SEO For Musicians
SEO is the process of making your content visible and appealing to search engines such as Google. The acronym stands for “Search Engine Optimisation” and it is exactly that. SEO is an art of optimising your content so that it will rank high on search results and bring you in organic traffic, which is traffic you don’t have to pay for!
SEO can be very useful for musicians, as it can for most businesses. Unfortunately, it is something which not many people know about and even when they do it’s often pushed to the side.
If you’re wondering why your online presence is disastrous, then i’ve got one thing to say to you… SEO!
Optimising your online presence is an intimidating task for musicians. This post will help you to understand the music SEO basics and how to market your music using some simple SEO tricks.
Optimise Your Website
If you don’t have a website… Get one!
Google prioritizes content that comes from the artist’s official site when dictating it’s rankings. In order for you to climb the google ranks you need to have an optimised website with keywords, metadata and a user-friendly experience.
A website is the beating heart of your online presence. With an official website, your fans will have a hub where they can easily access your latest releases, music and upcoming projects. Your website should feature links to your music and be well branded with a solid bio, images, links to a merch store and detail upcoming events.
Keywords
Anytime you produce online content it is vital that you identify the most relevant and fruitful keywords. Research keywords that are used to find music similar to use, such as popular artists, hit or genre terms. Once you have these keywords they need to be input in your metadata and on-page content. Add synonyms, relevant words and keyword stems.
Warning: Be careful not to over-do it! Many search engines view “keyword stuffing” as a seriously bad tactic. If you get caught doing this, which you will, the search engines will punish your content, perhaps permanently!
Meta-Descriptions
A meta-description is an attribute that provides a brief summary of a web page. Google, and other search engines, read this little nugget of HTML and get an understanding of what your page is about.
A good meta description will help users to understand the content on your page. It is a preview, almost like a book’s blurb, and should be used to inform potential readers what content they might encounter on the page. These can heavily influence click-through-rates, and should be optimised to entice readers and contain relevant keywords for the search engine’s algorithm to pick-up on.
Title Tags
A title tag is a HTML element that outlines the title of a web page. When you view search results in the SERPs (search engine results pages), the title tag is the name of the page that you see.
The title tag is meant to be and accurate overview of the page. Really, your title tag should not exceed 60 characters. But be sure to use those characters up!
Don’t stuff these full of keywords. The search engine algorithms are smart and this will push you down the SERPs.
Headers
Using headers is a great way of utilising on-page SEO. Headers help both the search engine and the reader. The reader can visibly see what section is what and google can understand what each subsection is supposed to be about.
URL
Using a clean, relevant URL slug can help search engines index your content correctly. A URL, typical known as a “web address” specifies where the content is located.
When it comes to SEO, URLS are a minor ranking factor. Search engines read the keywords within the URL to gage the topic of the content.
But, URL keywords are only a small factor. The typically don’t have a large impact on a page’s ability to rank well. The best way to use URLs is too create clean URLs which have a simple structure, are reasonably short and refer correctly to the content. This means using URLs like ‘www.mymusicsite.com/online-store’. Be sure to input the dashes as part of your slug, because search engines consider dashes to be spaces.
Internal Links
An internal link is a link that directs visitors from one page of your website to another. When you are making a hyperlink, the text that is visible to the reader is the “anchor text”. For the best music SEO results, it’s best to avoid generic phrases such as “click here” and “read more”. Instead, you would be much better off using “read about our upcoming gigs”, “Check out our merch store here!” or similar. These give google keywords that they can pick up on to know that the text is about a certain topic.
Alt Text
Wherever you have images, ensure you add appropriate alt text. Again, using keywords in here can be a good way to tell search engines that your content is about a certain topic. However, you need to keep the alt text relevant to the image.
Speed
Find a website hosting agency which has a strong reputation. You will need a service which offers fast site speeds and can guarantee 99.9% uptime. Any on-site SEO will be meaningless if your site won’t load or constantly goes down.
Mobile Optimisation
According to research around 63% of music searches happen via a mobile device. This means that you will need to ensure your content is optimised and can load quickly on a mobile device.
Additionally, Google’s SEO algorithms give favour to content which is accessible on mobile devices.
You will find several tools and guides online that will help you optimise your website for mobile users.
Backlink
What are backlinks?
In SEO backlink is a term which refers to links directed to your site from other websites. They are considered to be one of the key pillars on any SEO strategy and will indicate to search engines that your website and it’s content are trustworthy. It is a powerful tool that will both increase traffic to your site and the site’s rankings.
In music SEO you have plenty of opportunities to build backlinks. You can guest post on a popular music site or blog, get mentions from influencers and have your website featured in any online article/interview about you.
If you struggle with increasing your backlinks, you may want to consider hiring a digital marketing agency to assist. They are able to use their networks and previous links to generate strong backlinks for your website.
Optimise Your YouTube Channel
YouTube is the second largest search platform, second only to Google. To help you be discoverable it helps to have a strong YouTube presence. Given that YouTube is owned by google it’ll be a sure way to keep earning brownie points for your website too.
If your channel is optimised you will attract fans to your content, helping your music, but also direct them on to your other online presences.
You can use the YouTube search tools to find out what your potential fans are looking for.
SEO music marketing is a long term commitment, however, one that is essential to maximise your reach through search engines. Digital marketing is a daunting task if you are not experienced in the field, but the rewards it reaps are worth the investment.
Are you looking to get your music out there? With Identity Music you can get your music all over the globe in order to gain the maximum exposure. By using our distribution and music promotion services, you’ll be able to take control while watching your music reach new heights.
Original Post:
SEO for Musicians | Identity Music
See More Like This:
How to promote your music | Music Promotion | Identity Music
Music Video Marketing | Identity Music
Sell Your Music 101 | Music Distribution | Identity Music
Read more...