DIY B(R)ANDS: Keywords and your MySpace Page: Does It Actually Make a Difference or is it a Giant Waste of Time?

Did you know that Monkey Music was searched 74,000 times in Google in April? It’s true, but that’s nothing – considering the words “song” and “music” were searched a whopping 414-million times.

So, what the heck does that have to do with your band? Probably not a whole lot, unless you’re writing monkey music songs (and if you are, you have bigger problems.) However, when you think about search terms that apply to your band (like “instrumental music” which was searched 163,000 times) it can get some wheels turning.

If you’re looking to the web to try and promote your band and recruit new fans, you’ve probably thought about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) without even knowing it. But, how much of a difference can it make, if any?

Here is everything you need to know about SEO and how to make it work for your band. Companies pay big bucks for this info, so even though this is a LONG post, read it. You never know what ideas it may spark in the future.

What is SEO and How Does Google Work?

One of the most important assets to have in the digital world right now is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) training. If you don’t really know what that is, don’t worry – most people don’t. But, it’s arguably the single most important thing to learn if you’re trying to conquer the web.

Basically, SEO is the art of writing content using the most popular and/or relevant words and phrases that people are searching for in Google, but without sacrificing much of the quality and readability of the writing.

When done well, this can make the difference between owning your market and losing it. Also, it essentially takes the place of online advertising. If you’re popping up first, you don’t need to pay to rank under that search term, and you save a whole lot of cash.

To understand how SEO works, you need to understand how Google works (and note that I didn’t say search engines. Google is the only one you need to care about.)

In a nutshell, a user is the person at home or work, searching for something on Google. They type in a word (keyword) or phrase, hit search and then sift through the results. Users are an impatient bunch and only a small fraction of them go past the first page, so you really need to get to the top.

To get to the top, you need a perfect balance of these really important things: relevant titles, keywords and phrases, meta tags, links, headlines, timely (updated on a regular basis), no duplicate content (meaning it’s all written by you, unless you’re quoting someone, in which case you can link back to that person’s website and Google won’t penalize you) and site usability, among others.

Click here to read more about the basics of SEO.

Google is like the karma police force of the digital world. They own the space because they patrol it well. In the early days of search engines, people used to do what was called “keyword stuffing.” They’d write the same words over and over again (the more words, the higher you’d rank in the results) but that got them banned from the engines. Then, they’d write it in white text on a white background, trying to fool the search engines into thinking they were playing by the rules. But, Google came along and started enforcing all of the rules (and there are new ones ALL the time) with an iron fist, and suddenly search results worked. Users weren’t frustrated, the most relevant items appeared at the top – and the garbage sites get banned. Thus, Google became and stayed king.

But What About the Music?

So, back to the important question — what does this mean for the music, man? It’s a debateable topic, with some believing that SEO is crucial for a band, and others thinking it’s a waste of time.

My personal opinion is that SEO for labels and promoters is super important, but a waste of time for bands unless it can be used strategically. The odds of someone sitting down and Googling “Best band in Toronto” or some other generic music term is slim to none, and to be honest, you’ll never compete with generic terms like “music.” There are big corporate companies spending a whole lot of dough on their SEO teams to own that word.

But, if you’re a local band with a weekly or monthly gig, a session player, or have a niche band of some sort, it can be a good idea to put a little thought into your SEO when writing your MySpace page or website. This way, if someone knows who you are but can’t remember your name, they can find you.

I’ll use my friend’s amazing band Elvis Bossa Nova as an example. You can’t get more niche than an instrumental band playing Elvis tunes Bossa Nova-style. They also have a weekly residency at The Local Pub on Roncesvalles Avenue in Toronto every Sunday night, so if they were to come up with an SEO strategy, it could go something like this:

Step 1: Think about who would be looking for you online, in every way EXCEPT by name.

Pretend you stumbled into the Local one night and heard EBN playing, and thought about them later. You might search for “band playing at Local Pub in Toronto on Sundays.” Or, you may have heard about them from a friend but not know where they played. “Elvis instrumental band Sundays in Toronto.”

Step 2: Make a list of all the relevant keywords you would need around these phrases, and look them up using the Google Adwords tool.

You’d be surprised what pops up in the Google AdWords tool. Sometimes, making a word plural or simplifying a phrase can make the difference of a million searches. Be sure to check the tool for words you haven’t thought about, or, could alter to get better results.

The official Google keyword-finding tool is here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

** To use the tool, make sure you select “Descriptive words and phrases” then search, but THEN you’ll need to change the country. It’s automatically defaulted to English, United Kingdom. You’ll want to change it (where it says edit in the last paragraph of text at the top) to English, Canada or whatever you need. **

The following music-related search terms and numbers are based on the Local (Canadian) Search Volume for April 2009. I’ve included all of them because I want you to see how search terms are worded and spelled, and the impact it can have on the numbers.

Canadian music: 40,500
New music: 246,000
Canada music: 74,000
Song: 11,100,000
Instrumental music: 33,100
Instrumental: 1,000,000
Listen to music: 60,500
Jazz music: 27,100
Canada music: 74,000
Canadian music: 40,500
New music: 246,000
Free: 55,600,000
Elvis: 673,000
Elvis Presley: 246,000
Elvis tribute: 2,400
Elvis show: 4,400
Bossa Nova: 14,800
Toronto musicians: 18,100
Toronto musical: 823,000
Toronto live: 60,500
Toronto music: 110,000
Toronot: 45,800 (yep, spelled incorrectly)
Roncesvalles: 27,100
Live Music Toronto: 3,600
Music in Toronto: 9,900
Toronto band: 27,100
Toronto local: 18,100
Toronto live: 60,500
Weekend in Toronto: 5,400

Step 3: Get even more niche with your keywords.

As a local band, they aren’t competing with generic search terms on a global scale. Here are some examples of keywords even more niche than “Toronto.”

After a quick peek at their Sonicbids kit, here’s specific as I could get within Google Adwords:

Vibraphone: 2,400
James Robertson: 1,600
Michael Davidson: 880
Bluegrass: 74,000
Toronto club: 165,000

Step 4: Try to re-write your site content around these words and phrases.

This is the tricky part because if it’s choppy and reads like crap, not only will people have a hard time reading and understanding it, Google can catch on and slap you with a penalty – ensuring you’re nowhere to be found. So, NEVER, EVER let SEO trump the quality or purpose of what you’re writing. It’s meant to accent it, that’s all.

If you check out what Elvis Bossa Nova has on their MySpace page now, they’ve actually done a killer job with SEO without even knowing it.

My only SEO recommendations would be:

1. Add the word Roncesvalles at least once, especially to this sentence: “Over the past year and a half the band has played every Sunday night at Toronto club, The Local.” Roncesvalles got more than 27,000 searches in April, so get in there!
2. I would add the term Bluegrass in with “chamber-grass” in Brian’s bio paragraph at the bottom. While The Creaking Trees aren’t really Bluegrass, sometimes you have to bite the bullet and stick a more mainstream word in there. Unless you’re heavily involved in that music scene, you wouldn’t really know what chamber-grass was, let alone search for it.

Possible Outcomes:

While playing around with their SEO isn’t going to send new fans flooding in, it will help people find them, and allow Roncesvalles residents and bluegrass fans who don’t know they exist, to stumble upon them in the digital world.

Since EBN did a wicked job on their SEO (props guys!) you’ll have to crawl some band pages and find ones that could benefit from beefed-up SEO. Check them out and think about ways they could alter it, or if it’s actually worth altering at all. Then, do some thinking about your own band!

-SM

~ by hooksandladders on July 3, 2009.