Every year we take a fresh look at the online art market to see how brands are performing with their marketing. And from time-to-time, we like to take a deeper look into what’s going on.
This week, we dove into the report we published in 2019, analysing the brands within to see if anything had changed and why. What we found surprised us…
Artsper was absolutely soaring in visibility.
It turns out they are using a strategy that few-other online art brands are using to get ahead in the SERPS.
Want to see what this strategy entails? Keep reading.
Their Growth Exposed
So how did we come about to find this underground tactic?
As mentioned above, we perform a lot of research on this market. Last year, we released a report detailing how the online art industry is performing online.
You can view that report here (it’s a bit of a whopper).
Alternatively, here’s a snapshot of the raw data. This is the main visibility league board:
So, what made Artsper stand out?
After all, they didn’t see the largest visibility increase and they’re not exactly low in authority.
When I looked at how they’re performing now, however, their uplift in growth this year was astounding.
Look at this increase in visibility:
April was a fruitful month for these guys for sure.
This told me that something was going on here that was out of the ordinary. So, I dug a little deeper and found a strategy that many online art sites should probably be using.
I looked into their keyword growth:
And their backlink growth per page to understand the influence of off-page factors.
Here’s the most prevailing factor I found that contributed to this spurt in growth…
Using the Authority of Names to Get Ahead
Artsper has a large section on their sites dedicated to contemporary artists from various countries.
All look similar to this:
With the focus on copy and by targeting named artists who may already have followings, they seem to be ranking very well.
This focus on names has been an excellent exercise for them, contributing to a number of sharp rank improvements, as identified by our data collection.
Some of their best pages are specific artist pages. And with the loyalty that comes from these search queries, you can imagine they’re satisfying the intent well.
Low Barrier to Entry
An immediate benefit that I noticed when looking at the artist-specific keywords was their competition.
It was ridiculously low.
Keywords around artists like Angela Wakefield and Brian Bartlett get thousands of searches a month but have a competition rating of 0.
For those who don’t understand what I’m saying, competition is ranked from a scale of 0-100. 100 being the most competitive. With a rating of zero, there is practically no competition for these keywords.
It’s like taking candy from a baby!
With a bit of authority and a solid foundation of content, the majority of art brands in the report could be ranking for terms like these.
Supporting Content for Further Depth
At Salience, we’re big fans of helping the user get what they’re after and help Google understand our website.
We bang on about it a lot, but a great way to do this is through supplementary content and guides. These link back to the main category and add further context to what the page is about.
Who would have thought this can be done in the online art industry?
Artsper has a category on their blog (situated on a subdomain) called “A Closer Look”.
It has a bunch of informative articles which focus on artistic roundups. But one thing that caught my eye was the articles which explain certain artists in more detail.
These “10 things to know about [insert artist name]” articles are an excellent way to add supporting content for these artist pages.
They provide more context to Google as to what (or more specifically, who) these artist pages are about. This no doubt contributes to better rankings.
These Articles Sometimes Rank Instead!
In some cases, these articles in the closer look category were ranking for artist names instead.
This is especially the case with renowned artists like Louise Bourgeois.
Despite having a commercial category for her work, this page ranks significantly better, hanging nearer the bottom of the second page.
But how does this information benefit you?
Think of it this way, even if you don’t sell a specific artist’s work, you can still create a similar article about them (for informational purposes) and gain the visibility that way.
Although this might not lead to a dramatic increase in sales, it helps to promote natural backlinks and gets your brand and name into the heads of your dream customers.
Speaking of Backlinks…
When looking at the backlink growth for this site, I did notice a little “blip” in backlinks around the same period where Artsper experience an increase in visibility.
However, I don’t think it was significant enough to be labelled as the main contributing factor to their growth.
Where some of the link growth happened through was on their “A Closer Look” category.
In total, these articles contributed to 10 links in the past 30 days. Not bad at all. I imagine this was passive as well!
So, not only can improve ranks and visibility by focusing on artists – but you can also gain backlinks while you’re at it!
Now It’s Your Turn
Artsper is reaching new heights in their visibility and one possible explanation comes from their Contemporary Artist category.
They add a good level of content to these pages and rank for name-related keywords with large search volumes and low competition.
With the addition of supplementary content backing this up, they have a recipe for success in the online art industry.
Do your research and see if there’s anything you can take from their strategy, applying it to your own where possible.
Just so you’re aware, we do stuff like this all the time and get awesome results while we’re at it. If you ever want a free, no strings attached conversation about how we can improve your online performance, give us a call on 08001223530.