I’m Greg and I’m a content writer but also a professional illustrator.
I’ve had several popular comic books created and I try to balance
my article and content writing with the artwork side of things.
I have been studying more and more about internet marketing and
where artwork comes into play and have found so far there is a wee
tiny bit of professional illustrators working in this area. It’s a shame too
because if you’re getting sales with bland text and clip art graphics
just think what you can do with some original art.
So I created some art on a few hotsheets and now with a new ebook
coming out. So far all went very well.
The latest thing I did was do some portraits of friends on Facebook.
I got so many ‘likes’ I figure I could do this full time. It would be a major
hassle though as it is intense work and any hack done jobs would
really show through.
I know hiring artists is tough because we’re so expensive but look around
and you may have an artist in the family or a close friend. Team up with
them. It might turn out to be fun.
Optimization is the practice of doing what it takes to make a website attractive and engaging to its visitors. Although you left the SE out of optimization, I suspect that’s where you’d like to lead the discussion. However, this forum is about creating good content for the people that visit websites: content that makes them return to them, refer them to other people, all of whom will potentially become satisfied customers (and that goes to it whether you are selling something or not).
In that respect, Greg’s “theory” is 100% correct. How many times have you purchased a product from a website without seeing a picture of what you are buying? Tutorials, portfolios, and service sites have thumbnails that explode into larger views, screenshots, diagrams, and infographics all to make their sites more engaging to their visitors.
What Greg says is that a site would certainly be more appealing to its visitors if it offered original art rather than the over-used free clipart and stock images you see on many websites. I believe he’s correct in his assumption. Proof of that is shown not only by the recent popularity of infographics but also by such sites as “The Oatmeal” and “Zen Garden” where art work is what draws visitors and brings them back for a second look. Any type of originality shouldn’t be overlooked in creating website content, just as most designers work to add originality to the website they create.
It depends on who you’re building your site for, Google or people. Naturally being able to rank well on Google or other search engines is a plus but there are plenty of people who just focus on social media these days, and are doing fine. And given Googles constant drastic changes to their algorithms that makes sites disappear overnight, I don’t blame them. Also if people like your site there’s a chance they’ll backlink to it anyway, helping it rank better.
Speaking of art, I remember a friend of mine who posted some of his drawings on his blog and added some tags that he thinks will draw visitors. Lo and behold, he had good traffic. Well, according to him, that is. He didn’t have a visitor counter back then, so I really couldn’t tell.
Another overlooked small piece of content is the alt attribute text. For those who use screen readers or text-only browsers, it tells them what is pictured on the page.
Posting art on your blog or website is a great way to promote your work. As long as you post consistently, you can keep your audience longing for more. If you are promoting your art for business, you will surely meet potential employers or clients this way. Go, go, go!
