Members Kreatorkind Posted October 8, 2011 Members Share Posted October 8, 2011 (edited) I've just released my album on bandcamp.com (link in sig) and I am looking for ways to drive even more traffic there in the hopes that more people will listen to it and downeload it. I have a youtube acct, but I don't have videos for the songs yet. I am planning to upload videos soon and promote that too... but other than facebook and twitter, what else can I do to get more "asses in the seats" so to speak? EDIT: This OP was back in 2011, but I still keep getting traffic. What you see if you click on my bandcamp link is the result of 2014 and 2016 projects where I wrote, recorded and released a new song every day. For a total of 731 songs. I span over many styles and moods. Thank you for checking it out. If you're interested in the link from the original post, it's this: https://somnistatic.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-heart-of-the-sun Edited April 28, 2017 by Kreatorkind Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted October 8, 2011 Moderators Share Posted October 8, 2011 pay a SEO operation to put you up on top of searches.... but really, this is why the internet is NOT the promotional tool people mistake it for. It is a search oriented medium, people find things by looking, and if they aren't looking for your product, guess what? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members scarecrowbob Posted October 8, 2011 Members Share Posted October 8, 2011 Well, there are a lot of things that you could do to increase traffic to your site. But a lot of it isn't worth a damn. I mean, if you can get a really nice ad and place it during the superbowl, I bet you'd get a lot more traffic. What is it worth to you to bring in a person to your website? $5/person? $400/person? $250/person? $25/person? That's how much the cost of search engine based acquisition can be in some fields to "get asses in the seats", though if (like a lot of folks) you make more off a client that that it can work out. If I were you, I'd just be a better blogger and comment/participate/write thoughtful interesting posts on as many other related blogs as possible-- that is how you build traffic for a blog. And then spin that traffic into your album. I bet that you could, if you were very talented, get 1 song play off your album for every 20 quality blog comments. Easy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 3shiftgtr Posted October 8, 2011 Members Share Posted October 8, 2011 I say do it the old fashioned way. Go out and play. Get people into what you do first, then direct folks to the site, and use the site as an information depot. Give em a reason to come back to it or check back in when you send notice (new vid up....interview with the band....blog....whatever). But good old fashioned feet on the ground gigging is a good thing and always will be. If your music is genre specific, there are plenty of spots on the web that will focus on that stuff. The indie bible has a listing of genre specific promotional web sites. Try to get a review or two and that should help as most review sites have sales links available. Hanging out in forums that are specific to your thing helps too. Kind of like talking to somebody at a music store about your stuff..... But whatever you do, if it is metal, don't go to HCAF! There is also room for webcast concerts if playing out is not a thing. Mr Knobs has some info about a site that does live vid feeds and has some great results. Looking into that stuff a bit myself right now....lots of possibilities (read: cost)..... That's all I got for now. Gig. Promote. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kreatorkind Posted October 8, 2011 Author Members Share Posted October 8, 2011 Valuable responses guys! Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kreatorkind Posted October 8, 2011 Author Members Share Posted October 8, 2011 I just found this place... anyone use it? http://indiecharts.com Seems like it might be a cool place to get music feedback. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Chris Thomson Posted October 24, 2011 Members Share Posted October 24, 2011 You should focus more on following: Social Networking Blog and forum posting Article posting Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ggm1960 Posted October 24, 2011 Members Share Posted October 24, 2011 Don't overlook college radio, many have programs that play songs by local and/or independent artists if you send them a CD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members KubaWolanin Posted October 25, 2011 Members Share Posted October 25, 2011 My advice for you is to make something that goes viral. People love sharing stuff if it's great/funny/useful etc. Give them something for "free" - eg. your new song that will appear on your next album. Here's what you need to do: 1. Create a new page on your website with your album medley and link to your freebie 2. Use the Cloud:flood tool or http://www.paywithatweet.com/. Idea is simple: if someone wants to download your song, he must tweet about your band, or post your link on his facebook wall. It works for me and I hope it'll generate some organic traffic to your website Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GuitarTab4Synth Posted November 5, 2011 Members Share Posted November 5, 2011 Amazon employee recommended I create a Facebook account to market my eBooks on music. Anyway I recommend checking out Facebook if you haven't already. I noticed some other forum admin guy had a Facebook registry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Visconti Posted November 6, 2011 Members Share Posted November 6, 2011 Advertise your website with flyers. You can design the flyers in Microsoft Word and print them on a laser printer. Pass them out yourself and see if more people come to the website. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Quarterwave Posted November 7, 2011 Members Share Posted November 7, 2011 www.homerunseo.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Orrin Posted November 8, 2011 Members Share Posted November 8, 2011 The quickest way to get traffic to a website in the early stages is through more direct marketing. SEO takes a significant amount of time and you need to be working hard on targeting the right kinds of people. Posting links directly to your music will get you much more listens in the short term. Getting out there and playing your music in front of other people will get you even more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kreatorkind Posted November 8, 2011 Author Members Share Posted November 8, 2011 Advertise your website with flyers. You can design the flyers in Microsoft Word and print them on a laser printer. Pass them out yourself and see if more people come to the website. I've actually been doing this... it is working. (I just print em out at school... ) The thing I'm seeing now though, it lots of visitors... but no plays. I don't get why someone would go there and not listen to any of the songs. Any thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members scarecrowbob Posted November 9, 2011 Members Share Posted November 9, 2011 "Any thoughts?" Are you talking about this site: http://somnistatic.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-heart-of-the-sun I do freelance web dev for a company that does SEO... they spend a lot of time and money tweaking up websites, because once you start to measure outcomes you can see what is working and what isn't. Getting more traffic but fewer "conversions" which is a fancy SEO dude word for whatever you're trying to get people to do with the site (buy some shoes, sign up for an appointment, give you their email address, look at another website) is a very common problem that you can measure on about any website where you have specifc goal. Now, you can get a lot of traffic, but if you turn off folks for whatever reason (from having poor design to a bad offer) they ain't gonna convert. I ain't gonna do a line by line crit of your site, but to me, the design is at least one place where you you do better. The fact that people will decide if they want to listen to your music based on the first 4 seconds they're looking at your page is, to me a really strong reason why I don't even have a site for my music: I don't have time to make something super great, but something half-ass does nothing, either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kreatorkind Posted November 9, 2011 Author Members Share Posted November 9, 2011 "Any thoughts?" Are you talking about this site: http://somnistatic.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-heart-of-the-sun I do freelance web dev for a company that does SEO... they spend a lot of time and money tweaking up websites, because once you start to measure outcomes you can see what is working and what isn't. Getting more traffic but fewer "conversions" which is a fancy SEO dude word for whatever you're trying to get people to do with the site (buy some shoes, sign up for an appointment, give you their email address, look at another website) is a very common problem that you can measure on about any website where you have specifc goal. Now, you can get a lot of traffic, but if you turn off folks for whatever reason (from having poor design to a bad offer) they ain't gonna convert. I ain't gonna do a line by line crit of your site, but to me, the design is at least one place where you you do better. The fact that people will decide if they want to listen to your music based on the first 4 seconds they're looking at your page is, to me a really strong reason why I don't even have a site for my music: I don't have time to make something super great, but something half-ass does nothing, either. I see. I didn't design it... It's a free site. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members scarecrowbob Posted November 9, 2011 Members Share Posted November 9, 2011 "I see. I didn't design it... It's a free site." Man, don't take it personally-- I'm just saying that if it isn't converting, there are places for improvement, and that the design is one of those places. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kreatorkind Posted November 9, 2011 Author Members Share Posted November 9, 2011 "I see. I didn't design it... It's a free site." Man, don't take it personally-- I'm just saying that if it isn't converting, there are places for improvement, and that the design is one of those places. no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that! But, I was looking around, and discovered that I can modify that site quite a bit... so, I'll have to mess with that. Thank you for your response though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ckoehler Posted November 9, 2011 Members Share Posted November 9, 2011 This works great for me when I want to boost traffic. Follow people on Twitter. 1) Make sure you have your website prominently displayed on your profile 2) Use a free service like SocialOooph (Google it) to add a few different auto welcome messages (like "Thanks for the follow, here's a new songs for all my followers [ link ] ). 3) Do one or all of the following every day. Find profiles of artists with music similar to yours and follow their followers. Search for people tweeting about artists similar to yours and follow them. Search for profiles of people who state they are fans of your genre or those bands then follow them. Chances are a percentage will follow you back and visit your website. You can follow up 100 per day safely. (just use Twitter Karma to unfollow people who do not follow you after a few days to keep your following/follower ratio down. 4) Also, use SocialOoomph or Buffer or Time.ly to auto tweet messages throughout the day contain links to your site, music offers or info that they are interested in. 5) Interact with new followers as much as possible. This works great for me when I want to boost traffic or email list subscribers. If you have and questions let me know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members scarecrowbob Posted November 9, 2011 Members Share Posted November 9, 2011 no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that! People can be really touchy about stuff, and to make it even worse, it is a tough thing even for pro people to get good promo for stuff on the web. Best of luck on your site. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members matthewearly84 Posted January 28, 2013 Members Share Posted January 28, 2013 Depends on what kind of website you want to have, but having content that is only available at the website is always a good way to boost traffic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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