subject: How To Get Your Band Indexed By Google Cheaply And Quickly [print this page] Here's a little secret: The music industry is a competitive market.
Actually, it isn't much of a secret anymore. If you want to succeed in the music world, it takes hard work and a lot of luck. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to improve the odds in your favor and one of these things is very simple. By creating a stir about your band in the digital world, you may quickly find yourself becoming more popular among the big recording label world as well.
That being said, how does one go about creating this digital fanbase and online shift in the musical paradigm? The secrets that webmasters have employed over the years have proven very effective in rocketing their pages to the top of search engine results and they can be put to equally effective use for your band. These secrets are commonly referred to as SEO, or Search Engine Optimization.
* Create a band website. If you intend to create a stir in the digital world, you need to claim your piece of digital real estate. If you can afford it, buy a domain name that is the same as your bands name or relates to your band in some way. For example, if your band is called Wild Pony, try to buy the domain name wildpony.com or rockingwildpony.com and use this as the building block of your digital music movement.
* Add content to your site. No one wants to visit sites that aren't finished. Make sure your band website offers relevant information about your band. Include biographies of your band members and lots of quality pictures. Mention the band name and musical style several times on every page of the website. Make certain to give attention to songs or lyrics that your fans may recognize or search for online.
* Add video. People love to watch performers in action. If you embed video in your pages or link to video sharing sites, like YouTube.com, your visitors will actually have the opportunity to experience both the look and sound of your band. Make certain to watermark your videos so, if they go viral, they can always be traced back to their original source. By taking this extra step, you may find that a fan with the right connections has dropped your band right into the email inbox of a big recording label executive.
* Add free mp3 downloads. People love freebies and the search engines know this. If your site is offering something free, you can safely bet it will appear in the search engine results page. Upload a few of your bands best recordings and offer them as a free gift to your fans.
* Add a blog. Your band will have lots of news, ranging from your upcoming local performances to the release of your recordings on CD. Using the same method of prominently mentioning your band name and keywords in your blog as you did on your main website will yield rich results in the search engines. Be certain to ping your blog to the search engines after every post and adding a service, such as Google Feedburner, will increase your chances of getting noticed in the search engine results.
* Promote, Promote, Promote! Join music forums and groups. Create profiles and custom signatures on these sites and make certain to take an active part in the conversations that are going on. Just one comment per day for a month will yield thirty backlinks to your bands website. Use social media sites, like Facebook and MySpace, to create additional locations where the search engines can find information about your band. Take advantage of the quick marketing services of Twitter, whose results are now incorporated in Google search engine results, to spread the word about your bands activities.
With the implementation of these SEO secrets, your band can create a digital revolution. As you rise to the top of the Google search engine results, you may also find yourself climbing up the musical charts.
