Before I made art full time I worked in VFX, mostly After Effects and some 3D. So I can read a technical tool, but I am not a programmer, and code was never my strong side. Still, while trying to improve my own art site, I ended up building my own image-SEO tool with AI. This is how, and what it means if you sell your work online.

Why an artist started using AI

I started using AI like everyone does, asking questions. Then I started asking it to do things. The step from “explain how this works” to “ok, build it” was much smaller than I thought.

The problem: Google could not see my paintings

Not the paintings, the photos of them. Every work in my collection of original abstract paintings has a few images, the full piece, a close-up of the brushwork, a room shot for scale. Those extra photos are half the reason somebody falls for a piece, and Google was seeing almost none of them.

The reason is boring. Most online stores give Google a sitemap with one image per product, just the main thumbnail. Every other photo stays invisible to search. For a shop selling mugs, who cares. For an artist, where the detail shot is the thing that sells, it is a real loss.

So I built the tool instead of renting it

I found an app that fixed exactly this. It wanted about £15 a month, forever, for one small feature.

Two years ago I would pay and move on. This time I thought, I understand what this does. Is not magic. It reads my products, lists every image, writes an image sitemap. So I tried. I described what I wanted, the AI wrote the code, it broke, I described the break, it fixed it. A few nights later I had a working version, mine, free, and I understood every line.

What I actually found

The real surprise was bigger than the sitemap. While fixing my own site, I saw that with a bit of expertise in anything, you can now build your own small tools instead of renting them. The big platforms win by size, but one person with an AI goes ten times further than before. That is not only for me, it is for any independent artist, and really any independent maker.

One thing still gets on my nerves. Search “how to buy a painting from an independent artist” and the big online galleries come up first, Saatchi Art, Artfinder, places like that. They look like the independent artists, but really they are marketplaces that hold thousands of us in one place. I sell on them too, they bring me real buyers, so I am not against them, it is just how the size game works. Still, on my own site, it is the thing I want to change.

I will keep building these small tools and writing what I find, in plain language, for other artists. If something helps me get my work seen, it will help the next artist too.

You can see the work in my original abstract paintings and fine art prints, or read about me.

FAQ

What is an image sitemap?

A plain file that lists every image on your site and which page it belongs to, so search engines can find and index photos they would otherwise miss. It sits next to your normal sitemap.

How do I get my art images indexed on Google?

Make sure every image is listed in a sitemap, not just the main thumbnail, and give each one a unique, honest description. An image sitemap does the listing part for you.

Why isn't Google showing all my product images?

Most store platforms only put the main image of each product in the sitemap they generate. The other photos, detail shots, alternate angles, room views, get left out unless you add them yourself.

How can artists improve image SEO on Shopify?

Add an image sitemap that covers every photo, write unique alt text and descriptions, and keep each page content rich so every image has real context.

Do you need to code to build an image sitemap tool?

No, but you need to understand what the tool should do. It depends of the platform, but the idea is the same everywhere, make sure search engines can see every image, not only the first one.