How To Drive More Traffic To Your Music Website

This post was written by Lisa Occhino and originally appeared on the Bandzoogle Blog

So, you’ve put a lot of time and effort into building a stunning band website, but after the initial rush of traffic and congratulatory comments from your friends, now it’s just sort of… sitting there. Why aren’t potential new fans and industry folks finding it?

It can be disheartening to wake up to double- or single-digit website stats every morning, and countless independent musicians run into the same problem — but fortunately, there are plenty of solutions.

Here are some of the best ways to drive traffic to your music website that you can start putting into action today!

Click to read more ...

Who Stole the Music Business? (And How You Can Get a Piece of the Loot)

Are you a musician? Are you a songwriter? Did you wake up one day not long ago and say “WTF? Who stole the music business?”

With CD sales about half what they were 15 years ago, and the “new media” radio stations like Pandora, Spotify, Grooveshark, et al, reportedly paying out pittances for even millions of airplays, you’re not alone.

And you’re right. Someone did steal the music business. But it may not be who you think and there just might be a remedy available to you.

Game Changer

Once the mp3 was invented, and the historical physical music product (rolls, records, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs) was transformed into a VIRTUAL product that could easily be captured (stolen) and shared with “peers,” the game was over for making money from music distribution. It has been downhill ever since.

Click to read more ...

13 Topics That Musicians Can Easily Blog About

There are plenty of reasons for musicians to blog on a regular basis. First and foremost, blogging is one of the best ways to drive people to your website. Every time you create a new blog post, it’s an excuse for you to invite fans to check out your website.

Blogging also shows that you are active in your career. If a potential fan visits your site, enjoys your music, and then sees that you have months of regular blogging under your belt, they might click on a few posts to get a better sense of your personality. If they really like what they read, you might have a fan for life.

Click to read more ...

MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: Value Added Streaming

• Kristin Thompson | Value Added Streaming

• Graham Semark | Choosing The Right Music Producer For You

• Knar Bedian | Music Blogs: Cultural Voices Take On New Mediums

MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: Value Added Streaming

Blogging Sucks

Some artists are just good at Social Media, and some artists even love interacting with other people. In my lectures & panels around the world I have always told musicians Twitter is a medium which works best for an artist who enjoys going to the merch table at the end of a show, shaking hands (a bottle of anti-bac in pocket) and signing vinyl, possibly even breasts. But for creative introverts, Social Media is a dish best served cold.

For those who don’t reside in the digital media bubble, blogging is still an abstract verb looming over the undercurrent of social media nuisances interrupting the daily routine of an otherwise productive artist.

Click to read more ...

The Ultimate Musician's Guide to Tumblr

I’ve briefly touched on the importance of Tumblr in other posts, but I’ve yet to dive into what exactly Tumblr can do for your band’s promotion efforts. This ultimate guide will hold your hand through the sign-up process and take you all the way through to a point where you can use Tumblr DAILY to promote your music and gain new fans. Before you know it, your micro-blogging platform will be a major part of your promotion efforts.

Click to read more ...

The Musician’s Guide To Affordable, Effective Websites Part 2

This is a response to Ariel Hyatt’s recent post ‘The Musician’s Guide To Affordable, Effective Websites’. In this article, Ariel outlines the fact that all musicians should have a website, and goes on to detail how you can set one up on a tight budget. In this article however, I want to elaborate on some of the points she makes, and give you an alternative method to setting up a lot cost website. As I’m sure you know, there’s more then one way to skin a cat, and today I’m going to show you a method that has worked well for me.

I’ve already outlined step by step how to build a music website, but today I’m going to be looking at the reasoning behind each of these decisions, so you can yourself decide if they’re right for you. I will also be looking at the set up cost, so you will know how much something like this will set you back. Considering what it costs to get a ‘professional’ to set up a website for you, I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised…

Click to read more ...

How To Get Bloggers To Write About You - Become a Reader & a Commenter

I really loved the pieces that Chis Bracco has written here on MTT on Blogging and I wanted to add some thoughts on getting blogs to write about you.  His strategies are rock solid and full disclosure he used to work with my company and he is indeed very effective at getting bloggers to cover artists. Read Chris’s piece here: http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/how-to-really-get-your-music-on-blogs-tracking-the-results-o.html

I know that blogging seems like yet another unbearable thing to take on so there are 2 ways to approach this

1. Become a reader and commenter
2. Become a reader, commenter and blogger yourself!

Q: How Do You Play Ball with the Bloggers ?
A: Become a reader and commenter

I highly suggest that you try to get familiar with the blogging world by reading blogs and posting comments on blogs you like.

Click to read more ...

No One Has the Answer, But Sivers Told Us That

If there’s any doubt about the disarray and desperation afoot in the music business, just check out the Internet’s affect on the media business – music, print and broadcast – overall over the past decade. A recent article in the New York Times covers the waterfront on this issue quite well.

While the devastation of digital democracy vis-à-vis the Web made its first blitz through the belly of the music biz, the print media was next in line, and the battlefield there rivals Antietam.

Click to read more ...

Breakthroughs, Bitterness and Biopics

Music biographies mesmerized me when I was a kid. Whether it was Glenn Miller or Elvis Presley, it was always the same fascinating formula: talent and tenacity leading to the precipice of success, with the artist always searching for that one elusive element to define his signature sound, to breakthrough. With Miller it was the addition of trombones. The proceedings always put me on the edge of my seat and the breakthroughs set me reeling. I guess it was in my blood.

It persists. The other night I watched two great documentary-style biopics on TV, one on Johnny Cash, another on Willie Nelson. Willie, as many of his fans may not realize, was actually a Nashville songwriter penning such classics as “Crazy,” which Patsy Cline etched into the music lexicon. Despite his preeminent status as a writer, Willie couldn’t get arrested as an artist in Music City. His quirky phrasing was way too off-beat for the 60s sound, which was infused with sweet strings and pop arrangements.

Click to read more ...

In Defense Of 1,000 True Fans - Part II - Matthew Ebel

In part ii of my 1,000 true fans series I chose to interview my friend Matthew Ebel. I have known Matthew for a few years because he runs in the same geeky podcasting circles that I proudly run in.  Matthew is the type of artist I refer to in my book as a “Builder” meaning Matthew is constantly pushing his career forward using not only musical innovation but also technology.  

What I find most striking about this interview is the fact that Matthew makes 26.3% of his net income from just 40 hard- core fans.

Click to read more ...

‘It’s tough to beat up a guy that never quits’

Babe Ruth mouthed that ungrammatical gem, and a slumping Nick Swisher of the New York Yankees just invoked it at a critical moment in his career.

Hang with me a moment, and you’ll see what this has to do with us music artists. Swisher made the last out in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series the other night. It was a frustrating moment, since a hit in that spot could’ve finished off the Angels and put the Bombers in the World Series.

Click to read more ...

Dog Guru

My wife, Roxanne and I saw Jamey Johnson last weekend in an awful club in Clifton Park, N.Y. Johnson’s a country songwriter cum recording artist who’s anything but awful. He’s one of those rare artists who come along once in a generation in a genre, in this case country.

He’s so raw and real it hurts. He’s of the outlaw breed, and his songs — even some of his hits – hold a bare light bulb to reality.

He’s a Montgomery boy, an ex-marine, ex-family man, and ex-rebel rouser, and his voice is as perfectly imperfect as his life. I’m not writing this to pitch Johnson, but country fan or not, this plainspoken poet is worth a listen.

I’m reminded of Steve Earle, who blew me away with his 1986 debut album “Guitar Town.” One literate bad boy with a voice to match. The first time I heard him I wanted to burn my guitar and typewriter (remember those), but eventually returned to my auteur senses.

Click to read more ...

You’re So ‘Yester-moment’

It’s no longer the flavor or the month or what used to be called 24/7 or wall-to-wall coverage. The new media cycle, at least for this nanosecond, is called “perpetual movement.”

In other words, spin or die. That’s the latest from Internet guru Michael Moritz, a Sequoia investor who backed Google, Yahoo and the Sugar Inc. blog-networks.

Quoted in a recent New York Times article, Moritz says:

“Perpetual movement is the essence of survival and prosperity online. If online media and entertainment companies don’t improve every day, they will just wind up as the newfangled version of Reader’s Digest — bankrupt.”

Click to read more ...