SEO for Metal Bands
Posted in Resources for Bands, SEO, SEO for Metal Bands, Unsigned on September 6th, 2009 by Alex
This is the first of a series of articles on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for metal bands.
In my experience most new bands don’t know or care about SEO or perhaps assume that the record labels will deal with when they get signed (which they probably won’t). I think this is a mistake. SEO isn’t hard, and following a few simple principles will pay off in dividends.
Why should you, as a band, care about SEO? Well, the one thing that bands need most when their starting out is exposure. Getting found or noticed isn’t easy. In our internet saturated age the first place people go when looking for something is the search engines. If you want to be found then you need to pay attention to how the search engines perceive you.
It’s important to acknowledge that just because you are on the web, doesn’t mean that you can be found. Depending on how you present yourself, you may be very hard to find, which would be bad for you no matter which way you look at it.
Also, this is not aimed at improving your band’s website, although this is part of it. The aim here is to make your band findable and discoverable, and for this Myspace, last.fm, Wikipedia and countless other sites are equally (and in some cases more) important.
There are three key aims to this exercise:
1) Get found by people who are looking for you
2) Get found by people who are looking for stuff like you
3) Get found by people randomly (perhaps while they’re looking for, or doing, something else)
By making sure you have your bases covered here you will make getting your band found a whole lot easier. The key thing to understand about SEO is that nothing happens quickly. Search engines take time to react to changes, and there’s no silver bullet that will boost your rankings over night. By applying best practice you will see improvements over time that will add up to impressive results over time.
I’m eating my own dog food with regards to sticking to niches, hence the metal slant, but the same principles should work for any genre of music.
If you have any questions, or need advice on your band specifically, then feel free to leave comments and I’ll endeavor to help out.
