Case Study: Brandon Hurley Arts
Having known Brandon Hurley since 1995, he is quite literally the oldest friend I have. Over our decades of friendship, I have watched him start at the bottom as an artist. Witnessing him rise to where he is today has not just been amazing to see, but his journey has also inspired me as a writer to never stop and always keep working, no matter what.
From small self-financed shows in the basements of Sports Basements, to the large, renowned galleries you can find his work in today, it is safe to say that Brandon has made it in the fine arts game. So, back in 2018, when my dear friend asked me if I could help him with an online gallery for his work, I was more than excited to lend a hand.
The first step was getting in touch with my good friend, Adam Crew, at Toebock Creative, to build out a custom website. Once that was done, it was my turn to get working. I started by writing a Homepage headline that both captures the artist’s work and grabs the visitors’ attention. Next, I got to work helping Brandon with a Meet the Artist page, which I recently just rewrote in late 2025.
The last step was to write copy for each of his collections—today there are 9 total. For an online fine arts gallery, the trick is to keep the copy concise, short (it cannot overshadow the artwork), and engaging, while also reflecting the artist and their body of work. The conclusion of these steps completed the overall development of Brandon Hurley Arts. But the work was far from done.
SEO to Establish Identity
After I uploaded all of the paintings to each of their respective collections, the next step was to start establishing keywords and writing on-page SEO. However, before I could jump into basic keywords that I wanted to target, such as “LA-based artist” or “fine arts,” I had a much bigger problem on my hands: Brandon’s name.
At the time, if one were to Google “Brandon Hurley artist,” an extremely outdated article popped up that Brandon wanted to distance himself from (due to the work being so old). But things got weirder if you simply Googled his name. The only webpage that represented Brandon as an existing artist was way down on the first page of search results. Unfortunately, it was a link to an outdated article. But what was of much more concern was the first search result, a mugshot of another man named Brandon Hurley. The link was a CBS headline: Man impersonating police officer pulls over off-duty cop, gets arrested.
So, instead of being met with Brandon Hurley the artist, one was instead met with Brandon Hurley the felon. This genius impersonated a law officer and pulled over an off-duty cop who knew him. Needless to say, things did not go well for Brandon Hurley, the felon.
After implementing my keyword strategy and doing on-page SEO for every page, collection, and individual painting, I was relieved to see that we were able to get Brandon’s name back. Currently, if you Google “Brandon Hurley” or “Brandon Hurley artist,” Brandon Hurley Arts Online Gallery ranks number one on Google. Seeing these results come to fruition was a big win for me on this job.
My Work Today
Today, I still manage the content for my dear friend’s website. To do this, I work closely with both the artist and the developer as new collections are born. I write new copy for these collections and constantly revise old copy to keep the content current. Furthermore, I continue to write on-page SEO and keep all collections updated with the artist’s most recent works.
Since its initial launch in late 2018, we have undoubtedly established Brandon Hurley’s online presence. This has, in turn, brought the artist lucrative leads for murals and commission work. Seeing results like the ones that have solidified over time in this case study has been truly fulfilling.