The music industry is a competitive rollercoaster of ups and downs. There are thousands of musicians and bands across the world, and they are all striving to be the best – but to be the best, you need to have a large following. If you’re lucky enough to get noticed by a record label, they will take care of your marketing for you, and will help you gain a following. For the thousands of other bands that don’t get that recognition, they must attract their own fans. Online web sites, blogs and videos will help gain more fans, but how can you make sure that people find your web site or blog out of the millions of music pages on Google? If you want large amounts of people to discover your music, then you need to use SEO.
What is SEO?
SEO (also known as search engine optimization) is the process of creating web content, and optimizing it to achieve higher search engine results rankings. There is a wide variety of methods used to achieve a higher SEO ranking, and in this article we will take a look at three of the top SEO methods that musicians can use to gain better rankings in search engine results.
Top 3 SEO tips for musicians
- Keyword optimization
- Use video for enhanced SEO
- Update content frequently
How to use SEO keywords to get more visitors to your music site
The goal of using SEO is to attract more visitors to your web site. The best way to do this is by using keywords that a lot of people search for. Those keywords should also relate to your musical offerings. For instance, if you’re a piano teacher in Albany, you will want to use keywords such as “piano teacher in Albany,” “cheap piano lessons in Albany,” “best piano composer in Albany,” etc. Do keyword research, and find out which keywords people are searching for the most. Then you can create web content (articles, blog posts, press releases, etc.), and incorporate those keywords into that content. This is one of the easiest, yet most effective, methods of SEO available.
Use video for enhanced SEO
Video is a crucial part of SEO. As a musician, you most likely already have at least one video. Each time you post a blog article, try to put a video in it. If you don’t have enough videos, or if you don’t have any videos at all, you can always use videos from YouTube or other video-sharing sites. However, as your goal is to gain exposure for yourself or your band, videos of your own musical offerings will be perceived more effectively. Not only that, you can make money for each view your video receives through YouTube.
Keywords should be used in your videos to help increase the search engine results rankings. You can place your keywords in the title, the description, meta content, and tags. As part of your exposure campaign, you should also post your videos on music forums, social media pages, and other sites that will help you acquire fans.
Update content frequently
One of the worst things you can do is to let your web site go stale; that is, to stop adding fresh content to the site. For instance, some musicians think that all they need to do is create a few SEO-optimized blog posts, and leave it at that. But Google actually penalizes sites that go stale, while rewarding sites that update their content on a frequent basis. Aim for a minimum of one blog post every two weeks, but if you have time, 1-2 blog posts per week will show even more effective results in your SEO rankings. Be sure to use optimized keywords, photos, and videos whenever possible.
Pro Tip: If your music obligations are keeping you too busy to keep your web site and blog updated, you can outsource content to talented freelancers through Elance, Craigslist, Odesk, Guru, and other similar sites.
Conclusion
SEO is still a strong force for acquiring traffic to your web site, and should be used whenever you create content that will be posted on the web. If SEO seems a little challenging to you, there are many automated tools that can help. For instance, if you have a WordPress blog, you can take advantage of one of the many WordPress SEO plugins. Those plugins will help make sure that all content you post is properly optimized for search engines. Then you can concentrate on doing what you love—making music—instead of worrying about whether you used enough SEO methods to gain exposure on your latest blog post.
By incorporating the above methods into your web content, you can gain higher search engine results rankings, exposure, and hopefully many adoring, lifelong fans in the process!
