Moving on up the Google rankings :)

My name is Mark Castro-Garcia, and I'm a freelancer...I set myself a goal, to get myself listed on the first page of results on Google, when you search for "freelance artworker" (ie. in the top ten).

The other day, I noticed I'd risen from the 5th page to the 3rd page, at position 21...this morning I checked, and I'm in at number 11, on page 2! Only one more increase, and I'll have achieved my goal! I won't stop there though...I intend to keep on improving - I mean for a start, my page/site is pretty sparse, so I will work on the content and the layout more, and keep updating my blog regularly as well.

One thing I've spotted is that the old link to my blog, via my site, directed people to a specific blog entry, and not my whole blog, so I've corrected that now...hopefully that will make a difference, as I've heard that blog content can be just as important to SEO results as site content.

SEO test for "freelance artworker"

I searched on Google for "freelance artworker" and there are some freelancers who regularly turn up in the top ten (on the first page of results), and I wondered if that meant they ever got offered more work?

So I took my test site, http://www.yewhew.com/freelance-artworker/ and did a little SEO test to see if I could boost my Google ranking...I currently don't have much content on my site - mainly a list of links to my other profiles - but I read that it is a good thing to have anchor text containing the keywords you want to help you, and also, that if you link to another page or site, it also helps to link back to it.

I've tried those, and now my ranking has increased to Number 21, which puts me top of Google's page 3 of results - not bad for a first attempt  :)

I also read that it's important to have content on your site, or about yourself/site - on a blog for instance...so I am definitely going to try and blog a little more regularly, to see if it helps boost my search ranking even further...

Freelance artworker

I have been a freelance artworker since April 2010 and have been artworking for over 12 years. I've worked primarily on design for print, but  I have been working on some digital projects as well (html emails, Flash websites, animated gif banners, apps for iPhone and adverts for iPad).

I've been very busy freelancing, so I've not had much time to work on my own website (http://www.yewhew.com/freelance-artworker/) but I intend to. As long as I'm this busy, I believe there will remain a market for artworking design for print, but if it goes into decline, I'm prepared to become a freelance digital artworker as my main role.