Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Kurb link building strategies for musicians

I'LL BE HONEST ABOUT SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION. IF YOU PLAN TO GET OUT OF MUSIC IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS WITHOUT PUTTING IN ANY WORK TIO ESTABLISH AN ASSET AND WITHOUT MAKING ANY MONEY - THEN WORRY ABOUT YOUR CD AND FORGET ABOUT YOUR WEBSITE.

IF YOU WANT TO BE MAKING MONEY IN MUSIC IN 2 YEARS START WORRYING ABOUT THIS NOW.

Links as I say pretty often, is the main way you get your website ranking nice and highly on google -

Google's not just the biggest search engine and genrator of advertising revenue in the world.

so spreading your links around not only gets people interested in clicking those links but more importantly, help to tell google how special you are in your area of talents.

There are now - thanks to web 2.0 - HEAPS of places you can leave links. Blogs, Social Networks, Forums, and all your profiles most obviously.

That's mainly why I joined Seth Godin's site http://www.squidoo.com/ after checking out some tips from a pdf sent to be by a chillout and downtempo artist I'm working with, Ganga from Denmark.

Because Squidoo, not REALLY that remarkable for being a cross between a blogsite and a wiki (you might want to think about knowing the difference if you don't) rather, "gives good google juice".

Links back from squidoo, which anyone can create, help rank your site.

I'm thinking that I should probably stop giving out advice without explaining why google ranking is so important, but I dont have time to blog all day. But when you use wordpress like I am now its easy just to type out the links and create a live link like this:

http://www.kurb.co.nz/

Now doing this and creating a live link in Rich Text, can be cut and pasted as is, even into a non rich text html field and when its published regardless of whether its live or not people can still cut and paste the link, though obviously this is nowhere near as good as a live link but basically - this way you can keep your little "link family" of all your important links on hand in one place to simply cut and paste whenever you need them.

Myspace is a typical example of a site that has rich text html, normal html, and no html areas so just typing out the URL in rich text as I have done below covers you for all possibilities.

But also in wordpress and other blogging platforms, you can create rich text with live links and then just swap them over to copy and paste the html code, so you can post your links into normal html fields to create links as well and to be honest, that covers alot of the best opportunities on myspace and blogs, forums etc. so you can plop down links basically anywhere you a writing in a box and publishing it to the net, you should be leaving a link!!! And having all these links everywhere just reinforces the message to the those little baby google spiders . . .


YOU ARE IMPORTANT!!!!!!



http://www.kurb.co.nz/
http://www.myspace.com/kurbpromo
http://www.youtube.com/user/kurbpromo
http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com/
http://romantech.blogspot.com/
http://www.squidoo.com/kurb
http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/new_clients_free_consultation.htm
http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_cds.htm
http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_promotions.htm
http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_artists.htm
http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_online_management_digital_coaching_for_artists_and_musicians.htm
http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_posters.htm


http://www.ganga.dk/


http://www.alwalser.com/







MORE KURB LINK BUILDING ON MYSPACE


Okay just some extra morsels on SEO and link building.

Please bare in mind what I’m talking about here is known as “whitehat SEO” that means your not doing anything wrong but if you know anything about what I do and know you’ll probably be aware I’ve got tricks up my sleeve which are just naughty and plain not fair – but that’s not something I discuss “freely” haha – at least not yet!

But what I’m doing now is making up word documents with my different link family set ups.

For example I want to be able to choose to leave just a few of my most important links on a blog or a myspace comment and I also want the choice between the rich html/non html URLs and the normal html.

But if I’m creating or posting a blog or a bulletin or developing a new profile, or a squidoo lense I’ll want the full roll call of all my links, kurb links, my personal artist links, client links - the works.

Now one of the reasons I’ve been down in the dumps a little is because the myspace madness continues, and it’s been a BUMPY ride.

Myspace used to have some MASSIVE loopholes for exploiting links and google but for the last year you can’t go 5 minutes without myspace changing the rules. Now their intentions are noble – to stop the spammers - although the damage was done a year ago and those guys have taken their money and gone. To be honest myspace is taking it to a level at which the site is becoming increasingly restrictive to use for even muso’s and punters – who are suffering with annoying hassles after the spammers have cleared out.

As if the captcha code’s weren’t enough they’ve now developed their “msplinks” system so you can’t leave myspace through a link directly without myspace interfering with a warning screen.

It’s weird. Blogs are fine but profiles and bulletins . . . not so much. This is a real drag - especially as some of my links have been shut down because myspace have decided they are spam links to some unsavoury site. I’ve worked out how to get around it already, but its still a big DRAG!!!! I’ve lost about 20% of my website traffic that used to come to my site through myspace alone.






So here’s my short link list in rich html, in URL form so it can be cut and pasted in non html also.

http://www.kurb.co.nz/
http://www.myspace.com/kurbpromo
http://www.youtube.com/user/kurbpromo
http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com/
http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_cds.htm
http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_artists.htm
http://www.romantech.co.nz/
http://www.realitycompound.com/


Here’s the same list in Html

<a href="http://www.kurb.co.nz/">http://www.kurb.co.nz</a>


<a href="http://www.myspace.com/kurbpromo">http://www.myspace.com/kurbpromo</a>


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/kurbpromo">http://www.youtube.com/user/kurbpromo</a>


<a href="http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com/">http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com</a>


<a href="http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_cds.htm">http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_cds.htm</a>


<a href="http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_artists.htm">http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_artists.htm</a></span>


<a href="http://www.romantech.co.nz/">http://www.romantech.co.nz</a>


<a href="http://www.romantech.co.nz/">http://www.realitycompound.com</a>





But given in html I can use keywords and phrases to lure both google and punters, that’s what I’ll do! SO instead in normal html fields, which include most comment boxes and all bullitens on myspace, I’ll aim for this:

Kurb Promotions Website
Kurb Myspace
Kurb Promo on Youtube
Official Kurb Blog - click through to subscribe
Kurb - Auckland and NZ's best value CD and DVD duplication - no set up costs, free delivery.
Check out our digital coaching - online promotion and income generating packages for artists
Drum'n Bass DJ Romantech
Electroclash Media Group Reality Compound


Which in html code will look like this:

<a href="http://www.kurb.co.nz/">Kurb Promotions Website </a>


<a href="http://www.myspace.com/kurbpromo">Kurb Myspace</a>


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/kurbpromo">Kurb Promo on Youtube</a>


<a href="http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com/">Official Kurb Blog - click through to subscribe</a>


<a href="http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_cds.htm">Kurb - Auckland and NZ's best value CD and DVD duplication - no set up costs, free delivery.</a>


<a href="http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_artists.htm">Check out our digital coaching - online promotion and income generating packages for artists</a>


<a href="http://www.romantech.co.nz/">Drum'n Bass DJ Romantech</a>


<a href="http://www.romantech.co.nz/">Electroclash Media Group Reality Compound</a>




And finally: all the links in rich html.




http://www.kurb.co.nz/
http://www.myspace.com/kurbpromo
http://www.youtube.com/user/kurbpromo -
http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com/
http://kurbpromotion.blogspot.com/
http://www.squidoo.com/kurb


How I approach a new client at Kurb (Dec 07)
Kurb - Auckland and NZ's best value CD and DVD duplication - no set up costs, free delivery.
http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_promotions.htm
Check out our digital coaching - online promotion and income generating packages for artists
Info on digital Video marketing - and production services available in Auckland
http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_online.htm
More promotions articles features and info for artists
Cheap posters - placement in AUckland or Free delivery in NZ


http://www.romantech.co.nz/
http://www.myspace.com/romantech
http://www.youtube.com/user/djromantech
http://www.last.fm/music/Romantech
http://www.ilike.com/artist/Romantech
http://www.squidoo.com/romantech
http://romantech.wordpress.com/
http://romantech.blogspot.com/
http://www.amplifier.co.nz/artist/7718/
http://cdbaby.com/cd/djromantech
http://www.reverbnation.com/romantech


http://www.romantech.co.nz/
http://www.myspace.com/realitycompound
http://www.youtube.com/user/realitycompound
http://www.last.fm/music/Reality+Compound
http://www.squidoo.com/realitycompound
http://romantech.wordpress.com/
http://romantech.blogspot.com/

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