Make a valuable resource (lists, special reports, history of, how to, etc.)

This obviously translates to: Put your music and videos on your website. And especially while first publishing this kind of stuff put it nowhere else. No MySpace and of course no Facebook. Fans / Webzines and so on will talk about you but it will be your website they are linking to. So you get the relevance points from the search engines and not Facebook or MySpace. Why would you make those websites better when you can improve your own? I just realize that this point is so crucial that I will craft a standalone article about where to put your music on the web. So long you can see my similar article about sharing music

Interview (e-mail/phone) prominent people and publish it.

well you are already famouse and prominent. But why do you need to be on MTV to be interviewed. Of course because you can reach a new audience. Guess what. Asking your fans to ask you questions making your own video interview on your homepage is fun, challenging and will drive back those fans and if their like it their friends on your page. Some other blogs / mags might talk about it. Give it a try!

Build a useful tool

All right you got me here. I don’t see any translation for the musician. Maybe you could build an app for the newer smartphones but still distribute it over your website.

Write an interesting article

As a musician you are kind of an oppinion leader. Why don’t you comment on other music you like. You are obviously an expert on your topic and it will be very interesting for your fans and the fans of other bands to read your reviews and comments on their music. Just Imagine Lady Gaga had her own blog where she reviewed other music. Damn this would attract many people.

Run a newsworthy ‘event’ such as a contest

That is a great one. You are going on tour or you are organizing the tour? Well local bands will be interested to open the concert for you. Have contests for this. Not a contest where they just have to make their fans click somewhere on your page. But making a bandcontest can be fun and other bands will try hard to get this slot on your shows!
Have your fans create youtube videos with one of your songs and give them the chance to win something really cool. You have a personal Gig on their birthday party!

Test something new that has not been done before

Well this might sound hard but as a musician you should be creative. When Radiohead first put their album on the web for free download they tested how it would work and a lot of people like me still talk about it. The crucial part is that it has not been done before. Now if I reference to this event / happening I always use the radiohead example even though many others also did it.

Be the first in doing something on the internet

This one is very similar to the one above. The internet is a huge playground just experiment around. There are many possibilities.

Write something controversial

It is sad but true. But In the entire timephase of promoting In Legends record most of them have been sold on april first when we did our somewhat funny somewhat controversial april’s fool telling the world that the band members have been replaced by some hot chicks because it’s a better visual effect for our live shows. not even the news that our album is out resulted in more comments. That’s kind of surprising.

Be the first to write the latest news in your niche

Easy score. Eerytime you have a press release you do this by putting it on your website and then you contact the mags with a short mail and state that you put the press release on your page. they will eather reference to your page or copy the release. You do not put the press release on Facebook or any other community. The only thing you can do there is to make an update saying you put something on your website.

Be the first to expose a scammer

well the scammer could be within the industry but remember you might loose a friend or close some other doors. But hey maybe there is this critic you always had an open bill with. Or this guy organizing a festival you don’t agree with. Since your connection is already bad why not making this public and getting a profit out of it.

Disagree with an authority

Again think about record labels / festival bookers. What would happen if Metallica posted an article on their page stating that this years Wacken festival had a bad or boaring line up? Well at least I would really enjoy the following and ongoing discussion.

Write some funny humor

Funny things happen to musicians. While recording the music while beeing on tour. In day life. Just think about stories that most people lough at and share them. Or remember the april’s fool we did.

Make an interesting picture

Well this could relate to promotional pictures. But there could also be pictures of fans or of you taking a sh** behind the tourbus. People are attracted by pictures and you certainly have a lot. On the internet quality does not have to be as high as in print mags. More important is the activity.

Be the first to research and document something

I guess this is one of the few points that holds best for bloggers.

Make a theme, plugin or piece of software

This things could relate to your music or artwork or what so ever.

Make a tool that others can put on their sites but that links to you

the best thing would be some kind of concertfeed or newsfeed. If you really aggregate all reviews on your music that apear on the web you could also use those as a content and still link to them and say tool powered by “your band page”

Make a joke about a known person

Well you have to know the person and everyone has to understand it. But I still remember Children of bodom playing umbrella at wacken open air. That was pretty funny. I guess you could transfer ideas like this to the web but in the case of musicians it would not be my first choice.

Make a resource that is just in time for a major event

you finnaly got your record release world wide or play the gig on this huge festival? well you better get an mobile app or some other cool stuff on your page to support it!

Write an outrageous theory and back it up with logics

Another point that fits best with bloggers. Anyone has an idea? Feel free to use the comments.

Write useful comments on something that is happening

it is what people do on facebook. Writing the tour diary or some other things about what is going on in the studio. Well do it on your page and attract the people to your page! not on facebook!

Give something valuable for free

Well I have a whole article about sharing music! I encourage you it is your very best marketing tool!

Coin a new acronym in your niche and get people to talk about it

Well this is what you do. You create new music or a new style. Van Canto have been the first to do a capella metal and now people talk about a capella metal and know right away they have to look into van canto.

Become an expert in your niche and write valuable information

as a serious musician you already are an expert and since you have fans your information will be valuable.
I guess you see the pattern that comes from Jim’s ideas and how they transfere to music. If you quote this list please also consider to link back to Jim since he really is the initial creator of this list. My article is just an interpretation of this list for musicians.

Basics you need to understand:

The Internet is one of your distribution channels to attract new fans at relatively low cost. It also gives you the chance to sell your products (cds, mp3’s, merchandise, concert tickets,…) with the highest possible profit margin.
Your website is the single most effective marketing tool you have on the web. Years ago every artist needed to be on myspace. Today it is called Facebook and do you know what will be tomorrow? In opposite to those portals your website will be perpetual and should be the center of all your online activities. It doesn’t make sense to have music streaming on myspace and give news corp your greatest treasure and raise your myspace page over your webpage. Remember News Corp not only doesn’t pay the musicans licence fees for streaming but they also drive traffic from your website to myspace.
Most important: People don’t look on your website for information. They look on google for information! You might be lucky and someone who wants to buy merchandise or a CD will type in your band name and then clicks on your website in order to find more information. But chances are much higher that he will type in your name and the word merchandise and then browse to the first results of the Google search result page. So will your band page appear in that case?

Usual difficulties of Search Engine Optimization

Very simplified speaking search engine rankings are calculated by the amount of back links (which means the number of other websites linking to your website) the anchor text of the back links and the site’s structure, format and keywords. A shop or everyday website faces the very hard challenge that not many other Webpages or magazines talks about them on the Internet. In these cases on page optimization, link building and link baiting – which needs a lot of effort, time and money are mandatory.

The special case for bandpages:

Since a music band is likely to have fans and gain attention by media websites it usually gains tons of back links (we remember the hard stuff for your search engine rankings) in a very short time. The best thing is: Most links will contain your band name as an anchor text making it the most relevant result for this keyword and also for moste keywords related to it as long as you place your content with a good structure and follow basic formatting rules. Your webmaster should be aware of these things. If not, well… you could change?
So your question should be: Which keywords do my fans type into Google that should always lead them to my homepage? Once you know the answer to this question due to your fame and relevance on the web any webmaster should be able to optimize your page for these keywords.

Keyword list for your band’s page SEO:

Since bands do not seem to have the experience to choose the good keywords and bandpage SEO is as explained really 90% the choice of keywords I will now give you a list of keywords that your page should be optimized for.

• Your band name +…
• merchandise
• shop
• ticket
• concert
• tour
• album
• reviews
• lyrics / song text
• mp3
• download
• video
• listen
• CD
• tabs / chords / notes
• buy

Note, since the internet is full with piracy anyway it would be wise at this point not only to win these keywords but also to provide the fans with the content they are looking for. This means put up the tabs and chords of your songs. They are on the web anyway and other people earn a lot of advertising dollars.
futher more (maybe in combination with some of the keywords listed above):

• name of your band members
• song titles
• titles of your records
• Names of the band you are on tour with / Name of the tour

and if you want to be really cool:

• your band name + name of the releases in combination with:
• rapidshare
• bit torrent
• megashare
• Napster
• …

There is much more to band page optimization (e.g.: photos, videos, social media optimization, crm, reviews, community building, newsletter…) and i will continue to write about it. If you do not know how to optimize for those keywords have a look at the In Legend website. If you need help for implementation feel free to contact me! If you think I am missing some points feel also free to tell me via comment. And please give me feedback on my Question: Do you think band page SEO is useful / important to online music marketing of bands?