In This Issue:
Show me the Monet!
Art business doubles trade after website revamp
Gallery boss Melanie Jacobs knows there’s a fine art to successfully marketing a business online and that’s why she called in the UK’s SEO specialists, FirstFound when her own website was Van Gogh-ing nowhere!
Whilst Art House Design Ltd’s hosted the work of some of Britain’s best painters, the company’s website was nowhere to be found on the World Wide Web.
Says Melanie, who runs the Chingford-based gallery with husband, Peter:
“Our previous website was appalling and almost impossible to optimise because of the way it was set up. A year and a half ago we had it rebuilt and contacted FirstFound to get us higher up the search engine listings.
Despite the recession we have seen a big increase in hits to the website and calls to the gallery. Since bringing FirstFound on board we now have customers in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Bristol, Cambridge, Devon, Yorkshire and that’s because the customers were able to find us on the web.”
Amongst the top names exhibiting at Melanie’s London gallery, nestled 400 metres from stunning Epping Forest, is super-talented Paul Karslake. Paul’s own clients read like the who’s-who of showbiz and he is also the brother of Jo Wood, formerly married to Rolling Stone, Ronnie. Melanie, who is also one of the UK’s hottest up and coming artists in the business, believes search engine optimisation has brought her a new and wider audience.
She adds,
“Art lovers who are googling a particular artist have always been able to find us via the search engines. However, what FirstFound has done, is widen our audience by adding generic search terms for customers not searching by an artist’s name.
For example, some people know they want a humorous painting on the wall, but don’t know by whom, so they can google ‘humorous art’ or ‘contemporary art gallery', or 'art on box canvas' and find us up there in the UK listings. We don’t always appear first, but we do appear on the first page of searches.”
Research shows that the majority of online shoppers never search further than the first page of results when looking for a business or service.
Melanie concludes,
“As the country tightens its belts and VAT rises, there has never been a better time for businesses to market themselves online.”
Melanie Jacobs, Director
Art House Design Limited
www.arthouse-gallery.co.uk