SEO for theatres and arts venues: how to solve common problems
There’s lots of guidance out there on Search Engine Optimisation, but performing arts organisations are a little different to your average ecommerce website and require some extra thought.
We looked across our performing arts venue clients and found that, on average, organic search drives 52% of traffic and 60% of revenue. SEO is a very powerful and important tool for theatres and arts venues, yet is often underused. The event-based and short-term nature of many arts organisations can confound much of the more generic SEO advice, so in this article we’re going to be looking at it very much from your point of view.
We’ll start with a brief overview and reminder of what SEO is and how it works, then explore why arts venue websites are a little bit different, and share some ways that you can improve your visibility in search engines.
Work at a museum? Check out our SEO guide for museums
How SEO works
When Google is figuring out which results to show in response to a person’s search, it considers a huge range of factors. This determines which websites show up in the results and in what order. Search Engine Optimsation is about taking a strategic approach to this and taking active steps to improve your ranking.
Very broadly, and taking a simplified look, Google considers the following criteria for websites:
The most relevant, answering the question that the person seems to be asking
The most authoritative, determined by assessing links from other relevant, high-quality sources (if the BBC links to your website, you’re looking good)
Providing a good user experience, with pages that load quickly and are designed to be mobile-optimised
A high level of engagement, with users staying on the website rather than clicking away immediately
As a website manager, your job is to ensure that your website does all of these things and meets the needs of your audiences (and potential audiences). As you can see, SEO is no longer about keyword cramming or trying to cynically manipulate algorithms: Google have evolved their systems so that their criteria align with those of the user.
Why SEO is different for theatres and arts venues
Theatre and arts venue’s SEO considerations are a bit different to those of more ‘traditional’ websites, due to the nature of how these organisations tend to function.
The content of arts venue websites tends to be highly focused on current productions and events. These usually have a relatively short shelf-life, with the volume of searches peaking and then tailing off quite quickly. ‘Evergreen’ content, often favoured by search engines, is not as common.
Attracting inbound links (also called ‘backlinks’) to a website is often a struggle for website managers and one of the trickier aspects of SEO. This is one area where theatres and arts venues are well positioned, frequently being linked to from the local and trade press, listing sites and bloggers. These inbound links contribute significantly to your site’s authority and reputation as being an authoritative resource. These links tend to be pointed to the homepage and specific production pages.
Arts venues tend to have less general information focusing on a particular subject. There are exceptions - theatres with a focus on well-known playwrights, or performances from established repertoires (looking at you, opera companies) - which makes it possible target relevant keywords with good search volume. However, the majority of arts venues tend to skip from one subject to another, driven by an evolving and broad events programme.
Since the ‘things to do’ online arena is very competitive, it can be difficult for theatres and arts venues to rank for specific categories, artforms or more generic activity-related keywords.
There are challenges around how shows are presented and structured on an arts venue’s website, especially around recurring shows or productions which have finished their run. We’ll take a closer look at this in the Information Architecture section below.
With these unique SEO challenges in mind, let’s see how theatres and arts venues can improve their search performance by focusing on keywords, links, information architecture and accessibility.
Keywords
Ranking prominently for an artform or genre like ‘comedy’ or ‘musical’ can be tricky when going up against huge cultural listing aggregator sites, but there are still tactics you can employ to better position your theatre or arts venue.
First, it helps to create a static page dedicated to the genre or art form. For example, HOME has a theatre category page. Once you have a page dedicated to the keyword you’re trying to rank for, you can then begin to work the keyword into the page’s layout and content. That simply means making sure the keyword is contained within the URL, page title, sub-headings and copy.
Being overzealous with your keyword placement can sometimes lead to ‘keyword stuffing’, whereby the page is unsubtly filled with keywords in unnecessary or unhelpful ways. While this might sound like a shortcut to improving your SEO, don’t be tempted to try it as a shortcut. These days Google easily spots keyword stuffing and is likely to penalise your ranking as a result.
Remember to be human and meaningful when creating content around keywords. The goal is to be relevant, informative and useful - Google’s entire business is based around delivering high quality search results, so that’s what you need to aim for if you want long-term SEO success.
Other opportunities include creating evergreen lists of resources, such as live streams or downloadable learning materials. Take the National Theatre’s website as an example: they have a ‘Learn at Home’ page and an internal link to their ‘National Theatre at Home’ live stream platform on their events calendar. Internal linking like this helps Google (and visitors) to map your website and better understand how page relate to each other. Resource pages are also great opportunities for inbound links, which we’ll cover next. They can be stable content anchors in a sea of temporary event pages.
When conducting keyword research for your theatre or arts venue, the tools we typically rely on are Google Search Console, SEMrush, and Google Trends. For a more detailed look at each, see our SEO for museums article.
Links and shareability
Inbound links, or links from other websites to your website, are good indicators to Google that you are a trusted and credible source. Every time a press review or listing site links to your theatre or arts venue, it’s like a big round of applause - public recognition and appreciation of your website’s content.
Theatres and arts venues receive inbound links from media publications and events calendars, often pointing at specific events. This makes it important to keep an archive of events on your website, even after a production has finished and is no longer on sale. This prevents all those valuable inbound links from breaking after an event has finished - having inbound links all land on a 404 error page is understandably not good for your SEO.
Keeping dedicated events pages for past-run productions and recurring shows (Pantomime ‘21, Pantomime ‘22, etc) helps to maintain your link equity and ranking on search. It makes your site easier to understand for the search engines, rather than continuously being in flux. Those pages don’t need to be visible and part of the website’s primary navigation, though - expired productions can be archived so that they won’t confuse visitors or Google, while still being accessible to anyone with a direct link. The ability to do this may require new functionality from your developers, depending on how your CMS works.
Links play an essential role in SEO. To make sure they help people find your website more easily, take stock of your pages and try to create a system that streamlines current, past and recurring shows. If you could use some outside help, we offer SEO audits, training and solutions - do get in touch.
Information architecture
How things are organised and labelled on a website is referred to as ‘information architecture’, and it can make a big difference to SEO.
Having a well-structured theatre or arts venue site that is easy to navigate indicates to search engines that users will have a good experience on your site and be able to find answers and relevant content in an intuitive way.
There are many complex criteria that go into building a website that people enjoy using and can navigate easily, but these elements are a great starting point:
How are pages organised? Do they use H1, H2, meta titles, descriptions and tags?
Are links clear, working and understandable for visitors?
Does the site flow logically, making it easy for users to find information?
The structure of a theatre of arts venue website therefore needs to be carefully considered. How pages relate to each other is as important as the contents of individual pages. Making sure that your What’s On section functions clearly and that event pages are clear and accessible is vital.
Good information architecture is often what makes a website ‘feel’ right to a visitor, even if they are not consciously aware of what is happening behind-the-scenes. At the same time it assists search engines, helping them to accurately assess the website’s intent.
If you’d like some help improving your site’s layout and organisation, we do offer information architecture audits. Check out this post for more details.
Accessibility
Making sure your theatre or arts venue website is accessible is important for your visitors and it is also a key factor towards SEO success.
How can you improve the accessibility of your website? Depending on the type of media you have - images, videos, podcasts - check that they include alt text, subtitles or transcripts so people who are visually- or hearing-impaired can still access it.
Likewise, are people who watch videos with no sound (such as when on a mobile device in public) or have slow internet connections still able to use and engage with your website’s content? Video captions and smaller file sizes will help in these two examples. Website contrast is also a factor to consider: is text easily legible against the background?
Accessibility is a much bigger subject than we can address in this article. The best approach is often to talk to those directly affected to find out what more you can be doing. By taking different visitors’ circumstances into consideration, you’ll be able to close the gaps in accessibility, simultaneously appealing to a wider audience and better optimising for search.
SEO next steps
Where do you go from here? To increase your theatre or arts venue website’s SEO performance and help people find you online more easily, consider these immediate next steps:
Carry out some keyword research - what are people searching for in relation to your theatre/arts venue? Prioritise those search terms! We have more tips on how to conduct keyword research here.
Review your dedicated event pages (current, past and recurring shows) and make sure inbound and internal links are working
Update existing content to improve your website’s information architecture and accessibility.
At One Further, we’ve helped all sorts of theatres and arts venues with their SEO, including the British Museum, National Museums Scotland, Art UK and Shakespeare’s Globe. We’ve also delivered SEO training sessions on behalf of the Arts Marketing Association.
If you’d like help taking the next step or you’re interested in an SEO audit for your website, please get in touch and let’s have a chat.