SEO for musicians sounds like the least alluring task for anyone dealing with music. Most of my clients squeak a little when I bring up the topic.
However, there is no way around it I’m afraid. This is wild, Google still is the biggest search engine.
Here’s the thing, most musicians and music industry experts know this. Yet they don’t feel it is a strong enough incentive to get them going.
Don’t worry, if you need some SEO motivation as well. Read on and I tell you 3 solid reasons why SEO for musicians matters.
SEO for musicians – YouTube only really works well with SEO
Here’s the thing, it is common knowledge that YouTube belongs to Google. Hence, it is a search engine in its own right. As a result, videos only really work well if you do SEO on YouTube as well as on Google.
The two are directly intertwined! Most people lay their focus on Instagram and TikTok and only use YouTube for their Official Music Videos. If you’re lucky you might get some Tour footage or a live video.
However, actual interaction with fans on the Community Tab or Live Streams with the chat function used well is something I rarely see.
People tend to see SEO as mainly technical stuff that programming dudes do in the night hours. In reality, search engine optimisation is a vast field that includes a lot of social signals.
If a social media post goes viral, it will boost traffic to a site. What’s more, the traffic has a high potential conversion rate.
The increase in traffic will lower a site’s bounce rate. It will show that people consider the site to be an authority in its field. These factors will improve a site’s Google rank.
Newsletter sign-ups perform best on SEO-optimised websites
The next reason why SEO optimisation is important is that it can be a real driver in newsletter sign-up on your website.
Many musicians see websites and newsletters as something super old-school. However, far from it!
There is nothing more valuable on the internet than someone’s email address. What is more, it can give you ample space for meaningful community interaction as well as nurturing the fan connection.
Here’s the thing, if your website is super slow and doesn’t perform well on mobile phones, nobody will have the patience to sign-up for your newsletter.
This is wild, people’s attention span online is decreasing all the time. Google wants web pages to load faster than 2.7 seconds now. Anything longer than that and you’re facing search engine problems.
Besides really giving you ample space for your storytelling and fan communication, the newsletter also can earn you some much-needed money!
How Your Newsletter Can Earn You Money
Merchandise sells best in conjunction with good SEO for musicians
If you have never heard about newsletters earning you money, I’m sure at least merchandise is on most people’s income lists.
Having good search engine optimisation for each product is vital to make it stand out online. What is more, people have different purchase motives.
Search engine optimisation can help you match your products with the right purchase motives so that your fans feel inclined to actually finalise the purchase.
A high bounce rate within the webshop is one reason why so many people don’t get the sales they want out of their webshop. Being mindful of SEO and making it a priority can help to overcome this obstacle in the digital sales funnel.
Search engine advertising only works in combination with SEO
Many musicians try ads in order to promote their music. Important to realise, if you want to promote tour dates or your new website, you do this over Google Ads search engine advertisement.
Here, you can run ads that show up in the search feed underneath the Google search bar. Important to realise, your ads will only perform well if your site is already search engine optimisation going. Otherwise, you are faced with a penalty on the ads level.
What is more, let’s say someone actually clicks on the ad and arrives on your website, if it is not SEO optimised they will bounce immediately.
Having a website that is SEO-ready means it is inviting both technically (i.e. fast loading times, mobile optimised) and also from the editorial viewpoint interesting.
That means, having loads of informative content from blog posts explaining your lyrics to a little tour blog where you write about your experiences while travelling.
Make sure to keep SEO on your mind even between releases
Here’s the kicker: most musicians only work on the optimisation of their SEO when they have a new release coming.
However, back catalogue marketing is a real driving force in many musicians’ careers. Having a spot on SEO going will help you a great deal in achieving meaningful success in back catalogue marketing.
There you have it, no more excuses to let SEO fall off the wagon!