When you are ready to start selling your artwork on the internet, consider adopting these simple search engine optimization (SEO)techniques to increase your visibility and maximixe your sales potential. Spend some time creating key word rich titles and tags for your artwork.

For example, if someone is searching for painting of a pink fairy with a moon and your title contains all three search terms, your image will be ranked higher in the search. So pay special attention to creating your titles and tags. This is where the magic happens! You need to think like a buyer. What words will they use to find what they are looking for?

Let's assume you want to sell an 8" by 10" matted watercolor print of a fairy dressed in pink with a flower in her hair, sitting on the beach beside a sandcastle with a hummingbird flying nearby and a full moon in the background and a lizard in the sand beside her. Get the picture?

Originally, this painting may have been titled 'Sandcastle Fairy'. But how many people will ever see it if you simply title it 'Sandcastle Fairy'? Since 'Sandcastle' is probably not a term that is highly searched in artwork, the only keyword that has much power is 'Fairy'. Searching for Fairy will probably produce hundreds (if not thousands) of pages of fairy art and this one will most likely never be seen unless the viewer has lots and lots of time to spend browsing all those pages. Trust me - they probably won't.

A better title might be:

Sandcastle Pink FAIRY Moon Hummingbird Ocean Flower Lizard Faerie Fantasy 8x10 Watercolor Art MATTED PRINT.

This sample title maximizes the use of key words and will help the search engines find your art. (Granted - not all titles are this long so you may need to eliminate some of the keywords.) You have told them that it is an 8x10 matted watercolor print and supplied a variety of keywords.

Now anyone searching for art, print, watercolor, matted print, 8x10, fairy, fantasy, faerie, hummingbird, ocean, flower, lizard, moon or sandcastle can find your artwork. You have significantly increased your chances of having this artwork found by the search engine, and your potential customer.

Your artwork title does not have to be in proper sentence structure - it just needs to relate to the subject matter and be filled with appropriate key words. If space allows, consider including your artist's name in the title as well.

Include the prominent colors of your artwork in the tag list as well. The color tags are helpful for the Home Decorators who purchase artwork to coordinate with the colors in a room.

Populate your key word or tag lists in the same manner. Be sure to include your artist name in the list. Add as many relevant key words as you can.

The following is a good example of a well populated key word list:

* Artist's name
* Matted
* print
* painting
* watercolor
* 8x10
* Girl
* Fairy
* Faerie
* Fantasy
* Art
* Hummingbird
* Moon
* Ocean
* Beach
* Hawaii
* Island
* Lizard
* Flower
* Wings
* Artwork
* Sandcastle
* Pink

You get the idea. Take time to create compelling, key word rich titles and tags. It could make the difference between your artwork never being seen and selling often.