You work hard to write and record music, but there is a lot more that you need to do if you want it to be successful! Whether you are a solo artist, or in an indie band, it is important to have a strong online presence. The good news is that there are many ways for musicians to use SEO to their advantage.
SEO (search engine optimization) is one of the most important things that musicians can invest in. SEO can be a complicated process if you have no prior knowledge but In this blog post, we will go over 6 different SEO strategies for musicians (6 ways musicians can succeed with SEO). We'll also talk about how they can help promote their music on Spotify and YouTube playlists too!.
1) The Power of Keywords
When it comes to SEO, using the right keywords is essential. You need to make sure that your music is properly tagged with the right keywords so that it can be easily found online. There are many tools and services that you can use to find the right keywords for your music.
One such tool is Google Adwords Keyword Planner. This tool allows you to find keywords that are related to your music and also see how much traffic they generate. Another great tool is Ubbersuggest! Both these platforms have free plans which are great for artists on a budget. You can then use this information to help you optimize your website and music for SEO. Remember you are looking for keywords that are relevant to your music that has high search volume and low competition, this will give you the best chance of ranking high in the search engines.
When it comes to using keywords in your music, don't go overboard! You want to make sure that the lyrics and titles of your songs are catchy and interesting without being too spammy.
Include keywords in your artist biography
Another great way to include keywords is by using them in your artist biography. This is a short paragraph about you or your band that shows up on music streaming sites. You can use this to briefly introduce yourself and include any keywords that might be relevant.
If you have a website, then it is also useful to include the same information in there as well. This way people who visit your site will see all of the important keywords at once and they are more likely to listen to your music as a result.
If you are writing the artist biography by hand, then make sure that you also use keywords in your social media profiles too! This will allow for better discovery when people search for information about you online.
Use keywords in album or song titles
Using relevant keywords is one of the most important things that you can do to promote your music online. But it is also important not to go overboard with this! Using the right number of keywords in your album or song titles will help people discover and listen to them more easily.
If you want, you could even include a mix of names and placeholders like: "Best Of Your Favorite Artist" or "Your Favorite Artist - The Best Of."
Include keywords in artist and album descriptions
If you are uploading your music to a streaming website like Spotify or youtube, then make sure that the description includes relevant keywords. This allows people who visit these sites to easily find out what kind of music you play! If they don't see anything useful in the description, they are less likely to listen to your music.
2) Backlinks
Backlinks are the most underrated way to build up viral traffic to your website. It is a way of directing people towards you from other websites.
Most platforms have an option for you to include links back at your own site in the artist profile or album description section, so make sure that you do this whenever possible! This gives another avenue for promoting yourself and it also allows more traffic into your website which can result in more fans and followers.
When it comes to backlinks, make sure that you only use high-quality websites as your linking partners. This will ensure that your website looks credible to potential listeners and it will also help with your SEO ranking. You can find quality backlinks by using tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or even Ubbersuggest.
Simply reach out to this website and say something like: "Hello, I am a musician and I would love to include my music on your site. Our music is perfect for your audience and in return, I will give you access to all our upcoming media and help produce quality content for your audience."
This is the best way of ensuring that you get quality traffic from other websites. If they don't know who you are, it can be easy for them to ignore or even block your request! By offering something in return (your music or creatives), most sites will happily feature upcoming bands that have good music.
3) Optimize your website for search engines
If you want to promote your music online, then it is important that people can easily find you. This means having a well-optimized website for both search engines and social media platforms! This is called on-page SEO and if you are not confident about implementing your SEO you could partner with a company that specialises in this.
To do this, make sure that the following elements are present:
Website title - The name of your band/artist should be in bold so it stands out.
Description - Make sure that you have included your most important keywords in your website description.
The right word count - If the description is too long, then it will look cluttered. If your website does not have enough content to fill up this space, you can always link back to external sources that are relevant to your music so people can find out more about you!
Images/Videos - If you post pictures of yourself or videos to promote your music online, make sure they are tagged with relevant tags plus any additional keyword combinations that you can think of.
Page speed - Make sure that your website pages load quickly, as people are less likely to wait around for a slow website. You can use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or Pingdom to test the speed of your website and make necessary changes.
Indexability - Make sure that all your pages are indexed by search engines, as this will help people find you more easily. You can use the Google Search Console to check if your website is being indexed correctly.
There are many other on-page SEO techniques that you can use, but these are some of the most important. If your website does not have these basic elements, then it will be difficult for people to find and listen to your music! If this is the case, start by adding a title tag (an H tags or header) including some important keywords and work on improving the description over time. This should help with search engine rankings and you can also include your music links in the description (but not in a spammy way).
4) Create valuable blogs on your niche
By creating valuable blogs, you can increase your brand awareness and also improve your ranking on search engines. Write about topics related to the music industry - this is a good way for musicians who are not well known yet but have something valuable to say about their experience as an artist or musician.
If people like the quality of your content, then it is possible that they will share this with others which might result in more fans! While some musicians are not confident about writing blog posts or putting them online for everyone to see, there are ways around this.
You can also outsource the writing of your blogs to professionals who have a lot of experience in this field. By doing this, you can ensure that your blog posts are high quality and interesting for your readers. Blogs also provide an easy opportunity to rank the important keywords that people might be searching for on Google.
When creating your blog posts, make sure that you include the following:
A catchy headline
The main keyword in the title
Introduce yourself and your music in a personal way
Write about topics that people would be interested in (not just your music)
Use images, infographics and videos to engage your readers
Make sure that you have included a clear call to action in each blog post. If people do not know what they are supposed to do when they reach the end of your posts, then it is possible that some will leave and never come back!
5) Social Media
Social media is a powerful tool that can be used to reach out to new fans and also connect with existing ones. It can also help you increase your website traffic and improve your SEO rankings over time. When using social media, make sure that you are active on as many platforms as possible so that you can reach more people.
Some of the best ways to improve your SEO with social media platforms are:
Regularly post interesting and valuable content
Engage with your followers by responding to their comments and questions
Use hashtags relevant to your music (and industry) so that people can find you more easily
There are many other ways that you can improve your SEO with social media, but these are some of the most important. If you can implement them correctly, you will see a significant improvement in your search engine rankings over time!.
6) Be patient
Be patient! It may take some time before SEO results start showing up in the SERPs (search engine results pages). You will have to consistently work on improving your website content and social media presence in order to see any significant changes.
However, if you are consistent with SEO overtime then it is possible that you could reach the top of Google's SERPs for some very important keywords! This might result in a lot more listeners discovering your music which could lead to more fans and eventually even sales!
While you might not see any results right away, it is important that you do not give up. If your website content stays relevant over time then there's a good chance that SEO will work for your band or musician career in the future! SEO is also very cost-efficient as it costs little to no investment to produce quality keyword blogs, social media content or reach out to music platforms to ask for backlinks!
Final Thoughts
First, find quality keywords with the platforms we suggested, then implement the keywords on your website, descriptions, music and content! Finally, find quality backlinks and watch the organic views on your music increase by 20-40% per month! Consistency is key, so keep at it and you will see success in the music industry!.