or ‘illustrated graduation cards’

Your collections in your Shopify store are like aisles in a brick and mortar store. Each collection can target a specific topic — like an aisle carries specific merchandise. It’s easy to set it up so this one has your chocolate bonbons, this one has your chocolate truffles, and this one has your chocolate gifts.

The very special thing that people forget about collections is that you have very few constraints on them. You could set up three separate collections, each optimized for a different target keyword, and each with the same products.

Like three collections for:

• Chocolate truffles

• Chocolate bonbons

• Chocolate gifts

And each populate with the same products.

That’s a very effective way to take the same products and reach more customers searching in Google with them.

Here’s why this approach is okay:

• Different target keywords: “chocolate truffles,” “chocolate bonbons,” and “chocolate gifts” are distinct search terms that people use, even though the products might be very similar or even identical.

• Unique collection pages: you can create separate collection pages for each term, optimizing each page for its respective keyword. This helps capture search traffic from all sets of searchers.

To Google and your customers, you have a unique collection landing page optimized for each of these terms. That’s a great way to get a page ranking in Google and bring in more traffic.

How to optimize your collection pages

So, what should you focus on to optimize your collection pages? I wrote a guide on this and you can read the full thing for free at DoubleYourEcommerce.com — click the ‘Collection SEO’ link in the header or on the homepage, or check out the link below:

• SEO for Shopify Collections

In the meantime, here are the top things to optimize:

• Collection descriptions — This is the piece of content that shows on the collection page itself. It is very high impact for SEO and helps your customers orient themselves on the page. ~50-100 words will be impactful for your SEO.

• Collection SEO Title — This is the piece of content that you set way at the bottom of a collection page. It is very high impact for SEO.

• Collection Title (Page Headline) — This is the piece of content you set at the top of a collection page. It is impactful for SEO.

If you want your collection targeting a keyword — like Gourmet Chocolate Eclairs — you want to mention that keyword in each of those places. Mention it in the Collection Title, mention it in the SEO Title, and mention it in the collection description.

For every collection page you create, you want to make sure you’ve entered those three things. And if you’re optimizing your collection for a keyword, you want to make sure you’ve mentioned that keyword in each place.

How to monitor the performance of your collection pages

Once your newly optimized collection pages launch, you’ll want to track their success. Are they ranking for keywords? Are they not doing much? Here are a few ways to do that.

• Google Search Console. That’s free and a great tool you should be running. The performance report in Search Console will tell you the specific keywords that your pages are ranking for and the amount of impressions that keyword gets.

• Ahref’s Free Webmaster Plan. Ahrefs has a free versions of their suite of SEO tools available for your domain when you verify with Google Search Console. Very useful for tracking your performance or understanding which keywords you’re ranking for.

And there you have it. Collections are a great way to get more traffic. I hope you use this information to launch new collections for your store.

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Need help with your Shopify SEO strategy?

Check out Kai's Shopify SEO services at his website, DoubleYourEcommerce.com.

Want Mallory's help with your overall marketing strategy? Schedule a 1:1 consulting session or check out the Badass Creatives Marketing Accelerator.

You can also check out this playlist for more videos about SEO for artists and creatives.

Shopify SEO: 5 Step Ecommerce SEO Strategy for Beginners, with Kai Davis

Want to get more visitors and CUSTOMERS to your Shopify store?

In this video, search engine optimization expert Kai Davis is sharing his proven 5-step SEO strategy for Shopify ecommerce websites.

In our conversation, Kai Davis shares his recommendations for optimizing a Shopify site for search engines.

Kai Davis, founder of Double Your Ecommerce, is a seasoned expert in Shopify SEO and Growth Marketing. With over a decade of experience, he has helped over 100 Shopify merchants expand their businesses.

He emphasizes the importance of understanding your target audience and narrowing down the target market as much as possible. Kai suggests conducting keyword research using tools like Google Search Console, Keywords Everywhere, and Ahrefs.

We also talk about the importance of optimizing Shopify collection pages, targeting your homepage for a general search term and your brand name, and optimizing product pages with unique content and customer reviews.

Takeaways

• Understand your target audience and narrow down your target market as much as possible.

• Conduct keyword research using tools like Google Search Console, Keywords Everywhere, and Ahrefs.

• Optimize collection pages to target broad yet specific terms in the market.

• Target the homepage for a general term in the market and optimize it with relevant content.

• Prioritize product pages that have higher profit margins, high demand, or are ranking on the cusp for a keyword.

• Utilize customer reviews to add unique content and social proof to product pages.

• Consider incorporating video content, such as YouTube videos, into the SEO strategy.

Kai's general SEO strategy for an ecommerce (Shopify) website:

Step 1: Narrow down your audience

First, narrow down the part of your audience you’re focusing on as ideal customers in order to understand what they’re searching for.

Don’t worry about demographics for Shopify SEO. You’ll struggle to use info like “our best customers are women 35-65 with a second home” in SEO.

Instead, focus on understanding the problems your specific audience is experiencing that drive them to seek out solutions like yours.

For example, if you’re selling quilting supplies, it could be the desire to commemorate a family event or create a handmade gift. If you’re selling chocolate, it might be the desire to send a gift or an upcoming holiday as a purchasing nudge.

This kind of information helps you understand what your customers are searching for, how that aligns with your product, and what content to create.

Consider the difference in execution if you’re building collection pages for your products. If I tell you:

1. The person you want to reach is 35-60, female, loves travel, and owns two homes.

2. The person you want to reach is shopping for holiday-themed chocolate gift boxes for their relatives (e.g., father's day, mother's day)

The first gives you a vague idea of what keywords and terms to look into.

The second gives you a specific idea that aligns with a particular search intent: people looking for chocolate gift boxes for Father’s day.

Focusing on search intent rather than demographics ensures your SEO efforts are targeted and effective, aligning your content with what your audience is actively looking for.

Step 2: Keyword research

Focus on keywords that make sense for what your audience is searching for.

How can you identify which keywords to focus on? There are a few processes. I’m going to talk about processes first and then suggest tools, some free and some paid.

My favorite processes for keyword research:

1. Look at the keywords your pages are currently ranking for. Identify keyword opportunities to optimize pages or create new pages.

2. Look at keyword suggestions and ideas while searching. That helps you identify new (sometimes more specific) keywords to target.

3. Look at the keywords your competitors are ranking for, and get ideas on the content and keywords that make sense for your niche

When I do keyword research for my clients, I’m doing a combination of these three. The exact process differs based on my client’s strategy and their niche, audience, and products.

But often the process looks like:

• Jumping into the keyword data in a tool

• Searching around in Google as if I were part of my customers’ audience

• Identifying relevant + specific keywords with some amount of search volume

• Making an action plan of ‘optimize this page for this keyword in these ways’

How can you do this keyword research yourself? I’ll tell you the tools to use.

• Google Search Console - It’s free and a great tool you should be running. The performance report in Search Console will tell you the specific keywords that your pages are ranking for and the amount of impressions that keyword gets.

• Keywords Everywhere - This is a freemium Chrome extension (I pay $6/mo for it) that adds keyword search data to search results on sites like Google or Amazon. The search volume near the search box is very useful, and the topical and long-tail keywords suggestions are great when brainstorming for more specific keywords.

• Ahrefs’s new $29/mo plan - This is a more advanced paid product but pretty affordable. Ahrefs runs a site full of SEO tools, including a keyword research tool where you can enter a URL and see the keywords that URL is ranking for and the positions they’re in. Very useful for competitive research or understanding how a piece of your content or competitor’s content is ranking.

Keyword research is often about combining your knowledge of your audience with the big messy pile of keyword information and mixing them together until you start to see insights and ideas.

Step 3: Focus on Shopify collection pages

After narrowing down your target audience and doing some keyword research, then we'll turn to on-page SEO, or making edits to the content on our ecommerce website that will help impact our search rankings.

We'll start by ranking Shopify collection pages for relevant + specific category terms.

Almost every single store I work with isn’t creating enough collection pages. Collection pages are a great way to get new, targeted landing pages ranking in Google.

I find that most of the time, stores see the highest amounts of revenue from search come through their collection pages.

That means that the searchers who start their browsing journey on collection pages are often more valuable than customers who come in through blogs or product pages.

You want to rank your collection pages for category terms.

• If you’re selling quilting supplies, these are terms like ‘notions’ or ‘quarter panels.’

• If you’re selling chocolate, these are terms like ‘chocolate truffles’ and ‘chocolate bonbons’

• If you’re selling greeting cards, these are terms like ‘mother’s day illustrated greeting cards’ or ‘illustrated graduation cards’

You want to optimize your collection pages with a few very important pieces of content:

• A collection title (page headline). That’s the bit you enter at the top of the page:

• A collection description. That’s the bit you enter right under the headline. A 50-100 word description is incredibly impactful for your store’s SEO:

• An SEO title - This is the bit you enter way down at the bottom of the page in the ‘search engine listing’ section. An SEO title (also known as meta title) is very high impact for SEO. It’s what Google often displays in the search results:

For every collection page you create, you want to make sure you’ve entered those three things. And if you’re optimizing your collection for a keyword, you want to make sure you’ve mentioned that keyword in each place.

Step 4: Rank your homepage

Next, rank your homepage for a more general term for your market.

Homepages are often a powerful page on your site. Most of the time, people link to your homepage instead of a collection or product page. And Google sees your homepage as the doorway to the rest of your site.

Those factors combine to make your homepage an influential page for your SEO. One way to leverage that is to have your homepage target a general term for your market with the brand name also mentioned.

• If you’re a quilting store, maybe your homepage targets the term ‘quilting supplies - brand name’

• If you’re a chocolate store, maybe your homepage targets the term ‘chocolate gifts [location] - brand name’

• If you’re a greeting card store, maybe your homepage targets the term ‘illustrated greeting cards - brand name’

Targeting a general term is often more attainable with your homepage than other pages on your site. This approach helps capture a broad audience, driving an audience searching for that relevant + broader term to your homepage.

In Shopify, you can set your homepage’s SEO title on Online Store→ Preferences → Homepage Title:

Step 5: Rank your product pages

Finally, rank your product pages for niche product terms relevant to your ecommerce business.

Your product pages are where potential customers make their final purchasing decisions.

Your product pages do their job by targeting very niche, product-specific terms. That helps them rank when people are searching for exactly *that* product, which can attract highly relevant traffic that is more likely to convert.

• If you’re selling quilting supplies, you might have a collection targeting ‘quilting supplies and notions’ and a product in that collection targeting ‘Probe & Stabilizer Tool 4pc. Set’

• If you’re selling chocolate, a collection page might target ‘dark chocolate gift boxes’ and a product page might target ‘dark chocolate sea salt caramel gift box (20 pieces)’

• If you’re selling greeting cards, a collection page might target ‘university graduation celebration cards’ and a product might target ‘hand-painted university of Oregon graduation card with envelope’

In all cases, your collection page are targeting a broad-yet-specific term, and your product pages are targeting more niche and product-specific terms.

In all cases, you want to optimize your product pages with these details:

• An optimized product title and product description

• Unique content if you’re reselling products; don’t reuse the content from the manufacturer verbatum. Rewrite it in your own words.

• Attributes in your product title like size, weight, color, material, quantity, or fabric, depending on what you’re selling and what your audience cares about.

Oftentimes, product SEO can be overwhelming. You have lots of products! I recommend focusing, first, on optimizing priority products:

• Products that are higher profit margin for your store

• Products that are high demand by your customers

• Products that rank ‘on the cusp’ for a keyword in Google Search Console (~15 - 30th)

Those are the best opportunities to start with when prioritizing your Shopify SEO strategy.

And there you have it!

That’s your general ecommerce SEO strategy for your Shopify store:

1. Narrow down your audience

2. Understand what they’re searching for

3. Optimize your collection pages for category terms

4. Optimize your homepage for a more general term in your niche

5. Optimize your products for ultra-specific product search terms

Beyond that? Make sure to revisit your SEO regularly. Check in on how your pages are ranking and growing every ~2-4 weeks at minimum.

Need help with your Shopify SEO strategy?

Check out Kai's Shopify SEO services at his website, DoubleYourEcommerce.com.

Want Mallory's help with your overall marketing strategy? Schedule a 1:1 consulting session or check out the Badass Creatives Marketing Accelerator.

You can also check out this playlist for more videos about SEO for artists and creatives.

Website Planning for Creative Businesses: 5 Questions to Answer BEFORE Building Your Site!

Whether you’re planning a new website, a website move or a website redesign, OR you're still stuck at trying to figure out “What website platform should I use??” ... There’s a few questions you should consider & answer for yourself BEFORE you ever talk to a web designer or developer or go too far down the rabbit hole of researching website platforms.

This is ESPECIALLY true if you’re an artist, maker or multi-passionate creative solopreneur and you're doing almost ALL OF THE BUSINESS THINGS yourself!

In this video, I cover the 5 questions you should be asking yourself and getting clarity on BEFORE building or redesigning your website.

This is based on more than a decade of experience working with TONS of artists, creatives & small business owners, both in my full-time day jobs in digital marketing and through my own program, the Badass Creatives Marketing Accelerator.

Ready? Let’s get right to it:

#1: What do you want your website to DO for you?

It's important to understand what you want your website to actually be able to do for you. Especially if you're considering moving to a new website platform this is going to be really important.

Do you want to sell physical or digital products on your website? Is e-commerce your primary focus?

If you’re building a website primarily for selling your handmade products or artwork online, you’ll probably want to go with a platform that is designed specifically for ecommerce, like Shopify or BigCommerce.

Or maybe you want to sell a few things, but you're not going to have hundreds of different products. Maybe you mostly want to use your website as a portfolio site. In that case, Shopify could still work but maybe you could get away with something like Squarespace or Wix.

Is one of the goals for your website to book classes or sell tickets to craft workshops that you're teaching? If so, you'll need to make sure that whatever website platform you're choosing will integrate with whatever tools you'll use to sell tickets, book classes, or schedule calls with you.

Whatever your goals are, it's important to get really clear on what you're trying to accomplish with your website BEFORE you start the process of building it or choosing a website platform.

#2: Is there specific software you need your website to integrate with, or features you need it to have?

Are there specific features or specific software that you need your website to integrate with and play nice with?

As a multi-passionate creative maybe you're using something like Printful or other print on demand tools to sell your original artwork or designs on t-shirts, stickers or mugs. In that case, you're going to want to make sure that whatever software you choose to build your website with plays nicely and integrates seamlessly with Printful or whichever print on demand tools you're using.

Do you already use an email marketing platform like ConvertKit, Mailchimp, Mailerlite or Klaviyo? If so, evaluate how easily the website platforms you're considering will work with your email marketing platform.

There are so many great email marketing tools out there, and some of them integrate more seamlessly than others with different website platforms.

Here's something to consider in general when it comes to connecting your website platform with other pieces of software:

Even if there aren't direct integrations built in, you can often use a tool called Zapier which is basically like digital duct tape.

Even if there's not a direct connection between a tool like Printful or Klaviyo and your website platform, Zapier can function like duct tape between two pieces of software to "zap" information from one platform to the other. Zapier can help your your website play nice with other tools.

That said, it's basically digital duct tape, so if you start building a whole house or your whole website out of nothing but duct tape - it may get a little wobbly.

So I recommend focusing on what are the most important things that you need to make sure work really well and really reliably in your business? Prioritize those to make sure that the things that are MOST important to your business will work really well and that there aren't big risks of having everything fall apart.

#3: How tech-y are you? And who will be responsible for updating your website?

Will you be the primary person responsible for editing & upkeep of your website?

If not, who will take care of updating and maintaining your website, and how tech savvy are they?

A lot of the multi-passionate creative small business owners that I work with want to be able to manage, edit and update their websites themselves. But what if you're not super tech savvy, or you just don't want to worry about learning a bunch of new tech stuff?

In that case, I really recommend thinking this through very carefully ahead of time so that you know that you'll be able to manage the website platform that you're using.

This is also why I recommend thinking about this stuff before you ever talk to a web designer or web developer.

Back when I used to work in a digital marketing agency I would see this all the time:

Clients would come in and they had already hired a web designer or web developer who had built them a custom website on WordPress.

(Which can be great by the way - there's nothing wrong with WordPress, it's just that for non-techy people, WordPress can be a lot of techy stuff to manage, and can feel overwhelming for some creative small business owners.)

What’s better? Self-hosted websites like WordPress vs Hosted websites like Squarespace or Shopify?

Here's an analogy that I like to use to explain the differences between something like WordPress which is a completely self-hosted website platform versus something like Shopify, Squarespace or Wix which is a hosted platform.

A self-hosted platform like WordPress is sort of like if you own a home and a hosted platform such as Squarespace, Wix or Shopify (where everything's kind of taken care of for you behind the scenes) is more like renting an apartment.

Much like with owning a home or renting an apartment, it's not that one is necessarily better than the other. It's just that they're different for different people, and they serve different needs.

I actually prefer to rent my apartment, and I also now prefer to use hosted websites for myself. (Even though I spent many years running a WordPress website!)

With a self-hosted WordPress website, you'll have to:

• find & pay for hosting

• install the WordPress software

• update any plugins

• make sure the WordPress software stays updated

• make sure everything is safe & secure behind the scenes

Cyber security is especially important when it comes to Wordpress. (I learned this one the hard way, many years ago!)

But on the other hand, WordPress is super customizable and that's one of the reason that so many web designers and developers love it.

I've used WordPress for a lot of projects over the years, it is really powerful super customizable. It's a lot like owning a house, right? If you own a house you can knock down walls, you can put up a swing set in the backyard, you can paint the walls, you can make all sorts of changes.

But when the plumbing breaks, when the toilet backs up, when the dishwasher fails.... you have to fix all of those things or call someone to take care of it for you if you can't fix it yourself.

Running a self-hosted website like WordPress or similar can be a lot like owning a house. There's pros and cons to it.

On the other hand, with a hosted platform like Shopify for e-commerce or Squarespace or Wix, you won't have quite as much customization freedom, but you also don't have to worry about all of the back-end software updates and security updates. All of that stuff is usually taken care of for you.

For most creative solopreneurs and micro small business owners, I generally recommend finding a hosted website platform.

If you are focused on e-commerce, Shopify can be a really great choice. BigCommerce is another good option.

If you only need more of a portfolio type of site and you don't plan to offer hundreds of products for sale, you could use something like Squarespace or Wix .

I recommend if you're going to be the one editing things and maintaining your website yourself, test drive it before you decide if possible.

A lot of these website builder platforms have free trials, so get in there and see what feels comfortable for you.

If you're the one maintaining your website, that's what matters. You need to feel comfortable going in there and editing things.

Now, the exception is if you have someone very close to you like a live-in partner, spouse or roommate who is super knowledgeable about all things WordPress or some other platform, go for it!

One of my students in the Badass Creatives Marketing Accelerator is in this situation. She has her ecommerce website built on WordPress with WooCommerce, but she has somebody who's very close to her who can make sure that all that stuff on the back end is taken care of for her.

#4: What content & information will you put on your website?

You don’t need to know or have EVERYTHING ready before you start talking to web designers, but it’s good to have a general idea of the content & messaging you’ll want to include, plus the types of visual branding & images you might want on your website.

It helps to start thinking about this as early as possible because this can be one of the most time consuming aspects of building a new website or redesigning a website.

A good web designer or web development agency can usually work with you on this to develop these ideas, but the more clear you can be about what content and visual imagery you'll need, the better.

Many web design agencies can pair you with a copywriter or photographer to create the content (this usually costs extra though) — but most often, it’s on YOU to provide this content.

If you're considering working with a web designer or agency, two that I highly recommend who specialize in Shopify ecommerce sites for artists and creative product-based businesses are:

• Ecommerce Arcade

• Aeolidia

#5: What pages or areas will be most important on your website for your visitors / customers to get to?

Much like thinking about what written content and imagery you'll want for your website, it's helpful to start thinking as early as possible about what pages or areas of your site you'll want your website visitors to navigate to.

This will also help make things so much smoother and faster if you can have some idea of the kind of information and content you want on your website, as well as the main pages and areas of your site that you want to have.

Even if you're building a website yourself with a platform like Shopify or Squarespace it's really helpful to consider:

What parts of your website are the most important for people to get to?

When professional web designers and developers start thinking about this and planning what will be included in the top navigation, footer navigation, or primary pages of a website, they'll often create something called a wireframe.

One way that I like to approach this for myself, especially when I'm designing my own websites, is to draw a wireframe with paper.

I find it helpful to step away from the computer where things can get a little overwhelming sometimes. Using pencil & paper can help you to really focus on questions like: What is the most important information that I want somebody to see if they land on my homepage?

I'm a very visual person, as a multi-passionate creative. So I like to grab a piece of paper, preferabily a long, legal sized piece of paper (to kind of mimic the longer flow of a web page) and just sketch out a basic idea of what you want to include.

Here in this video, you can see my example of where I mocked up a basic wireframe.

Here's a great Website Wireframe Beginner's Guide via HubSpot.

If you’re stuck, you can also look at other websites for inspiration & ideas.

Looking at the websites of direct competitors or similar creatives is great, but I also recommend looking for other types of artists or companies who might be similar in size or have similar values as you but they sell completely different types of products or work in a different creative medium.

What questions do you have about planning your website?

I could nerd out all day about website planning, website design, search engine optimization and digital marketing for multi-passionate creatives, but I'd love to hear from YOU:

What questions do you have about planning your website?

Drop them in the comments below this video.

If you want to dive even deeper, check out the Badass Creatives Marketing Accelerator, a mentorship program specially designed for creative, product-based business owners.

I also offer a limited number of 1-on-1 coaching, consulting & strategy sessions for creative business owners.

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SEO for Beginners: Artists and Creatives Edition!

Okay, so you're an artist, creative, or handmade business owner and you want to figure out the basics of SEO (search engine optimization) so you can get more traffic to your website. If so, you're in the right place!

When I was a beginner and running my own handmade business in the early 2000s, I learned SEO through trial and error, plus reading lot of blog posts just like this one.

Now, I've spent more than a decade working professionally in digital marketing and SEO.

I've worked with hundreds of artists, creative entrepreneurs, and small businesses, teaching workshops on search engine optimization, e-commerce, blogging, social media & email marketing at events like Craftcation Conference and New Orleans Entrepreneur Week.

As Adjunct Professor at Tulane University's School of Professional Advancement, I even taught & developed classes on Digital Media Principles & Strategy and Creating Digital Content, which included teaching beginner SEO!

Is SEO hard to learn?

I get it. SEO can feel really overwhelming and complex when you’re first getting started.

And there CAN be a lot to learn, I’ll admit.

BUT, there are a lot of basic SEO tips and tricks that almost anyone can learn and start using to help your website get found by search engines.

I’ve got a full playlist on my YouTube channel called SEO for Beginner Handmade Businesses, Artists & Makers. Check it out, or keep reading for some of the basics of SEO that you need to know to get started.

What is SEO and why does your handmade business need it?

First off, what is SEO anyway? Why should you care?

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.”

It's the process of optimizing your website to get traffic from the “free” or “organic” search results on search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing.

Many of the same SEO strategies that will help your website rank in those search engines will also benefit you if you sell on marketplaces like Etsy or Amazon Handmade and want to rank well within THEIR search engines.

(Check out this post & video on Etsy SEO if you want to learn more.)

So, as a small business owner or maker, understanding the basics of SEO is a crucial skill!

How does SEO work?

Search engines want to serve up the best, most relevant results to users.

They want to keep people using THEIR search engine, so they want to make sure people find exactly what they're looking for, as quickly as possible.

You could think of a search engine like a librarian.

The Internet is one GIANT library full of information.

When someone goes into that library looking for information (or in this case, opens up a search on their computer or phone) -- they need help to find the information they need in such a giant library.

Just like a friendly and knowledgeable librarian (shout-out to librarians everywhere!), the search engine's job is to help you find the most relevant and helpful information that matches what you're looking for.

Google and other search engines have "spiders," also known as web crawlers or bots.

There is SO MUCH information added to the vast library that is the Internet every day. These search engine "spiders" are constantly crawling around, discovering and cataloguing what's new.

How do search engines pick what goes first in search results?

Well, there’s 2 main factors that help search engines decide, and these are important to remember when it comes to optimizing your own website:

Relevance & Importance

When it comes to relevance, the search engines are looking at things like:

• How relevant is your webpage to a user’s search?

• Does your webpage answer the searcher’s questions?

• Does the content on your website match the intent of the searcher’s question? Does your webpage match the problem the user is trying to solve or the question they’re trying to answer?

People have different reasons for searching. To understand if your website's content is matching the intention of someone's search - WHY they’re searching for what they’re searching for - it helps to understand the different ways that people might be searching online.

Watch this video to learn more about 3 ways that people search online:

For importance, search engines are comparing your website or webpage to other similar pages. They’re evaluating:

• How does your webpage compare to other similar pages on the same topic?

• How do people interact with your webpage? Do they immediately hit “back” on their browser, or do they spend time reading or interacting with your page?

Click-through rate (CTR) is one way they measure importance.

Basically, out of all the times that your webpage appears in a search result, what percentage of times does someone click on YOUR page, instead of all the other options?

Backlinks from other websites is another way search engines measure importance.

When it comes to backlinks, both quality and quantity can play a role.

Lots of backlinks can be potentially good, but not if they’re all from spammy, irrelevant sites. Getting backlinks from relevant websites that have a good reputation is better.

You can learn more about the basics of links and link building for SEO in this video:

Note: there are 2 types of links that are helpful for SEO: internal and external.

Internal links are links from one page to another on your own website.

Wikipedia is a great example of a website that knows the value of internal linking! Almost every Wikipedia page links to lots of other related Wikipedia pages.

Internal links can help search engines like Google explore and crawl your website. They also help customers explore more of your site and find the information they need.

External links are links to or from another website. Links to your website from another website are sometimes called backlinks.

Are search results the same for everyone?

When it comes to understanding how SEO works, it’s important to remember that no one sees exactly the same search results.

Search engines like Google and Bing take into account your country, location, personal search history and other factors.

SEO Keywords and Keyword Phrases

If you've explored SEO even a little bit, you may have heard of "keywords."

As a beginner, I really encourage you to think instead of keyword phrases.

This is one place where I see a lot of SEO beginners get stuck. As a beginner, you might think in terms of single words like "art."

But in a HUGE library like the Internet, a single word is so broad, and there is SO MUCH information to compete with.

I encourage you to get as specific as possible, and think in terms of "long tail keyword phrases" -- think about phrases around 3-4 words, sometimes even longer, that are super specific to what you make and sell or specific to the ideal customer you’re trying to attract.

You'll want to include these relevant keyword phrases throughout your website in places like your content, product descriptions, page titles, and URLs.

You can get ideas for keyword phrases by using the auto-suggest and “related searches” features built into different search engines.

Pay attention to the search phrases that are suggested to you in Google, Pinterest, YouTube, Amazon, and Etsy. Make a list of search phrases that might be relevant to YOUR products and include those phrases in your website content and product listings.

You can learn more SEO keyword tips for beginners including some free ways that you can get started with keyword research and how to find keywords for your ecommerce shop in this video:

What's the best way to have your website come up on search engines?

The best place to start with optimizing your website for search engines is with "on-page SEO."

On-page SEO basically covers all of the things YOU have the power to change on your website.

This includes the content on your website (think blog posts or product descriptions on an ecommerce site).

It also includes behind-the-scenes content like page titles, meta descriptions, and alt text for your images.

This is where you’ll want to include all of those keyword phrases.

Basically, when it comes to on-page SEO, you want to use words to be descriptive wherever possible.

Watch this video about On Page SEO for Beginners to learn how to optimize your website for search engines:

Essential Beginner SEO Tips for Creative Businesses

To sum it up, here's a few quick tips to remember:

1. Create keyword-rich content

Use descriptive words throughout your website.

Include keyword phrases that people are searching for related to your products, and use those keyword phrases in your product descriptions and blog posts as well as behind-the-scenes in your page titles and meta descriptions.

Ask yourself:

• What questions do people have about your business or products?

• What topics could you write about that are related to your keywords?

Create content and information on your website that is helpful for your users, and include descriptive keyword phrases in your content.

2. Create quality content like blog posts and "evergreen" resource pages

As you start thinking about those long-tail keyword phrases that are relevant to your products, you may find that some of them deserve a little more attention. Maybe they're a big topic that you have a lot to say about.

In this case, you can create helpful blog posts or resources pages that are "evergreen" -- meaning they will be useful for a long time to come.

Think about an evergreen tree that is beautifully green all year round. "Evergreen" content is the same way: it continues to be useful or interesting for a long time.

What are the questions your customers ask you over and over again? Make it a blog post!

As you create this helpful, evergreen content, weave in those long-tail keyword phrases.

3. Make your website as user-friendly as possible

You want to make it easy for your ideal customer to navigate your website.

You don't want them getting confused or stuck. You want a website that is well-organized and created with your CUSTOMER in mind.

Your website should be mobile-friendly and easy to use on an iPhone or Android device.

Make sure that it's both easy to navigate and use on mobile, but also that it loads quickly on both mobile devices and on desktop computers.

4. Don’t bury info in photos, videos or audio files only

Photos, videos and audio files can be awesome and add depth and personality to your website!

But you’ll want to fill out the alt text field whenever you upload photos to your site. Alt text is important for both SEO and for accessibility.

People who are blind or visually impaired often rely on the alt text to describe what is seen in an image. So write your alt text as if you were describing the image to someone who can’t see what you are seeing.

For videos or audio files, include written transcripts or descriptions of what is in the video or audio clip.

Adding captions, descriptions, and alt text helps your customers and it helps search engines understand the information on your website.

5. Remember, SEO is a marathon, not a sprint

It takes time for SEO updates to be “crawled” and indexed by those search engine spiders. So don’t expect to see an immediate change in your website traffic.

It could potentially take months to see your SEO efforts really pay off.

SEO takes patience, but little changes can make a BIG impact over time.

Keep going! You got this!

Want more help with learning SEO?

Check out my full YouTube playlist: SEO for Beginner Handmade Businesses, Artists & Makers

You can also check out more of my blog posts and videos about SEO:

• Shopify SEO: 5 Step Ecommerce SEO Strategy for Beginners, with Kai Davis

• Shopify SEO for Artists and Creatives: 5 Quick Wins for Beginners

• Etsy SEO for Beginners: 6 Areas of Your Etsy Shop You MUST Update To Improve Your SEO Rankings

I try to provide tons of valuable educational content here on my blog and on YouTube (for free!), but if you want to dive deeper, check out the Badass Creatives Marketing Accelerator. It's a mentorship and community for badass artists, creatives & small business owners just like you!

Shopify SEO for Artists and Creatives: 5 Quick Wins for Beginners

Just getting started with Shopify SEO as an artist, maker or handmade business?

In this video, I chatted with my friend and Shopify expert Holly Marsh about some beginner Shopify SEO tips and quick wins that you can use to improve your search engine optimization on Shopify.

Holly Marsh is the founder of Ecommerce Arcade, where you can level up your ecommerce game with strategy, design, and heart. She specializes in the Shopify ecommerce platform, as well as Klaviyo for ecommerce email marketing.

Holly is an illustrator and branding designer, and has a decade of experience selling products online and in-person. She springboarded into services after spending 10 years at the helm of her handmade business named Marshmueller, a line of accessories for babies and kids using colorful and quirky fabrics.

How can you get started with SEO on Shopify?

A lot of folks getting started with Shopify (and honestly even people who have been on Shopify for years) feel that SEO is this scary, complicated, very technical and complex thing.

And it can definitely seem that way!

But there are some simple things that pretty much anyone can learn and do to improve the search visibility of their Shopify website.

Also, it’s important to note that Shopify online stores have many built-in SEO features, and some aspects of SEO are taken care of automatically for you by Shopify.

Here are the 5 quick wins for Shopify SEO for beginners that Holly and I discussed:

1. Use descriptive words throughout your website.

The first thing is to remember that words are king when it comes to SEO!

While it can be fun to create all sorts of really cool graphics in Canva, put the text on the image, save it as a JPEG, and just upload it to your site...

Don't do that!

UNLESS you also include descriptive alt text to clearly and accurately explain what is "seen" in the graphic or image.

Google and other search engines can't "read" those images unless you include descriptive words as alt text for your images.

Shopify makes it really easy to go into each image on a product page and add alt text for each of your product photos.

Alt text is one of those things where it has a couple of different purposes:

First, it's actually geared toward accessibility. So folks who are needing assistive devices like a screen reader can actually kind of "see" what is happening in that image.

A good rule of thumb when it comes to what to write in your alt text is to pretend you're on the phone with someone who can't see what you're looking at. (We're talking about an old-fashioned phone call!)

Just talk about what you see in that image. Write your alt text as if you were describing the photo or image to someone who can't see what you're looking at right now.

Adding descriptive alt text also helps with SEO because Google likes words.

By using words to describe what is on that page, whether it's using descriptive words and keyword phrases to describe your products or by including descriptive alt text for images, you're helping the search engines understand the information on your website.

2. Be strategic about website navigation.

When you're just getting started with Shopify, you should also be thinking strategically about your website navigation.

The menus people use to navigate your online shop are really important, because if you aren't very specific or if you use cutesy names or jargon to describe your categories, people aren't going to understand it.

User experience aka UX is really important to SEO, and your website's navigation is a big part of this.

Think about how people will be using your website.

Where will they be coming from? (A search engine? A social media platform?)

Which pages are they landing on first? (It's not always your homepage!)

Holly also suggests breaking out your navigation, using some of your most important categories as the primary links in your navigation, instead of having a navigation that only says "Shop" with a drop-down that people have to dig through.

The main navigation on your website, at the top, should stay fairly simple and streamlined. Focus on the most important parts of your website that you want people to get to.

Adding too many options in your Shopify website’s main navigation area can create confusion.

Holly also recommends having navigation in your footer where you can repeat some of those most important shopping links.

She said that, "Homepages are really long nowadays, and we can thank social media for that because we're really accustomed to scrolling. People get down to the bottom of the page, and then if you give them some shopping links as part of the links available in your footer, it helps them get back to what they were looking for."

You can also create special landing pages for products that you've featured on social media.

For instance, if you frequently post your products on TikTok or Instagram, you might want to create a special collection page of products "Featured on TikTok" and link directly to that page from your TikTok profile.

3. Improve your SEO with blog content.

Speaking of social media, we discussed how many artists and makers spend a lot of time creating content for social media, but sometimes we forget to repurpose that content for our blogs.

Holly says, "When it comes to social media. I know it's really easy for all of us to post a video or a picture, and just write a caption (and sometimes it's a novel!), and then just move on after you've posted it. But sometimes you can actually take some of those social media posts and put them in as a blog post on your website. I always harp on clients to please, please, please do a blog! Blogging can add more flavor to a topic. Blog posts can also establish you as a subject matter expert."

Holly shared how she has a client who sells dahlia flower bulbs, whose blog is full of great tips for gardening. She uses bits of those blog posts to repurpose and post on social media. It's a win-win for Holly's client. She gets content for social media, but she also makes all of the search engines happy by having lots of blog content.

Holly and I both recommend focusing on "evergreen" blog content.

Think about topics related to what you make or sell that people frequently search for or ask you questions about.

What are the topics related to your business that are always in season, always useful?

Those are great topics for your blog!

Gift guides are an example of a blog post topic that I often recommend for ecommerce brands.

If you can create gift guides that are relevant to your products and your particular audience, that can be a great way for people to find your products.

You can even collaborate with other business friends and share the backlink love to help strengthen your standing in the search engine rankings.

How might you collaborate with other creative small business owners who aren't necessarily competitors, but they're your community?

Are there other artists or makers who have similar audiences, but make a different type of product or have a different style from yours?

4. Use descriptive headings to break up text.

As you're creating that helpful, evergreen blog post content, you'll want to use headings to break up text and add information.

Shopify has a "What you see is what you get" aka WYSIWYG editor. They also refer to it as a rich text editor.

You'll find text formatting options similar to if you were using a Word document or Google Docs. This includes options for formatting headings.

Whether you're writing a blog or just using the editor for product pages, it's a really good idea to use headings to help you organize and structure the content on the page.

There are six heading levels: Headings 1-6.

Heading 1 is the most important and should only be used once per page. (Use it for the main title that someone sees on the page.)

Heading 6 is least important.

For most websites, you really just need to pay attention to Headings 1-3.

Headings tell the search engines that what's inside the headings are things to pay attention to.

You can break up posts using images and headings. It's always a good idea to break up a lot of text, so that the information on your site is easy to read.

5. Optimize & resize images before uploading.

Speaking of making things easy, we also want to make our Shopify websites easy & quick to load.

Make sure to resize and optimize your images before you upload them to your website.

You don't want images to be loading really slowly.

That's a bad experience for your customers, and it's another thing that can really affect your SEO ranking.

If your images are humongous and they're taking a really long time to load, your potential customers won't stick around.

Holly says, "Shopify does do a little bit of compression, but not a ton. They do have recommendations for the minimum size that images should be. I know it's a delicate balance between needing larger images because of retina devices so that they look nice and crisp, but also having an image that loads really quick. There's a few image compression tools out there that can optimize your images and strip all of the unnecessary metadata."

Check out this blog post by Shopify for more info: 10 Image Optimization Tips for Your Website

Ready to level up your Shopify website?

If you need help setting up your new Shopify website or improving your existing online shop, Holly can help!

Holly offers custom website projects that are tailored just for you and your business. She can even help you get everything moved over to Shopify from other platforms like Squarespace, WordPress, or even Etsy.

Learn more and check out her portfolio at Ecommerce Arcade.

Need more help with your Shopify SEO strategy? Check out this video:

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Etsy SEO for Beginners: 6 Areas of Your Etsy Shop You MUST Update To Improve Your SEO Rankings

Getting started selling on Etsy?

If you're just getting your Etsy shop up & running, you might have heard about SEO (search engine optimization). Maybe you know that Etsy SEO is an important part of marketing your handmade products. But do you understand how to actually DO IT and make your Etsy shop stand out in search, both within Etsy’s internal search engine as well as on Google, Yahoo and Bing?

In this video and in the post below, I'll share some tips for Etsy SEO for beginners:

You can use these SEO tips to help your potential customers easily find your Etsy shop and get more traffic to the products you sell.

Here are six areas of your Etsy shop you should update to improve your SEO rankings:

1. Your product titles

2. Your product descriptions

3. Your tags

4. Your shop sections

5. Your shop title

6. Your shop announcement

I’ll go into more detail about all of these shortly, but first, a few key things to remember:

Think in terms of long tail keywords.

If you’re just beginning to learn about SEO, you might hear “keywords” and think of a single word, like wedding.

But when you head to Google or another search engine to look for something, you are probably using a string of words in order to help you find a very specific thing, like wedding gift ideas for geeks or beach wedding dresses.

These strings of words, usually 3-4 words put together, are known as long tail keywords or keyword phrases. When you start optimizing your Etsy shop for search engines, think in terms of these long tail keywords rather than single words that are not very specific.

The more you can tweak your Etsy shop to accurately describe what it is you are selling by using the same keyword phrases that your customers are naturally using to search for those things, the more likely it is that they will find you and buy your products.

Use keyword phrases your customer would use.

Think like a BUYER - how would they be searching for your product?

The phrases a potential customer would use to search for your product might be very different than the first thing that pops to mind when you think about your own products.

As makers, artists and business owners, we have an inside view of our products. We need to learn how to see our products from the outside view and describe them the way another person would.

Back to the wedding dress example: I once worked with a client that sold wedding dresses. They called themselves a bridal boutique and they called the products they sold bridal gowns. But when most people start shopping for their products, they'd be searching for wedding dresses, not bridal gowns.

Don't use jargon or specific terms that only artists or makers would understand. Use words that your average customer would use to look for what you make and sell.

When in doubt, ask a friend or family member how they would search for the types of products you are selling.

Adjectives are your friend.

In order to come up with useful and relevant long tail keywords, remember that adjectives are your friend.

If you’re searching online for the perfect pair of shoes to wear to a friend’s wedding, do you head to Google and type in shoes? Not if you want to actually find what you’re looking for, you don’t. You’d probably use adjectives and other descriptive words in your search. You might type in something like cute high heels with bows or comfortable dress shoes for women.

When you create product listings on Etsy, think in terms of adjectives and the ways that people might naturally search for what you have for sale, and be sure to include plenty of descriptive words about your products.

Don’t just describe the item itself — use adjectives to describe what the product could be used for or reasons why people would buy the item (as a wedding gift, for example).

Okay, now that you’ve got those tips in mind, let’s talk about the specific areas of your Etsy shop you should focus on to improve your Etsy SEO rankings:

1. Your product titles

Your product titles are one of the most valuable pieces of SEO real estate in your Etsy shop.

The maximum limit for product titles is 140 characters, but search engines like Google will only show less than half of that, so put the most important keywords first. You’ll want to include a mix of the most relevant and popular long tail keywords related to your products.

Remember: think like your customer. Focus on using the words and phrases THEY would put into a search engine to find your products.

2. Your tags

Any experienced Etsy seller knows that tags play an important role in getting your shop discovered by potential customers. Be sure to utilize all 13 tags, and whenever possible, use long tail keywords as your tags.

Tags have a maximum length of 20 characters, including spaces, so you may not be able to include your longest long tail keywords as tags, but try to use tags that form a descriptive 2-3 word phrase rather than adding single words as tags:

Etsy shop TrueMementos does a great job of using long tail keywords in their Etsy tags.

Look at some of your best-selling competitors to see what tags they use. Don't copy them directly, but do some research for inspiration to find ideas for what tags you could be potentially missing.

3. Your product descriptions

While your product titles and tags are the 2 most important elements when it comes to getting seen by Etsy’s own internal search engine, there are plenty of other spots that will help you get found in search, both on Etsy and by Google.

Your product descriptions offer plenty of room to write about your products in great detail, so be sure to do just that! Your product descriptions should include relevant long tail keywords, but they should also answer any potential questions your customers may have about your products.

Think in terms of benefits as well as features… how does your product help a customer, and how will wearing or using your product make them feel?

It is also important to note that Google and other search engines will often pull from the first line or two of your product description when showing your product in search results. Be sure to include your most important long tail keyword in the first sentence of your product description.

4. Your shop sections

Did you know that the names of your shop sections are also searchable, and should be optimized for SEO?

If your shop specializes in personalized wedding gifts, you might break up your shop sections by recipient. For example: Gifts for Bridesmaids, Gifts for the Bride and Gifts for Groomsmen. Include descriptive phrases and adjectives when naming your shop sections.

5. Your shop title

Much like your product titles, your shop title is also very important for search.

You can use your shop title to help describe the kinds of products you sell. This will help with Google search, as this is the title that Google and other search engines use when your shop appears in their search results. Be sure to include important long tail keywords that are relevant to your entire shop in your shop’s title.

6. Your shop Description

Finally, your shop description should also include important keywords that describe your shop as a whole.

Your shop description helps build trust with potential buyers AND with search engines. It appears near the top of your Etsy shop, under your shop name. Google often pulls from this section when your shop appears in Google search results, so make it count

You can include relevant long tail keywords here, but you can also use your shop description to share the story or inspiration behind your brand.

Want to get more traffic to your website and make more online sales?

Do you sell your handmade work online? Want to sell more? Search engine optimization, aka SEO, is the process of tweaking your online shop to help your potential customers find you more easily in search engines.

My class, DIY SEO for E-Commerce, offers an introduction to e-commerce search engine optimization specifically designed for artists, makers and online shops:

SEO Advice for Artists: Squarespace Artist Website Review

In this Squarespace website review, I’m going to be offering up some SEO advice for artists by looking at the website of artist Glenyse Thompson.

Glenyse has built her own website using Squarespace, which is an easy-to-use website builder that I often recommend to artists and creatives who want to create a website on their own without a lot of hassle. Her website looks great overall, but there are some ways that this artist’s website could be improved to get more search engine traffic and to sell more art online.

Watch the video above or read on for the transcript:

The Transcript:

Hi, it’s Mallory, AKA Miss Malaprop, back today for another #BadassCreatives website review. Today we’re going to be looking at the website of Glenyse, who is an artist. She’s awesome, I’ve followed her on Instagram for a little while. She offered up her website for some feedback, so let’s take a look.

Here we’re looking at the website of Glenyse. This is her shop page on her website. As you can see she’s a very talented artist.

I’m going to scroll down a little bit. If I hover over any of these, it gives me the title of the piece, and the starting price points since most of these are prints or original art that come in multiple sizes. Just to click in as an example, let’s just look at this tote bag. This is a really beautiful tote bag. This gives me a little bit of information about what it’s made from, but there’s not a ton of information on this page.

If you watch my website review of Kate and Moose, it’s kind of a similar issue. There’s just not a lot of actual text on this page for a search engine to understand, to look at and analyze more information about what this bag is.

We see that it’s a tote, but to search engine, just calling it a tote doesn’t actually tell them that it’s a tote bag, or that it could be great for carrying groceries, or all these other things that we as humans sort of naturally associate, but that if you’re typing something into a search engine, a search engine needs things explained a little bit more clearly.

There’s not a whole lot of text on this page to help explain what this product is to a search engine. It is a beautiful product. I would say similarly to my review of Kate and Moose, it would be great to have some more photos of this tote bag in action. Maybe somebody holding this bag so I can see how big it is. Maybe a picture of the insides, so I can see how much stuff I can carry in this bag.

I’m also noticing that there’s not, as far as I can tell, any sort of shipping page or FAQ information about general things that I might want to know as a customer if I’m going to give you my money online and order something from you. Now, usually on a website we have some sort of shipping page. What happens if something is wrong, like this arrives and it’s damaged or something? What’s your refund policy? Your potential customers want to know all that good stuff. I would consider adding some of that basic information. Pretty much any website, if you’re selling something online, needs to have some version of that.

Now, your website in terms of how much art, and how many products you’re selling is pretty straight forward. You don’t need a super in-depth FAQ or shipping information. You’re not Amazon.com, right? You don’t need some crazy long list of details, but I think having some sort of information would be helpful. If I am just looking at this page, I’m not even sure if you’re going to charge me for shipping. I have to actually go through the steps of clicking on purchase, and then figuring that out.

One other thing that I noticed is in your URL: “http://www.glenyse.com/shop/colorfulconversationstote” that “colorful conversations tote” all runs together.

I see that you’re on Squarespace, and there is a way to set your URL structure when you’re setting up a new page. Ideally what you would do for search engines, and also just for people, is to have a hyphen between each word, for example: “colorful-conversations-tote.”

To a search engine especially, with the way you have it now, all of this just runs into one big word, and it’s hard for a search engine to understand what this page is about because of that. A URL is a really important piece of search engine optimization.

Now, the other thing that I know is that your website is fairly new, so one thing that I would recommend is trying to build links to this website.

Let me grab just your main URL, Glenyse.com. I’m going to copy this, and I’m going to hop over to a website. This is created by Moz, which is an industry leader for search engine optimization. They have this tool called Open Site Explorer. If you really get into it you can pay for the paid version of this, but you can get a little bit of information just from this free tool. I’m going to pop your URL in here, and we can kind of get a little bit of feedback about how many links you have pointing to your website.

Moz has it broken down into something called, “Domain Authority.” That’s the domain of your whole website. Then there is also “Page Authority,” which is the authority for any given page on your website. These scores are based on a scale of 1 to 100.

They’re giving you a domain authority for your entire website URL of 11 out of 100, which isn’t super great. Then a page authority of 1 out of 100. Notice how it says, “Just discovered links, zero in the last 60 days, and established links.” It sees no links pointing to you. Now, there might be links that Moz just hasn’t discovered. This is a fairly particular tool, and it doesn’t always pick up all the links that may be out there. If you have Google’s Search Console set up, that will usually show more links, and Moz’s Open Site Explorer might not pick up all of the same links pointing back to your website.

It’s important to note though that links are really important. I want you to try to get other websites who might be inclined to link back to you, to point links to you.

Let’s look at some potential link building opportunities, and from what I can see it seems like you are already on the path to doing this, and you’re doing a great job so far.

I clicked through from your About page, and your artwork is posted in a photo article, Energized Abstracts on Artsy Shark. This was just posted very recently, January 12th, 2017. This is a blog post, and they invited some of their artist friends to share a favorite work of abstract art, and you are right up top. It shows off a piece of your art, and they did link to you, which I love. You’ve got a little information, then they shared some other artists too.

That’s probably why this post hasn’t shown up on Moz yet, because it’s a really new fresh link so Moz probably just hasn’t crawled it yet. Definitely keep on this path, and keep trying to reach out and get more features of your work, and get those links pointing back to your website.

Now, one final super nit picky thing, but it’s also a really easy fix. With Squarespace I know that this little box, this cube, is the generic default favicon that comes with Squarespace websites. It’s a really, like I said, kind of nit picky thing. You can see how on Squarespace’s help website and on Moz Open Site Explorer, they have their own little icons that help stick out in the browser, and just make it feel a little more personalized and professional. It’s a really easy tweak.

This article on SquareSpace’s support website actually tells you how to add it, and it’s a really easy thing to do. You just go into the backend of your Squarespace website to your logo and title section, and you just upload a little image. That is a really easy fix that will make your website pop a little bit more.

I hope this artist website review was helpful, and I hope you subscribe to my YouTube channel and check out some of my other videos featuring website reviews and SEO advice for artists:

Ready to learn more about how to get more traffic to your website and make more online sales?

Do you sell your handmade work online? Want to sell more? Search engine optimization, aka SEO, is the process of tweaking your online shop to help your potential customers find you more easily in search engines.

My class, DIY SEO for E-Commerce, offers an introduction to e-commerce search engine optimization specifically designed for artists, makers and online shops: