Google changes the search game - this is a VERY big deal

Whether this freaks you out, makes you excited or passes you by will depend on how interested you are in the internet.

More particularly, how interested you are in SEO, traffic and how to get people to come to any website that you have.

I wasn't sure whether to post this as many musicians will think that it won't affect them. Their website isn't something that they spend time optimising and trying to ensure that it ranks in Google. Fair enough - most don't.

But, this is going to affect everyone and every website. Perhaps for the better, but when your life revolves around getting traffic to a website (as does mine) this is a massive change.

So, what is it?

Yesterday Google added 'personal search' to their search results.

This means that from now on whenever you search for anything Google will use what it knows about you and what you have on the web (for now, stuff you have in Google's apps like G+, Picasa etc) to add to your results.

They say:

"Search is pretty amazing at finding that one needle in a haystack of billions of Web pages, images, videos, news and much more," 

"But clearly, that isn't enough. You should also be able to find your own stuff on the Web, the people you know and things they've shared with you, as well as the people you don't know but might want to ... all from one search box."

The company added: "Search is simply better with your world in it."

What will this mean for your artist website? Who knows until it starts to pan out and we see the effects but it might make more people come to your site as they see that their friends have mentioned you on G+ or have taken photos at a gig.

As someone who spends time trying to make websites rank better in search results it's another thing to learn and work out!

One things for sure, Google are pushing hard to make 'social search' improve the search experience and therefore being part of their social network as an individual and as a band (with a brand page, or in our case, band page) isn't really an option, it's a 'must-do'.

Read Google's own blog on this here.

And this article on CNN is great too.

Here's the video:

Wordpress, SEO and your music website

This is a great video about how to make the right Search Engine Optimisation choices for your website.

If you don't yet have a website to promote your music, you are living in the dark ages.

Admittedly, this video is some pretty detailed information on how marketers set up their websites to make sure that they rank in Google (and other search engines) for the keywords they want to rank for.

It makes sense for every band to aim to do the same.

If this is all new to you, the very knowledgeable Michael Brandvold and Brian Thompson are running a webinar on How to use Wordpress for your Website in a few weeks time.

It will be great.

Here's the video for the SEO geeks:

SEO for bands

We made a video on band website seo - which, in my own humble opinion, is really good.

We often talk about the need for bands and musicians to discover at least the basics of search engine optimisation so that they can attract more traffic to their site.

More traffic = more fans = more sales. The post on our site proves the point with data.

I was reminded of our post by this one from Prescription PR which is methodical and detailed yet easy to follow.

Search engine optimisation (or, for you acronym-loving hipsters, SEO) is a hot topic for any business; appearing in the top 3 results for a particular search query can mean the difference between loads of clients and none. But is it any use to bands and musicians? Well, yes. For two reasons:

• Firstly, you need people who like your music to be able to find your website when they search for you (and quite possibly, you want it to appear ahead of any Myspace pages, Facebook pages etc.)
• Secondly, you want people who might like the kind of music you make (for example, Nu-metal-Dubstep-Shoegaze-Emo-Chillwave or whatever the latest bollox is popular in Shoreditch) to come across you when they search for your band.

It's well worth a read.

And, just to round it off, this is an older post that I have bookmarked and still refer to as it approachs the issue of seo from the 'what not to do' angle.

 

Google Author Rank for musicians

I just learnt about this today and it's not quite ready to help musicians, but it will....soon.

Google Author Rank is part of the Google+ and +1 explosion.

It is Google's latest element in the socialisation of search results. As it gets adopted by authors who write on blogs and other sites, their Google+ profile details will be logged and affect search engine results and their image will appear in search results as in the image above.

This is a big deal!

An expert article from a Social Media / SEO (genuine) expert explains it here.

The fact that the quality of an author's content (as voted for by Google+ users and the +1 button clickers) will affect the ranking of Google's results is enough. But, when an image of an author appears on the right hand side of a search result, you can guarantee that search result will get more clicks.

It's early days and eventually all results will have author images, but controlling that to your advantage is another little slice of web-savvy that all musicians will need to master.

As yet, Google doesn't want you to have an artist or business profile - just individuals. But, very soon they will roll this out. And, if you use Author Rank and have a Google+ profile for your band with some great profile images, you'll be able to make these appear in the Google search results.

If you're writing about your local area's music scene or your musical niche globally (as you probably should be), that visual reinforcement of your band's involvement will be important to how you're perceived.

So, this is a tip that you can't actually use....yet, but it's such a game changer in terms of search and visibility that you need to be ready for it.

Read and bookmark this article and remember to come back when Google allows you to have an artist Google+ profile!

SEO for musicians

I'm linking to this article on Hypebot because I'd like all musicians to learn a bit about SEO - because it WILL bring you some new fans.

Why wouldn't you want that?

I know this from experience and use it for my clients as set out in the video below.

So you finally have a website for your group or band, but you have no idea how to get traffic there. This is an issue that many musicians go through because they have no real knowledge of SEO (search engine optimization). In order to get traffic to your site, you have to properly optimize your website which in turn will improve your rankings and move you up higher within search engine results. Contrary to what many believe, it’s really not as hard as it seems. With a little hard work and persistence, you’ll have your website at the top of those results before you know it. Here are 9 tips you can use to help you get there.

Read the Hypebot article here.

Watch our SEO basics video here.

 

All you need to know about SEO for musicians

OK, maybe not all, but I've seen a bunch of articles over the last few weeks, which, when grouped together, will give you a very solid training in what SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is and why you need to do at least some to further your music career.

I'll let the articles do most of the talking, but, in short, you need to learn what things you should aim to have your music website rank for in Google (and other) searches and some basic techniques that will help you do that.

Start with this article on Musician Wages for a great overview:

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is process of organizing the content of a website in a way that will be most easily understood and indexed by search engines. If you do it right, you will be closer to the top of the list when strangers search for terms relating to your website. For instance, if you are a punk bluegrass accordion trio, you should be at the top of the listings whenever anybody searches for that genre of music.

Read it here.

Then their follow up article talks about how to apply your new found SEO knowledge to other online sites that can point people (and search engines) back to your main website:

Musicians needn’t be overly concerned with SEO on their own website if it’s for mostly promotional and informational purposes. This is very true, and the last thing a working musician needs is one more distraction from their instrument. However, the concepts are important to understand as you expand your internet presence because better optimization helps more people find your music. In this article, we’ll apply these concepts outside the musician’s website and into other online communities.

Read that here.

Then I'd recommend moving on to this article on Music Think Tank that goes into some specific but very basic and simple methods that you ought to know:

Search engine optimization (SEO) often gets passed off as a sort of snake oil — some gimmicky trick that people do to manipulate search results in their favor.

SEO is really about one thing: making what your website is about clear to people and bots alike. There’s no tricks or gimmicks, and if you can make a website or manage a wordpress installation, you can do some very simple things to make your website more search engine and people friendly.

Read that one here.

Then, last but obviously not least, there's our post and video on Band Website SEO which covers a lot of the same stuff but you get to hear my dulcet tones to boot!

Band Website SEO post and video.

Really - do take some time to read and digest this info. It's a good basic training that will help you in ways that you can't really understand until you try them. It won't break your career instantly but it will, with luck, bring in some new fans and may create opportunities out of the blue!

How to profit from file sharing

People will download your music for free - it's a fact and you aren't going to stop it.

What you can do though, is engage in some smart 'search engine optimisation' so that a page offering your music (perhaps for free in exchange for an email) in an easy to obtain way (or perhaps a very cheap one click download) ranks above any pages that you might see come up in a search where people could download for free - e.g. torrents or rapidshare and that kind of thing.

We looked at band website SEO in that post on our main blog, and the video I made is very good basic training. I suggest you check it out if you need to learn the first steps.

But, this post on Music Think Tank deals with specifically setting up your SEO to make sure that your site ranks highly when people search for 'your band free download' or 'your band torrent'. It's a tricky skill to master but I believe in SEO for musicians and think you should take the time to learn what it can do for you.

Sean Parker of Napster fame recently stated in an interview, “you look at the data, somewhere between 4 trillion and 10 trillion songs are illegally downloaded every year.  And we’re looking at maybe 4 billion or so legal downloadeds per year.”

Music will always surface on file sharing platforms and consumers will continue to download music for free, but recordings are even more important for artists than ever before.  There is a new purpose for recorded content; artists will no longer generate revenue directly from recordings, instead this will be the entrance point for consumers into the brand.  Great music will generate revenue through merch or ticket purchases, or lead to sponsorships as major brands seek out artists to enhance the value of their own product.  The solution to file sharing is for artists to better manage their recorded music by creating a dedicated landing page on their own website, housing a free album download.

Read the whole post here.

Note that Google has started very recently filtering some of the 'piracy' words out of elements of their search (see this Mashable piece for that news) and I expect this to increase, but this remains a very sensible strategy.

Common SEO misconceptions - learn SEO for your band website

I did a piece on our main blog about Band website SEO the other day.

This is a major topic that, if mastered, can seriously affect your success as a musician. Watch my video on the blog and see what I mean!

However, it is really detailed and takes a while to master.

I thought that this article might give you a few pointers to set you off in the right direction in thinking about how what you put on your site can attract the sort of internet seracher who might like your music.

If you get what I'm saying, do your own research and learn more about SEO for your band website. I will do more on the blog over time too.

Business owners, website operators, students – they all ask for SEO advice.  Usually, I ask them a few questions in return before giving out my words of wisdom.  Questions such as: “What are you doing currently for SEO?”, or “What do you know YOU aren’t doing?”.

Something I noticed when asking the questions of those asking ME questions, was that there were several things people were doing (or not doing but THINK they should be doing), that would not help them in their SEO efforts.  So for today we will go over common SEO misconceptions, and a few things you CAN do to help you SEO rankings.

Read the piece here.

Basic SEO tips for musicians

Solid article with good basic information that you should bear in mind when building your band website.

If you know nothing about SEO ('Search Engine Optimisation') , then this will give you your first bit of knowledge and you can go from there.

Trust me - making your site rank in Google searches for some keywords is worth the time and effort!

How do you find information online? In reputable blogs, or your friend’s Facebook wall? Through Google and other search engines? Well, you’re not alone. Millions of people look for information via search everyday.

In a world saturated with entertainment options, improving your website so that it receives more traffic from search engines, also known as search engine optimization (SEO), is more important than ever. So let’s talk about some ways to get your band website ranking near the top of those results!

Read the article here.

Using SEO Backlinks to help get your music found

I am a bit of an SEO junkie and would love to find the time to instruct musicians in the basics of this dark art for their band website.

I will try!

But this article teaches the basic concept of using keyword text in the links that point to the stuff that you want people to find.

Did you know that the hyperlinks you create can boost your search engine ranking and improve your web presence? It’s true! Using relevant link text when you link back to your website, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace etc. will boost and broaden the search ranking of the page you are linking to. These keyword-studded “backlinks” will make it easier for your fans to find your web pages in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing because these pages will rank better in search results. And it only takes a few seconds to turn a boring “click here” link into a search engine optimized one.

Read it here.