SEOmusicSUBMIT

Finding more links to your site and growing your email list

By now you've probably heard that getting links to your site is important. Links bring you direct traffic and they help you rank higher in all the major search engines. In fact I would say most SEO experts would agree that links are the single most important factor in bringing traffic to your website.

With that in mind it's worth an article to discuss several effective ideas for getting links to your site. Let's dive right in!

The first place to look for new links is your very own email list. Lots of people have web pages or blogs that they could link to you from, including your fans. The people that sign up for your email list like your music and want to see you succeed. They will support you if you ask them - so ask!

In your next newsletter you should talk about how important links are for a band and how they will help your website rank higher in the search engines. Remember to offer your fans link code that uses the text you want in your link.

After your initial link request be sure to follow up in all future newsletters with a small reminder paragraph that asks for a link to your site. Repetition is key in marketing.

Does your website have a links page? Do you ask your visitors to link to you? Do you have some copy and paste link code available on your site?

If you don't have these basic elements in place your cheating yourself out of a lot of links. You only have to do this once! The 10 minutes you spend modifying your site will get you link after link until one day you have hundreds of links and hundreds more visitors a day to your site.

It may be tough to get the Boston Globe or New York Times to give you a link to your site (even though they are local to some artists), but there are plenty of mom and pop shops that will. What types of local sites should you look to trade links with?

Night Clubs and Bars
Theaters
Arts Organizations
Book Stores
Local Attractions (this is great to key in on tourists if you have them where you live)
Restaurants
Museums
Clothing lines
Music Stores
Record Stores

You should start creating a list of your "target" local of link trades and get these local businesses to trade links with you. This strategy has the added benefit of getting you lots of local exposure as most of the people who are visiting these local websites will live close enough to come to your shows.

While contacting local business for links you can also mention the number of people in your email list and ask them if they would be interested in trading "ad space" on each others newsletters. You don't have to trade typical ads like you might see in a high profile newsletter, but rather just include a "Hey you should check these guys out- they gave us a link!" or "Here are our new link partners this month. Please visit their websites!". Then in turn the local business can do the same for you.

When you make this type of trade you will drive traffic to your site. After a while you're email list will become more and more impressive as the increased visitors sign up for your list. That will mean more show attendance, more CD sales, more label interest and more bargaining power when asking for link trades and marketing from local businesses. Best of all this marketing is all FREE- it only costs your elbow grease.

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