NoDa Charlotte AI SEO, AEO and GEO for Art Studios

Decide which AI robots get into the studio

You can let AI search tools read and cite your studio's site while asking some companies not to train on your work. It comes down to a few lines in one small file.

Artists feel strongly about training, and they've got every right to. We don't push anyone either way. Our job is to make sure the file says what you mean. The mistake we'd most like to catch is a blanket block that shuts every robot out. It hides your studio from the search tools collectors use, when two targeted lines would have done the job.

When we set this up with a maker, we add a plain English comment at the top of the file. It might read: we welcome search robots and ask training robots to stay out. Robots ignore comments, but the next person who edits your site won't. That one line saves a lot of guessing later.

Changing robots.txt without locking out your own shop

Most sites keep a robots.txt file at the root of the domain. Save a copy first, change one thing at a time, and check the live file afterward.

1. Find the file Type your domain followed by /robots.txt into a browser. A short text file means you've found it. An error page usually means your site doesn't have one yet, so robots treat the whole site as open.
2. Save a copy of what's there Paste the current text into a note with today's date. If something goes sideways later, you'll know exactly what changed and when.
3. Add a group for each robot you want to stop Each group starts with a User-agent line naming the robot, then a Disallow line. 'User-agent: GPTBot' followed by 'Disallow: /' asks OpenAI's training robot to skip the whole site.
4. Leave the search robots alone Don't add groups for Googlebot or OAI-SearchBot unless you truly want to vanish from those searches. If your site runs on a shop builder, read every existing group before saving, since some of those lines may not be yours.
5. Give it a day, then look again OpenAI says its search systems can take about 24 hours to catch up after a robots.txt change. Reload the live file, confirm your edit is there, and jot down the date.

If editing the file makes you nervous, that's healthy. We'd rather you ask us to look than guess, because one stray slash can hide a whole shop. What we'd do is read the file with you on a call, make the change together, and check it from a phone before we hang up.

An artist statement that answers what buyers really ask

AI tools lift plain facts more easily than poetic ones. Keep your voice, but open with what you make, where people can see it and how they can buy it.

• What you make, in the words a buyer would type, like 'screen prints' or 'wheel-thrown mugs'
• Your studio name, spelled exactly as it appears everywhere else
• Where people can see work in person, and whether that's by appointment
• How buying works: online, at markets, by commission, or a mix
• A rough size or price range, so a buyer can tell if you fit their wall and budget
• The month and year you last updated the page

We'd keep your voice everywhere else on the site. The only goal here is that your first two sentences can stand alone. When an AI tool grabs a line or two about you, it helps a great deal if those lines are true, current and complete without the paragraph around them.

A good test is to read your opening aloud to a friend who's never seen your work. If they can't say what you make and where to find it, the machines probably can't either. It's a humbling test and a quick one, and we'd run it with you on the first call if you like.

Write the commissions page AI tools keep guessing about

Commission questions can be worth more than any single sale, so they deserve a page that settles the basics before the first DM arrives.

• If you're taking commissions right now, with the date you last checked
• What you will and won't make, like sizes, subjects or pet portraits
• Typical lead time, stated as a range you can keep
• How pricing works, like a starting range or a quote after a short call
• The steps from first message to delivery, deposits included
• One way to ask, with one form or one email address

We like this page because it serves people and machines with the same few lines. A collector gets real answers at eleven at night, and an AI tool asked whether you take commissions finds a dated yes or no, in your own words. Our favorite side effect is a quieter inbox.

Update the open or closed line the day it changes. If you're booked through summer, say so and give the month you'll reopen. An honest 'closed until June' still earns a bookmark, while a stale 'open' earns an awkward reply.

Label image files the way a gallery labels a wall

Google reads file names and alt text to learn what an image shows. For artwork, that means title, medium, size and color, written as plainly as a wall card.

Renaming a back catalog is dull work, so we'd start with the twenty pieces you most want to sell and the images on your home page. New uploads get the right name from day one. It becomes an easy habit once your camera roll stops being the last stop before the website.

Our other tip is to write alt text the way you'd describe the piece to a friend on the phone. If you'd mention the glaze color out loud, it belongs in the alt text. If you'd never say 'unique handmade artisan gift' to a friend, leave it out.

Tie your profiles together so machines stop guessing

When your website, Instagram, shop listings and market pages share one studio name and point to each other, AI tools have an easier time treating them as one maker.

1. List every place you appear Your website, social accounts, online shop, market vendor pages, gallery artist pages and any old press. We'd include the ones you've forgotten too, since machines still read them. A plain list in a notebook is plenty.
2. Match the name and the one-line bio Use the same studio name and the same short line about what you make on each one. Small differences, like '& Co.' on one and 'and Company' on another, give machines a reason to hesitate.
3. Point every profile back to your site Put your own website address in each bio or profile link. Your site becomes the hub the other profiles agree with.
4. Add sameAs links to your site's markup Organization markup can list your other official profiles with a property called sameAs. It's a short block of code, and many site builders have a plugin or a settings box for it.
5. Show on the page what the markup claims If the markup names your Instagram and your online shop, link to both on the page too, usually in the footer.

None of this is glamorous, and that's the point. AI tools stitch answers together from scraps, and every scrap that disagrees with another one is a coin flip. We'd rather remove the coin flips than chase clever tricks. When your profiles all say the same thing, there's simply less for a machine to get wrong.

Old press that still describes a studio you've outgrown

You can't unpublish an old article, but you can give AI tools a newer, dated source. A simple timeline page puts past coverage where it belongs, in the past.

• Each show with its venue, city and year
• Each article or interview with the outlet's name, the year and a link
• A short line under anything that's changed since, like a studio move or a new medium
• Your current studio details at the top, so the page never reads like history alone
• An updated date at the bottom that you actually keep current

This page does two jobs. Collectors love a clear record, since it shows a real career over time. AI tools get a dated, first-hand source that says which facts are old and which are new. We'd link to it from your About page and your footer, and we'd ask any outlet that got a detail wrong for a correction, politely, once.

If you'd like, we'll help you word that correction email. It's easier to stay polite about someone else's mistake with a second pair of eyes, and we'd keep the note short and friendly.

Ask the machines about yourself once a month

Pick a few questions a collector might ask. Put them to two or three AI tools on the same day each month, and keep the replies in one sheet.

We'd use the same wording every month and paste each reply in full, with the date and the tool's name. Summarizing a reply loses the detail that matters, like a wrong street or an old medium. Over six months, the sheet shows whether fixes on your site are finding their way into answers.

Don't panic over one odd reply, since these tools can word things differently on Tuesday than they did on Monday. The thing we watch for is a pattern: the same wrong fact turning up month after month. That's the one worth tracing back to wherever it started.

Spotting AI visitors in your analytics

ChatGPT adds a utm_source=chatgpt.com tag to links it sends, so some of those visits show up by name. Others arrive unlabeled, so count what you can and note the gaps.

1. Open your traffic sources report In Google Analytics, or in your shop builder's own stats, find the report that lists where visits came from.
2. Look for AI tools by name Search the list for chatgpt.com and perplexity.ai, plus any other AI tool you recognize. Note each one's visits for the month.
3. Check where those visitors landed Someone who lands on your commissions page from an AI answer is a very different visitor from someone who lands on an old blog post about a 2019 show.
4. Keep one row a month Month, tool, visits, landing pages and anything you sold or booked that week. A year of rows will tell you more than any single screenshot.

Expect small numbers at first, and don't let that worry you. For a solo maker, three visits from ChatGPT that land on the commissions page can matter more than three hundred from a viral post. We look at where AI visitors land before we look at how many there are, because the landing page tells you what the machine thinks you're for.

If a month shows zero AI visits, write the zero down anyway. A run of zeros followed by a sudden jump is exactly the kind of change we want to put a date on. Without the empty rows, it's easy to lose.

Evenings on your own, or a hand from us: what each job takes

A maker can do nearly all of this careful editing alone over a few evenings. Here's roughly how long each job takes, and the point where a second pair of hands pays off.

Will blocking GPTBot keep me out of ChatGPT answers?

Not by itself. OpenAI runs training and search through separate robots, so blocking GPTBot while leaving OAI-SearchBot alone keeps you eligible for ChatGPT search. Blocking both is what takes your text out.

Should I post full-size images of new work, or crops?

Neither, really. We'd post the whole piece at web size and keep the full-size, print-ready file off the site. A tight crop leaves buyers and search tools guessing what the piece even is, while a huge file is easy to lift, and robots.txt can only ask politely. Give the web-sized image a plain file name and alt text, like the gallery-label table, and save the big file for buyers who've paid.

How long before AI answers about us change?

We can't give you a date, and we'd be wary of anyone who does. Some tools read the web often, while others lean on older copies. We'd log answers monthly so you can see the shift when it comes, and we'll tell you plainly if nothing has moved.

Can I handle robots.txt myself and hire you for the rest?

Yes. Plenty of makers are handy with their own sites. We'd check your file with you on the free call, and then we'd take on only the parts you'd rather hand off.