Crucial Tips For Self Promoting Your Band Online

[Stoned Again Productions]

Bands are too busy writing the next greatest tune and practicing, and most don't have time or the knowledge to promote their band online. At times you would think google, yahoo, bing has a brain, but they don't. It takes keyword relevance, link relevance and algorithms (mathematical) to get traffic online. In a nutshell, think keywords. Granted I am no expert, but it is working great for me. It can also help those of you that don't have an understanding of online band promotions by getting more traffic to your band website and music pages.

I have learned everything on my own by reading until my eyes bleed, and my eyes feel like they are on the verge of exploding. At times I can't remember my middle name, but for some reason I remember everything I have learned about online music promotions.

Go figure.

And this not only applies to bands, but any website.

This is a pretty long post. But it could be one of the most important pages you have read if you are self promoting your music and don't know where to start. It is a good jump start. If I posted every thing I know and use in daily life I would have to create a website for it. It would take up pages and pages and more pages.

You can't possibly know  what to target if you don't know what keyword terms people are searching out. One example is on avererage 110,000 people type in "purchase music" monthly at google. Didn't know that did you? Of course "buy music" is the primary search term used at over 300.000 times a month. And this is only the main term, there are many others combinations seached out like "buy music online" "buy music cds" "buy mp3 music" and so on. The road go's on forever. But you have to know what people are looking for.

That is where the google adword tool helps in your long and hard musical journey. Go type in certain keywords related to what you are targeting. use combinations of keywords, reverse them. People are not only typing in "garage punk", but also "punk garage" so on and so forth. This is one of the most valuable tools you you can possibly have saved in your bookmarks.

If you are not currently logged in to google it will prompt you with a captcha only once. You can then get lost in the madness of internet search terms. You can also type in your website address, or even your garage punk hideout profile to see what keywords the search spiders see.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

If for some reason the link doesn't work just type in Google Adwords Keyword Tool at the google gang. It also opens in a new window so you won't have to leave the Hideout.

Websites created entirely in flash look nice but they don't have much as far as attracting search engines. Text is key and should be priority. I eat, dream and sleep keywords. I use them everyday all day long. You don't want to be too repetitive because you get penalized by the searches.

Your main page and your music media page should be made primary pages for tweaking. Most people don't care if you shared the stage at the psychedelic Goose club with the Yawa Dewot's (towed away backwards). They are searching for music.

Only your fan base cares about those little tidbits of info. If you rely on people you have given a business card to, an article in the paper, or word of mouth to go to your website / pages you are missing out on a potential sale or new fan via the mighty internet. You only have to know how to tweak it for the search engines.

The internet sure beats the old days of band promotions. Postering and dubbing over old cassette tapes to get a gig for bands. Done my share of that too. Fortunately I only have to do this for a couple more years. I am calling it quits only to pursue my own personal endeavors. You can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself.

Plus I only work with up and coming bands. A lot of people think I am making a fortune promoting them, but honestly it is just the opposite. I make very little money working with local area musicians. Most are up and coming bands that don't have much money to spend. Although I do make enough online in other areas totally unrelated to music.

• The Blue Text - It is the website title and also the very 1st thing you see when your search results appear. Make it attractive and enticing. It is the #1 deciding factor whether or not people will read the description directly below it. You are allowed 63 characters (spaces and text) in your website title. It might even be 65. I forgot. Either way just get close. Use them up. You are in the music industry. Where are your title keywords.
  
  Would you be more willing to click on a title that reads The Seed Burns Band, or The Seed Burns, Free Music Downloads - New York City. Once again you are allowed 60+ characters in your title. The 2nd is only in the 40 character range.

• The Description - Whatever important keywords you have in your title should also be duplicated in your description. This doesn't only apply to your main index page but all individual pages. Media page, bio, gigs, with different descriptions of course. Target different keywords for different pages. Your pages will show up in the searches for numerous different results to multiple different pages rather than 2 or 3 of your pages for the same search term. You are in the music industry. keywords like music, songs, mp3s, free downloads etc.. are gold.
  
  Naming Your Links - Whether they are onsite or offsite posted elsewhere, forums, blogs etc.. They should also contain keywords. Click here, see it here, links like that are useless. The Seed Burns Free Mp3 Downloads, The Seed Burns Songs Music Playlist and so on are priceless. For 2 reasons, they are more enticing and the searches give you more relevance for the keywords you name your links. They are constantly spidered all over the net on a daily basis. Switch it up sometimes and use different related keywords when posting your links online. Not every place you post your links online you will have that luxury. But try to add at least one keyword. The Seed Burns Music etc  You will be able to tell depending where you are posting. 

• Your Document - Which translates to your web pages, sites and anything else you have online that shows up in the search results. It should have the same keywords as your targeted keywords in your title and description. If you follow these very easy and perfectly legal rules of search engine optimization you will be on your way to creating a search engine magnet. Granted there is a lot of competition out there, but don't get discouraged. No you will never rank on googles 1st page of results for the search term MUSIC. Try a smaller market. I have noticed that the name of cities for bands help a lot in getting traffic. I am proud of Austin Texas and fly my colors on every page I design. Gets me good traffic too. Austin mixed with music, songs, bands, etc.. on my pages gets me some really good combinations in the searches.

• Creating Community - This is so important and overlooked. You won't be able to do it on all sites but I do anyplace I can. Every page on the net you have a website, band page (Garage Punk Hideout), social network profile, youtube, podcast etc  should all be linked together. Another simple and commonly overlooked concept. What does it do. It creates community. If your website, blog, social, forum, etc... are all linked together it creates one huge website. They all should be encircled amongst one another. All of your page links to everything in your blog, all of your links to everything in your forum etc...on every page possible. Numerous advantages to this.

• A great example would be to have the GPH linked from your website, blog, and a link in your GPH profile to your blog and website. It creates one community. They are all linked together like one big huge website. You can link directly to the GPH main page or directly to your profile. I link directly to my profile. Common sense tells me it is more beneficial to GPH having numerous different pages linked rather than the same one.   So link up GPH if you haven't. helps the both of you.

• Meta Tags - Keyword meta tags are not as important as they once were. Matter of fact I think google quit paying attention to keyword meta tags years ago. People were stuffing their meta tags with keywords. On the other hand some smaller searches and directories still do. Maybe even yahoo and bing. Not sure to be honest. I still use them just in case. The description meta tag is very important. It is what shows up in the search result under the title. For those not familiar with meta tags they are hidden in the heading of a page document. Not visible to people who surf the site. You can see an example of meta tags here and it also has a Simple Meta Tag Generator. real easy to use. Self explanatory. If by some strange chance the page is temporarily down type in Simple Meta Tag Generator in google. They have ceratin ones that are complicated to some so stick with simple. It will suffice.

• In A Nutshell - Music related keywords in your title, in your description, in your document and the naming of your offsite links. . Don't overkill by spamming keywords, the search engines will fault your for it. With some creative writing you can have one paragraph that can be a search engine magnet. Link all pages you have anyplace on the net together when possible.

• Below is an actual listing on google from one of my sites. This is what shows up under my title in the searches at google. I literally have 1000s and 1000s of pages online from a 20 period going back to when I coded IRC chat rooms for chat city. They are all tweaked. If you are adding a long description in your website make sure the point you want to make is at the beginning. This is what people will see in the searches. You build it - they will come.

 Music podcast directory favoring rock genres of garage, punk, grunge, heavy metal and hard rock. Streaming radio stations too.

• This is an original post. Avoid putting a lot of duplicate content online if possible. The same band description etc...Change a few words around or something.  It doesn't hold much weight compared to original content. I just spent two hours putting thought into it and typing it out. (I suck at typing) If it were a cut & paste duplicate the searches might not even spider it.

• This is all straight up legitimate search engine optimization. Nothing deceptive, nothing illegal from a search engine standpoint. I wouldn't have it any other way. There is a 1000 other things in my mind but I want to go chill with the happy hookah now.  Peace.
• 
  Excuse typos, misuse of the english language.
  It's a family tradition.

Drew, ATX

[Chris Carr]

This is great information. Thanks. Wish I had known about the keywords years ago.

[Stoned Again Productions]

Thanks, I wish it were better written. The sole purpose was to possibly help bands on their long and hard musical journey. The internet has become the greatest marketing tool ever. All u need is traffic to your pages to create a potential sale.