Weeknotes #12
This week there was a NP-no announcement, chats with dance, visual arts and printmaking organisations, and a great Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) resource from the team at Cog.
Investment Programme 2023-26 announcement
On Wednesday we were expecting to hear the details of Arts Council England’s (ACE) Investment Programme for 2023-26, detailing who would be joining (and leaving) as National Portfolio Organisations (NPO) and Investment Principles Support Organisations (IPSO). These organisations are key to delivering the10-year Let’s Create strategy.
Early on Tuesday morning the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) requested ACE delay the announcement, with Rishi Sunak taking office as the new Prime Minister.
“We feel for all organisations anxiously awaiting the outcome of their funding application. We recognise the importance of giving organisations certainty to enable business planning and we know a delay will cause some disruption. We hope organisations can understand the rationale for this decision and thank them for their patience. We are working with DCMS to reschedule this announcement as soon as possible.”
As an Arts Council England employee, I see the amount of work, planning and effort across the organisation over the last weeks and months, all gearing up to Wednesday’s announcement. It’s not easy to slam the brakes on something as big as this which affects so many people across the cultural sector.
It’s been an excruciating week for applicants waiting to hear the outcome, but we now have a new date, Friday 4 November, when the Investment Programme 2023-26 will be announced 🙌.
“In agreement with @DCMS, we are pleased to confirm that all our 2023-26 Investment Programme applicants will receive decisions from us on Friday 4 November. We apologise for the uncertainty this delay has caused and thank applicants for their patience. We have contacted all applicants to let them know of the new announcement date”
Conversations this week
After last week’s trips to London and Lytham St Annes, this one was firmly back in the home office.
On Monday I spoke to Maddy Morgan (Executive Director) at Rhiannon Faith dance company. We had a great chat about the issues facing touring organisations to get first-party data about their audiences.
Drowntown © Rhiannon Faith
Later in the week I caught up with Finn Warman (Programme and Communications Coordinator) at Arts Catalyst. They are launching a brand new website and brand design in November, so our discussions was all around the setup and configuration of Google Analytics 4 and Tag Manager to track the right objectives.
Finally I had a call with Andrew Hardie (Marketing and Digital Coordinator) at Northern Print. We set up a Google Analytics 4 integration with Shopify two weeks ago, so we looked through the new data available and I introduced the wonders of Looker Studio.
Read of the week
SEO in the cultural sector
Michael Smith (Founding Director) at Cog has written a comprehensive guide to Search Engine Optiomisation (SEO) for cultural organisations. It answers questions such as: What is SEO? How do search engines work? What content is best?
Title tags and Meta descriptions
“We’ve heard of many SEO agencies advising our clients to engage in ‘Link building’. We strongly advise against anything that might be considered an attempt to manipulate Google algorithm – never buy links. It’s just not worth it.”
There’s some great nuggets in here and suggested areas to focus on.
“One missed opportunity we see a lot, is where arts organisations direct people to the websites of the venues where they are touring (usually because the venue is handling ticket sales).”
I say comprehensive, it’s over 9,000 words long (is that dissertation length?), so get comfy and settle in!