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By Robby A.
Search Engine Optimization or SEO for short, is a popular, though widely misunderstood,
topic for any company or business that operates a website. Since music promotion
in the 21st century is also centered on the internet, it's also a topic more
and more bands and artists are turning their attention to. Unfortunately, while
information on SEO for online shops and casinos is in abundance, very few SEO
experts have devoted much of their time to helping underground musicians drive
traffic to their websites or social media profiles.
To start off with, Search Engine Optimization is the task of both improving
a website so that it gets noticed by the major search engines and bringing
attention to it on other websites with the ultimate goal of increasing traffic
quantity and quality on the target site. For bands, this means crafting and
refining a website and trying to get as many potential listeners to visit the
site as possible.
Many bands make the mistake of overlooking a website
altogether. They falsely believe that in the era of MySpace, Facebook, Twitter,
SoundCloud, ReverbNation and countless other social media networks that they
do not need to invest the time in operating their own website. While the
aforementioned social networking sites are also a necessity in music promotion,
there are still not replacements for a website of your own. Having your own
website has the benefit of giving you complete artistic freedom over the
layout and setup of the site. Moreover, it gives you a more professional
look and lets you stand out among the crowd of unending "MySpace bands" out
there.
Once you have your own website, your SEO work can begin.
First of all, you should make sure to add new and unique content to your
website as often as possible. Besides adding the mandatory biographical and
discography information about your band, think about adding a blog and make
sure you update the site regularly with news about upcoming releases and
live shows. This not only gives your users a reason to come back to your
website on a regular basis, but it makes the search engines come back as
well. When new content appears on your site often, the search engines (mainly
Google), will "crawl" your
website more often as well. This means that new content you add will appear
in their search results more quickly.
Besides maintaining fresh content on your site, you should also make an effort
to drive traffic to your website from other sources. Be active in online music
forums and whenever possible, include a link to your site. The more other websites
link to your site, the more highly Google and other search engines will regard
your site. This will also serve to increase your site's ranking in the search
results.
Though the topic of Search Engine Optimization is certainly too broad to cover
in a single article, the ideas covered here should give bands and artists a
good jumping off point. Starting your own website is key to your promotional
activities. The rise and fall of MySpace is a clear lesson in social media:
bands who invested too much time in promoting their music there have been rewarded
with fewer and fewer plays and page views as their fans leave the site. Time
invested into your own website will not be wasted since you will be immune
to trends in social media.
Robby A. coordinates promotional activities for the Breakcore music project
Hybrid System.
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