Search engine optimization should be the focus of any up and coming band when beginning their blogging adventure. When I first was working with my label partner, we were undecided on what kind of layout to use for our band. The first thing we did was evaluate our competition and learn from their successes and failures with their website design. First thing I did was look at the Billboard Top 100 and find artists in my similar genre. From this point I wanted to learn what kind of layout and format would be manageable for my band.

I focused on the current Hip Hop artists showing up on the Billboard Top 100 and was paying attention to the initial layouts. Some of the artists had sites that were just landing pages for their music while others were fully developed websites with forums and focused on community building. This is important because how much work do you want to put into your websites’ development: blogging, developing a forum and promotion all include alot of effort. How much time can you dedicate to its development?

Kanye West was the first website I found and liked a couple of things. The website design is flash and has a futuristic look to it, but the graphics aren’t the most important thing. There is a definite call to action to join his mailing list on the bottom of the homepage. As you scroll from side to side and admire the graphics or wonder what is going on, the mailing list stands out. Their is promotion of a book he has that is “exclusive to the website”. Next to it is a link to buy his album that is on iTunes and the final box on the bottom has a fan club sign up offering a contest for filling out a survey.

Akon has an interesting site that seemed more like a plain landing page promoting his recent release. The homepage is simple displaying his new album and telling fans where they can buy it. The reason I like this one is that instead of throwing a website at a new visitor with so many things going on, you are easing them into where to find stuff. Right under where to find the album, there is a link to enter “Akon Online” and a “Join the Akon Community” and how to join “Akon Mobile”. Simplicity works well for a newcomer, while at the same time stressing a call to action: buy an album or sign up for my community.

What did surprise me was the amount of artist sites out there that didn’t even have keyword descriptions for their website. You can easily see this by right clicking on a website’s home page and selecting “view source”. Right where the header is you will see a section called keywords and this will tell you what keywords they chose to describe their site. I checked out T.I’s website TrapMuzik and found his keywords being just his name, crew name, record label, album title, and artist. I was expecting a little more describing his genre or style of music.

After continuing the process I realized what I wanted for my band blog and the sections involved

• Biography page
• Blog: with photos and videos
• Mailing List
• Discography
• Links to Social Networks: Find me on Twitter or Myspace
• Music exclusive to the website

These are just a couple of examples of how I made a list of things we wanted for our band. Mix and match what you like and what you don’t. This will definitely help when searching for your website theme and if you were going to have a web designer take on your project, you now know what you want from your design.

While writing for Hip Hop Distribution, I have noticed an increase in music bloggers searching for tips on increasing visitors for showcasing their music. Whether you are and experienced blogger or newbie, traffic always seems to be an area of improvement.

I enjoy blogging and aside from music blogging I find fun in internet affiliate marketing. The great thing here is I try to see any parallels between affiliate marketing and marketing your albums. The main difference with musicians and their product is we have to sell an emotion and aside from just hearing our music, our content can explain in detail what feeling we were trying to convey.

The last article I wrote on Bandcamp stressed an important point with their setup: express the emotion related to the track and write about each track. You don’t have to use Bandcamp to integrate this into your music operation, you just have to be aware of how you are displaying your message. Content is king, and sometimes you can have a well mastered, powerful track but noone can find it. Your descriptions and keywords used play an important factor.

The main thing I have learned from all the Pro Blogging sites and endless blogs out there is, their is no definite guideline to guarantee you endless visitors. You as a music blogger are required to work at this and always remember, what works for others may not work for you. The key here is finding different techniques that work for your specific music operation and be creative in implementing it and adding different facets such as social bookmarking and endless social networks out there.

Within the next couple of days, I plan to provide some tips on some free tools out there to give you some sort of idea how I brainstorm and find keywords or article topics that can bring in some extra, free traffic.