Artist website backlinks ideas

Learn how to secure valuable backlinks for your artist website with actionable ideas and straightforward tips. 

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Link Building for artists websites

What is a Backlink? How do I get them?

Backlinks are hyperlinks from one website to another. While the content of your website (images and text mostly) represents its value, backlinks validate it. It’s like a recommendation letter to your future employer. It gives trust, opportunity and validation of your skills and qualities.

Backlinks quantity and quality

We wrote an article about David Bowie’s paintings as a tribute. His visual art talent was rarely talked about even when he was on every news portal. Our article received and continues to receive links from the New York Times, the Guardian and Vice magazine! Thanks to this, our article was recognized and ranked 1st on Google. Our website was also appraised by Google after reviewing other articles we wrote. In this era of Fake News and trolls, credibility is more important than ever.

1. Find good quality websites

Would you rather get a backlink from a big website or from a random blogger? Are they serious websites that are worth your time? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. You can use Moz SEO Toolbar to get a brief idea:

2. Website authority

You can find out if a website has a fair Page Authority (PA) or Domain Authority (DA). DA and PA are expressed on a scale from 1 to 100, the higher, the better. Don’t forget to check if it also has a low Spam Score (expressed in percentage).

3. Secured website

The website needs to be HTTPS (SSL secured, with a ‘lock’ icon next to the URL)

4. Subject Matters

Would you rather have a link from a curator’s blog or a beauty magazine? It will have more value if it’s related to art or the subject matter. For example, if you are a feminist activist artist fighting for equal rights with your art, the backlink doesn’t need to be from an art site. The link can be from any website article about politics, social studies, or legal studies.

5. DoFollow link

Even if it is not as important as before, ask or check for a DoFollow link. A NoFollow link isn’t great. You can use this website to check.

6. Links from Social media

Links from social media do not provide any value for your SEO. The only benefit they provide is traffic to your website. Search engines like Google will not consider the links if they are from a social media post or story.

7. Links from galleries?

Links from galleries are great, but few galleries will agree to make a link. After all, they are the middlemen. They could potentially lose business if they embed a link to your personal website. You must convince them or switch to a more open-minded gallery partner. And if you have a catalog of prices on your website, you must be on the same page as your galleries. You could not price your art cheaper on your own site than on the gallery’s.

8. Search Your Niche

Whatever visual expression you are making, someone else in the world could have been working in a similar direction. When you search for your kind of art, you can also find out what others are doing and how they are perceived. For example, if you are in abstract art, search for the galleries and artists in this niche. Contact them, and learn from them. Search for Google Image to learn how people view abstract art in this country or language. It might inspire you in many ways.

9. Human Link

Would you like to be a reference in your niche with many great links? You can’t do it all by yourself. You need to connect with others who are sharing the same interest. “Internet is a table for two.” However, we tend to forget that they are real people on the other side of the screenwriting to request a link from ourselves (and vice versa). Forget about links for one moment. Ask about the person you are contacting, his/her projects, future plans, and even life stories. Invite him/her for a video chat. Once you establish a human connection, everything else should just unfold naturally.