Search volume in my research is very important. While I focus on my optimization for search engines, am I really covering all the ground I could?

When I think of search queries I automatically think about Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. The one thing that strikes me is how people are using social media sites such as Youtube, Myspace, and Facebook for searches.

I came across a press release by comScore that displays some interesting search volume stats. To read more from the actual press release follow this link: comScore Releases August 2009 U.S. Search Engine Rankings

The numbers don’t lie and those sites are all in the Top 20 for search volume. Youtube actually ranked 2nd after Google which definitely makes me want to add more videos about my band, and provide content and tags that optimize my chances of being seen. Create an entry point for your website.

Here is a summary of stats that were presented as an analysis of the U.S marketplace from July to August 2009.

1. Google sites own the search market with 13 billion search queries
2. Youtube is the 2nd most popular search engine after Google and Google sites with 3.5 billion searches
3. Yahoo sites are next with 2.8 billion queries
4. Microsoft makes up for 1.3 billion searches, 6% gain from July
5. Craigslist followed with 682 million searches
6. Facebook saw the biggest percentage in change with a 20% increase in search volume leading to 324 million searches
7. Withing the top 20 sites in the US, there is Youtube, Myspace, Facebook
8. Social Media sites become search engine portals for users

With Facebook also seeing that 20% jump, which was the largest jump in search queries percent change for that month, I think its time to put aside some of my distaste for Facebook as a music marketing tool. A band page is a must. If someone is mainly using just Facebook for searches, will they be able to find you?

Maybe you may use some of these sites as landing pages or just display your RSS feed to create entry points. The key is maximizing your visibility where people are searching.

Part of our mission as Do It Yourself marketing musicians involves making educated guesses for planning our next moves. Find stats, analyze them and make moves according to what you conclude.

This is where the importance of keyword research lies. We know where a majority of our search volume for the U.S is located and who is hot or what social network we need to keep on our radar.

I want to place my content in front of a growing audience instead of a dying one. I want to make sure I can do my best to optimize my visibility online. I want to optimize my distribution channels and bridge that gap between my website and social network profiles.

These stats are very promising because they show the importance of social media sites, being used for more than their initial mission. Optimizing for search engines is only part of the attack.

Search engine optimization is a very critical part of your music marketing campaign. What active efforts are you taking to strengthen your keywords? I asked myself this same question and tried different ways to keep a continuous effort towards improvement. Keyword research involves planning for future stability in blog traffic.

With Bing gaining ground on Google’s search domination, I began to think about how my website structure is being interpreted by the search engine spiders. I do have a good amount of articles but are they optimized to my benefit?

Automatic SEO links is a great Wordpress plugin that allows you to take control of your keyword promotion.

Automatic SEO Links

Automatic SEO links is a Wordpress plugin that is a great time saver and efficient promoter. When blogging, you don’t have to manually enter your links, you just choose a keyword and a URL and this plugin will find the keyword mentioned on your blog and add a link of your choice.

For example, I want to promote a “free music” page on my website. I go to the Wordpress settings for Automatic SEO Links and add the keyword “free music” with a link to my free music post. Anytime I mention “free music” in future posts, it will go to the desired link I set. No more needing to remember URL’s and inserting links manually.

Hip Hop Distribution Homework

You don’t need this plugin specifically to practice keyword strengthening. The important thing to ask is how can I improve my blog’s keyword visibility, internal link structure and readability?

Here are some examples of how I will use this plugin:

• Find 5 Keywords to Promote: Choose five articles you currently have that are getting visitors. Assign each article a strong keyword and use some of those keywords in future articles. Promoting old articles and increasing reader relevance. Use your new keywords stats to give your readers what they want and add hot new keywords to build on traffic.
• Push a Call to Action: Your posts are your greatest asset. If you have a album landing page or music store, create some keywords that can direct your fans to those places. For example: “download our music”, “buy our album” or “free instrumentals” could link to your storefront or whatever desired posts. Great way to keep readers on your site and build out your pages as information resources. Don’t forget the important one: subscribe here
• Affiliate Promotion: promoting affiliate links is easy now. Add your selected keywords and have them automatically link to your referral service. Nice way to make a little extra change without having to enter all the affiliate tags and id’s.

The main reason that I was impressed with this plugin is because it created a process of improvement in multiple areas.

While thinking about keywords, I began thinking about which articles to promote, or which ones needed the most help. The thought process also led me to think about how good was my call to action and my blog organization. Creating a better reader experience by increasing the relevance of your keywords to your title will lead to traffic improvements and better rankings.

Please feel free to leave some of your suggestions for keyword research and improvement: Musicians are always listening.

I am putting together a series of posts that are focused on gaining more unique visitors to my music blog. I have a band blog and want to increase my relevant hits to my site. I am going talk about some of the tools I use and discuss their progress. My blog is setup and now I want to research some keywords to generate articles to write about. What are some relevant keywords for my music operation? Through keyword suggestions, there is now no reason to have writers block. Find what people are searching and give it to them.

The quest begins and two tools I like to currently use are: Google Keyword Tool and Google Insight. The stats give you a different perspective on how keyword research could gain you free traffic.

Google Keyword Tool

Google keyword tool provides a great way to find new keywords that are being searched for currently. Type in a keyword related to your music or what you want to promote.

Im trying to analyze some good search terms that are relevant to my music and website and here are some factors this tool provides you:

• Check monthly searches done for your keyword
• Search volume trends
• Broad/Phrase Matching
• Extra Suggested keywords

This traffic is assumed for the articles that are ranked #1 in Google in the organic search. I always take these numbers as general estimates, and don’t get discouraged if your article isn’t ranking number one. The key here is discovering multiple keywords to attack and research where we can gain an audience.

Step 1: Write down 20 keywords that you feel are relevant to your music. I decided to choose keywords ranging from searches of 50-500 searches a day. I’ve always been reading about people preaching about lower search keywords, assuming their will be less competition creating an easier road to ranking #1 in Google for that term or phrase. This tool provides monthly search volumes so if you want the daily traffic, divide searches by 30.

Step 2 will include using Google Insight

Google Insight

Google Insight provides some great stats for your keyword search.

Google Insight doesn’t represent “absolute search volume numbers” but the data is placed on a scale from 0-100. Discover these great features:

• Interest over the past years (you can also do a search for interest over the last 7 days)
• Regional Interest (Top 10 countries searching for your term)
• Rising Searches (A list of keywords that are currently on the rise)

I will take those 20 keywords and check to see which ones are showing steady or increasing interest. I will also use some keywords they recommend are hot at the moment. Now I’m ready to generate some article ideas based around some of my favorite keywords and test them.

I will keep you posted on progress of this campaign. I am an indie musician on a SEO campaign to find some free useful tools for band bloggers and welcome any suggestions to this topic.