Search Engine Optimization Page #1
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Search Engine Optimization: Page 1
Welcome to the Austin Online Music's tutorial on Search Engine Optimization for Musicians. In this resource, we show musicians how
to get visitors to their website. Search Engine Optimization is the process of preparing web pages to rank high when people
query search engines to find relevant websites. Mastering search engine optimization is a full-time job, however, the following
sections will quickly help you understand and implement the most important steps for maximizing your return on your time.
Search Engines Drive Online Sales
Search Engines Inventory Websites
Search Engine Methodology
Generating Keywords
Tag Location in HTML Source Code
Submitting to Search Engines
Search Engine Submission Services
Helpful Tips for Musicians
Go For It
Search Engines Drive Online Sales
Are you selling your music over
the Internet? If so, are people downloading the music? Check out some interesting headlines about
how much is being sold online and where music sales are heading:
- Online Music Sales up Tenfold in 2004
- Online Music Market Growth Expected to Surge in 2005 (read article)
- Estimates for 2005 online sales were recently raised to a record $172.4 billion!
- It is anticipated that online sales will total $218 billion annually by 2007 (Forrester).
- 69.4 million US households to have broadband by 2008 (read article)
This news means that a lot of people are buying online and the number is only going up! So how can musicians get into selling online? One way is to sell CDs through an online store or the
musician's website. Thanks to Austin Online Music musicians can now sell digital music files from their
website. So how do musicians get people to visit their website and purchase their music?
As it turns out, 85% of
online traffic to websites is currently generated through search engines. Of search engine users, however, 75% never
scroll beyond the first page of results. So how do musicians get their website listed on the first page of search
engine results? The first step is to read this short tutorial designed to help musicians quickly and affordably capture traffic from search engines.
Search Engines Inventory Websites
A search engine is a program that
searches the Internet for web pages (HTML documents). Search engines automatically
index all websites they encounter. They read all of the web pages and follow all of the links. When someone
conducts a search the search engine will return a list of documents that best match the search criteria. In
order to attract new music fans musicians need to make sure search engines index their website appropriately and
that their website appears when people use relevant search criteria.
The major search engines are:
Figure 1: screen shot of Google's home page
You may be familiar with other search
engines such as AOL, Netscape, Inktomi, AlltheWeb, Alta Vista, Ask Jeeves and so on. Most of the results on these search engines
are licensed from one of the 4 major search engines. The chapter on
Submitting to Search Engines discusses how to submit to all of these search engines and more.
Search Engine Methodology
Each search engine has a unique ranking criteria. In addition, all search engines
compete for market share and constantly update their methodology in order to return better results. Busy musicians
should develop their web pages to work for all the search engines in general. To that end, below are the most important
areas for musicians to address. These areas are collectively referred to as HTML meta-tags which are
areas in a document where further information about the document can be stored. A local server or a remote
browser can extract this information and identify, index and catalog the document. Each of the HTML meta-tags below is addressed in detail on page 2.
Generating Keywords
HTML meta-tags, "tags" for short,
are populated with keywords - those words that best describe the content of your web page. The keywords used need
to bring sustainable, targeted traffic consisting of potential customers. Each page of the website can contain different
sets of keywords specific to that page. Before we get into each of the tags you should figure out what keywords are best
for your website. Here are 3 techniques for generating keywords:
- Reviewing
competing and industry-leading websites
- Keyword
suggestion and evaluation tools
- Brainstorming,
surveying, and reviewing promotional material
To review competing websites, conduct a search in a search engine and visit the web pages the come up on the
first page of your results. Check out the meta-tags on each web page by opening up their website in a
web browser (such as Microsoft Internet Explorer) and clicking "View" on the menu bar and then "Source".
There are a few good keyword
evaluation tools out there - some are free and some charge a fee. Here are the top tools:
Please keep in mind that using evaluation tools and reviewing other sites should be used in combination
with brainstorming on the keywords that are right for your site, your fan base and your type of music. Often it
comes down to asking, "Would people search using this word if they were looking for the music on my web site?"
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