We’re designing websites! We’re designing a lot websites for bands, musicians, artists, entertainers, right now.

I’ve talked about some of what you need to be aware of when setting up your music website, but right now I’m talking about what I’m doing to get artists sites up and running and doing what they need to do.

A lot of the artists I work with don’t have a website that is up to standard. Your website must look professional - or at least purposeful - if you’re going to be taken seriously.

Branding is important, that is creating powerful messages about what you represent that fans will engage with - but the whole purpose of our artist’s website is . . . liberty, baby.

On the artist’s website, we are at liberty to conduct our music business as we see fit.

If a musician wants to run a blog, we will run a blog.

If the band wants to host a gallery of pictures and or video than we shall.

If we choose to charge for content, we will charge as we deign necessary. If we want to give it away free, then we can and we will.

If an entertainer should choose to add ad supported revenue to our site then we will. We might run adsense, we might choose our own ad network, we might choose to promote an affiliate offer.

An artist might decide on infinite iterations of physical and digital products and services that can be provided digitally that they choose to monetize their content.

A musician must have access to fan emails so that they can manage their list effectively.

An act may decide on a new model form which to leverage the value of their content and their brand, such as a membership area, subscription service or a “fan float” fan supported model.

A band must be given the right to choose how they interact with their fans, and to develop that to meet the needs of the times.

The only way you’re going to create true independence, is by establishing your own web properties.

That’s right, properties. I’m not playing any more, it’s almost 2009, a serious act isn’t going to be developing one property. That’s not smart investment. You’ll be developing multiple niche sites along side your flagship official brand heavy site. That’s if you’re wanting to make money from this.

So I’ve talked about why bands need to build their own website and given you an idea of what we’re trying to attempt.

But how do we go into it and start a bands website from scratch?

Here’s what I’m doing with the artists I provide music marketing and online promotions for.

We start with a solid framework, which consists of three parts:

The landing page or squeeze page - this is not the “home” page. This is an action page where we bring the principles of internet marketing to bear. If your website is your shop, then think of this page as the counter.

This is where our ultimate effort lies, to bring new fans to this page. For . . . there is no escape.

Your new fan will be given three options and only three, and it’s an offer no fan can resist.

1: They are offered the opportunity to accept the primary proposition of paying for your music. Buy the CD Now. Get a “Twofer” (means 2-for-1. Don’t you love it when I talk like a real ad man?). Join the membership site now for $17 and download our whole back catalogue. Do a special offer. Do something.

2: They can have a FREE mp3. They can either have it, or not.

And

3: The final resort is to sign up for email updates. Glorious email updates with exclusive access to . . . something. Get them to join your list. Get emails. That is what we’re trying to do. At this point in the game, you’re building your list. Don’t start making big plans until you’ve got 1000 names on that list.

At this point don;t start dreaming about how many of your CD’s you’re going to sell because we are building an email collecting machine. We want those emails.

The purpose of the landing page is focus on outcome. It’s not about branding or anything else it’s pure sales. All our other efforts are driving new fans to this page, so this page is one where we’ll be extremely focused on gauging results

The Blog - Do you know what a blog is for? Wordpress is a blogging platform. It allows you to publish content quickly, neatly and efficiently online. As in you, the artist. No webmaster, no frickin file transfer protocol, just you logging into your blog and publishing to your channel. The artist keeps the channel updated with content, while the blog platform will format your new content so it connects nicely with the rest of your site, which is where your marketing team can begin promoting your “feed”. This means literally your RSS Feed by which you can syndicate your content out to fans and other outlets/nodes, but it also means your marketing team will be able to respond to that content and pick it up and really leverage it for benefits that come back to building your websites popularity.

So basically, blogging is a technique where artists can publish regular content easily, and this helps marketing and promotions efforts online to be more effective.

The Actual Site - So this leaves your traditional site, or what I could call the “museum”. Where you put eveything you put so your site looks like a real musicians site. It’s okay if your website is a museum. Y’know. You can walk around and look at stuff (”about” or “bio” “”discography” or “releases” etc.) but you can’t really touch anything. Oh except for the gift shop. But museums are alright. People want to walk around and learn more about you, so you’ve got to curate this exhibit of your talent and perhaps more importantly, your brand, to represent - articulate - the message of what you’re all about.

But this is where you’ve got to think outside the box. Not immediately, but eventually. You want to interact with your fans in a meaningful way. You want to build the experience for them. Yes initially it’s about creating the social proof that your web design and presentation standards are high enough to create engagement, present and convey your brand, and that you have the character worthy of a professional musician.

To successfully communicate those branding messages is the role of the traditional site, but your goal in developing your site for the future is pushing that beyond traditional because positive interactions are the most valuable branding experience. Sure your flagship content - your bio, etc. your archives of info for the fans obsessed must be solid, but beyond that you’re attempting to use the technology of the web in new ways to facilitate more and more efficient interactions between not only you and your fans, but as you grow, building a community where your markeitng and branding sustains itself through fans and enthusiasts interactng with each other.

So in the beginning, you’re building the “email collecting machine”. That’s how you start off.

Giving out free stuff, collecting emails, maybe selling something here and there as you write your blog, and post content.

We build a landing page so we can focus on those outcomes, we create a blog so we can publish content and initiate a platform to interact, as well as leverage content for promotion.

And that’s pretty much what I think about building a basic website for a music act. If you want to go beyond that, and you will if you want to get serious, you’re going to have to start paying me! No, I’m serious!

I am! email me Matt, kurbpromo@gmail.com

Alright we all should know how important getting links is. Links help tell Google that you matter and need to come up in search results. especially high quality links.

Now I’m going to use examples today of how you should be structuring your links.

This may sound like details but it’s actually the building block foundations of online marketing.

If I’m linking out to a band called Fear Zero I don’t do what I just did. If I really wanted to help them I’d link out to Free Modern Pop Rock Mp3 because this is a term they’re trying to rank for.

What are you trying to rank for? I’m not trying to rank for “kurb”, what the hell is a kurb anyway?

I’m trying to rank for “music marketing” and “music management” and “marketing management“.

But obviously you and your fans don’t want your blog to be filled with SEO stodge because you’re an enigmatic rock star, not some geek, and so you’re probably likely to describe them as . . . “pop rock band Fear Zero . . . ”

That way, readers know it’s the link, and it doesn’t seem too cheesy. But you get your keywords in there. Nobody is going to be searching for Fear Zero or the name of your band. What they’re searching for is what they already know they want.

A free modern pop rock mp3.

So when you’re a blogging artist, you might think it’s easy to run out of things to talk about. Possibly, but you’ve got to play the social media web 2.0 game.

Eric over at Evolvor.com - which is a Music Marketing blog and also provides online music services - asked me to shout out on his new artist project, and given that he’s accepted many links back to my site when I’ve commented on his blogs and that’s brought me visitors and subscribers, I felt it was the right thing to do.

Check out Evolvor.com because they do a lot more news than I do . . . do I even do news? And I know Eric over there is solid on his SEO, Social Media and ad supported models. I particularly urge you to go over there if you’re a musician who is heavily influenced by um how would I say . . . Grunge? Modern Rock?

I have love for all forms of music. I do. But let me tell you quietly that if you’re in a grunge band you’re probably better off going to see Eric. I have absolutely nothing against Grunge musicians, well not much. But over at Evolvor, this is their speciality. They know that tribe, because they’re immersed in the music.

I don’t even listen to music because it distracts me from thinking of ways to make money from music. Having to sleep is a real irritation also.

Another blogger you might get into is Greg Rollett who I found through Eric. He’s a passionate entrepreneur and also a social entrepreneur, that is he’s trying to actually mobilize support for social causes, that is - gasp - help people in need. He’s bridging his knowledge of internet marketing and music under a gen-y marketing focused brand. You see how he’s identifying a niche and locking onto it.

When you bring someone onboard for music marketing service, you better make sure they have solid internet marketing skills, not just read a lot of stupid social media blogs.

But the point I was making is that you can talk about other people on your blog, and you should. It’s called “Blog Karma” and I know it works because all the most powerful bloggers are adept at networking and have the nice guy thing nailed.

Outbound links to authoritative sites also improve the authority of your site, and when I’m talking about quality links, keyword rich, one way links from an authoritative blog - that is one with original content like this one, not the 40 other splogs I keep ahem - those are the very best links.

So I’m talking about Fear Zero and what I think of their site. See you don’t have to do all that explaining just to say, here’s a band, here’s their music, here’s what I like about them, and here’s what I think.

It’s not that hard.

With Fear Zero you really see wordpress being knocked up a notch for a more professional look, but what’s important is that it’s customized, the design is unique to the band and I can pick up that this is obviously some kind of rock band’s website.

Wordpress gives you lots of options and it’s not too much of a headache to add lots of widgets and plug ins that give you a lot of options, and Fear Zero look like they’re fully utilized. Photos, Videos and buttons to connect you through to the big music and big social sites are all accounted to and accessible right there.

So if I’m a myspace or facebook person, or a twitter person, or a youtube type personit’s going to be easy to get that connection where I’m active. If I’m a music consumer, there’s links there to all the big sites where I make my music purchases. Not ALL of the social and music sites. Just all the ones that matter.

Also the video is right there above the fold. For those attention deficit riddled kids out there, we need to get video and music content into them immediately! if you don’t have a big play button somewhere so something can start playing right there where the visitors are landing then you’re going to have a really hard time getting them hooked. Also, in that first blurb they’re dropping names like AC/DC, Metallica, Hinder, Third Eye Blind so you know it’s a rock band you’re dealing with.

Now the free download and reverbnation email list are in full swing, but this is where I would make the point of saying that artists need to go even further.

This is a great site and it’s an awesome music site. But when I think about internet marketing, sure, you don’t want to turn people off, but you’ve got to really frame the proposition, and ramp it up!

That’s how I do business!

You want new visitors to leave the site with  your music and you want to get their email. Those are your two main goals. If I was working on this site I would say awesome, great, things are running, how are we going to optimize conversions to email sign ups and free downloads?

I think those two propositions need to be tweaked, so they’re really engaging the visitor to get those songs and download the free tune.

Framing is my new favourite word. I’m still going to say “leveraging” a lot though. Framing is all about how you approach the mindset of the visitor.

Downloading the song and signing up for email isn’t an option here. You’d be crazy not to. That’s the frame you’re creating. It’s not used car salesman stuff; it’s approaching the outcome as the focus.

The download album panel is sitting there above the video, and the email sign up is below it, but I think these two items, as essential outcomes, need to be given more “shelf space”, and maybe need a little more hustle.

Now I was going to at this point start talking about my OWN clients but decided that this post is long enough, so we’re going to be doing some more linking out another time.

As I say, linking out and talking about other people is the right way to blog. What you’re doing is providing value to your readers by putting them onto valuable sources, and those sources are going to recognise the value you provide them when you send juicy links, and this always works when those bloggers check their stats and see visits coming through from your sites.

Also if you’re a kiwi check out another local blogger Chris Yong blogging in Music websites and marketing.

This post is part of a loose focus on rebranding and developing your music brand  here at Kurb Promotions Music. Marketing Management. blog - that is, engaging audiences with strong messages, strong value and “values”, and strong presentation of content. You can subscribe to RSS updates on this blog right up there in the top right corner.

Just reading a bit on Digital Audio Insider discussing a piece from another Music Industry Blog how the majority of musicians aren’t just in it for the love.

Musicians got to eat. What they’re saying is that they don’t want the rock star lifestyle, they just don’t want to have to work a crappy job.

Of course that spoke to me because that’s the brand I’m building here now at Music. Makreting. Management. No nonsense, just revenue strategies for musicians and content providers to create income.

To me, this is really important because it’s not really that hard. To me, spending a fair few years being dirt broke and some of the painful mistakes I made over that time in the music business was worth it.

It was hard for awhile not knowing where I would end up. It was hard losing money because I was driven by desperation and I wasn’t clued up. I just knew I loved music and I couldn’t stand being told what to do. I couldn’t waste my precious time working for somebody else when all these ideas and dreams were bubbling in my head.

I made sacrifices. And from those sacrifices I can tell you you’re not going to get to where I am without making sacrifices that have played out over years. I started Kurb 51 months ago, I only started earning “decent” money about 21 months ago - I earn at least twice what I did then now, and I’ll probably earn twice what I do now in another 21 months.

It’s really important to note that now that I have money behind me and experience, it’s a lot easier to put everything together. I have resources now.

So sure, in 21 months it would have taken me a full 6 years of full time effort to “make it” in the online digital music business. Where are you in terms of that 6 years full time effort buidling your digital music business?

Have you got a spare 6 years?

I wouldn’t be here if I finished my degree and worked a job. I wouldn’t be here if I was married with kids. That’s just the truth, you may be different, but I couldn’t have done it otherwise. it’s just something you have to take on board if you want to be successful in online music.

But I don’t think I did anything special. I’ve just worked hard pretty much every day for the last 4 years.

What I’m saying is that online success is not hard unless you think it’s going to happen in less than a year, without you quitting your job.

Sure, you can pay me. That’s going to help. It’s going to let you move forward throug ha lot of barriers and dead ends that held me back, but I can’t put 4 years of work into a 3 month campaign.

You think if I was offering to get you earning a 6 figure yearly gross next year I’d be charging $200 p/month for it?

We’re living in a new era now. There’s a revolution in communication and global culture and content going on that you can be a part of, like I am. It’s the future. I’m a part of it and I love it.

I love knowing I’d be earning less now even if I had finished my degree and spent the last 6 years at a marketing firm.

As a broke musician, I’d truly given up hope of becoming as successful as I am slowly becoming now, and every passionate musician has the ability to become as successful as I am - with solid knowledge of modern digital music and internet marketing practices - I truly believe it.

But it will take years and it will take sacrifice. It will take expert support from someone who’s done it, such as myself, and you will have to apply yourself. You will have to make a commitment. It won’t happen for you despite my or anybody else’s help.

If you want to leave your job and build a full time income, I think you can do it. But to build a better life for yourself, following your passion, you’ve got to make it happen and be prepared to make sacrifices.

Next I’m going to talk about how these messages fit into the new brand I’m building for myself, and how drilling down on what’s meaningful to you can help create crucial branding messages that connect you with your fans, and their hopes and dreams.

Next Up: Expressing Your Brand and Marketing Your Story to Build Value and Make Money in Music.

Alright I’m following up my last post where I was talking about making sacrifices to make money in music.

I wanted to start talking about how it relates to branding which is a big theme right now on this blog over the holiday season, but I got pretty carried away with my story that I had to make my point into another post, and this is it.

I was talking about how desire to create revenue was shown to be prevalent amongst musicians who generally just wanted to be able to create enough income to leave their jobs and earn a sole income from music and digital content enterprises.

In my last post I was just sending a strong message that it’s not actually that hard to make money online you’ve just got to be prepared to make a commitment that’s long term.

You can’t expect to earn the equivalent income from online sources of a highly paid professional without putting in the preparation. A degree is 3 years long and costs tens of thousands of dollars, how could you expect to be successful in a music or any other online content medium without putting in at least that much into it before you even think about getting paid? Without putting in the research and understanding how the business has worked and how it’s now changing, you’re not going to find a point of value where you can start building to create income.

As long as you understand that, as an independent musician you’re on your way to becoming a successful content provider and online entrepreneur.

I mean where do you want to be in three years? Working in a job you hate slowly letting go of your dreams?

In the last post I described my own experiences in the digital music business. I described how I couldn’t work a job, because I couldn’t let go of my dreams, and though I was surviving on a pittance, in retrospect it was inevitable that I would find some way of surviving in music without having to get a job. It was also inevitable it would be online as clearly we can see now that the internet is the future of media, and this is why I assure you of the opportunities available because things are only just getting started.

So do you see what I’m doing here?

I’m communicating a story - a narrative of how I’m making it in the online music industry. It’s taken awhile, but I’m definitely getting there. And this is the brand I’m developing here at Music Marketing Management.  This Blog is all about the MMO FM so tune it in. Make Money Online from Music.

That’s right.

You’re reading this to learn how to make money from music online and monetize digital content so when I tell you about how I’ve succeeded, we connect. We connect because I’m telling you you can do it to, but you’ve got to understand how stories, just like the one I’ve been telling, connect you with your audience and build your brand.

These are the stories that will grow and take on meanings for our audiences that make us more than just another musician or another music marketing guy.

Because when I see that a large majority of musicians want to become professional, I think of the sacrifice I made to get there. You can do it if you make the commitment, if you understand that you absolutely have to throw yourself into it, you’ve got to build your own story, you’ve got to understand how you’re going to build a brand that’s powerful and speaks to people, and you’ve got to understand internet marketing fundamentals if you’re going to get the eventual success you’ll have to work so hard for.

If you’re not interested in the money making part of the digital music business, then this blog won’t be for you, and neither will my advice.

Because I love making money. I really do.  I promised myself I would start to relax a bit more once I’d reached a certain goal in earnings but I’m passionate about it, and knowing how easy it is now after so long, I want to keep progressing and developing my efforts.

My understanding the nature of the new business - and by business, I mean business - is only going to improve if I remain actively innovative and progressive within it.

I want to help people toward the future, where independent creative people will be rewarded for their individual efforts; where they can recognize exactly where to create value and monetize in the digital content chain.

But I want to do it in my way. I want to establish a brand that represents what I’m about, because I want to connect with the people who will find value in that.

Because even I want to be able to leave my job and become a powerful and valuable internet brand and content provider.

Next up: the story continues, music marketing rebranding in action.

So it’s total rebranding in action these holidays at music marketing management.

I’ve been poking around the subject recently, and then I started out describing how after 4 years doing kurb I’ve managed to establish a good income from digital music enterprises and I described something of the sacrifices I’ve made to do that.

Then I went to describe how this was precisely an example of using a story that builds concepts around my brand, because branding messages in stories like this connect us with our audiences.

This was a story of my journey to create a decent living working in the digital music business and that reflects the message behind this blog’s brand. Making money. Creating income. Deriving revenue. For anyone with an internet connection who can write, record, or point a camera and wants to make money doing it for themselves.

Now today’s post is designed to hopefully bring that story out a bit more.

Because at the end of the last post I said:

“Because even I want to be able to leave my job and become a powerful and valuable internet brand and content provider.”

This is what I’m saying and the conclusion I reached by committing to develop my brand.

You could stay at your job and do music on the side. I could keep doing what I do running my businesses and developing new business ideas.

But I think there’s more. I know there’s more for those who want to commit to earning from content online - because that’s what this blog is about!

If I can can create a full time income from digital business - content products and services, then so can you.

But there’s also more for me. I’m ready to go further, yet It’s the same path. We’ve got to throw ourselves into articulating our brand so we connect deeply with our tribe. Our tribe, those people to whom we are a leader and influencer, because our message provides them with so much value.

I don’t want to be some lumped in with common dime-a-dozen overnight “social media experts”.

I actually know how to make money online and enjoy doing it on a day to day basis, that is the basis of the brand and leadership I provide on this blog.

How can you become a leader and inspire your tribe without strong concepts that provide value?

The hangers on and the passers by aren’t our concern. Our true fans, our tribe is our main concern. To lead your tribe, you’ve got to find your tribe, or more likely they’ve got to find you, so you’ve got to be bold and visionary and carry a message that resonates, have a powerful brand that speaks to people.

Even one that polarizes people and gets them all worked up. Your fans are looking for a leader so lead them!

My brand, I discovered, already polarizes people, and as I’ve become more successful I decided it was time to start embracing it.

I’m not sure if you know who Gary Vaynerchuk is. He’s a well know internet entrepreneur who is known for being very successful and somewhat annoying. He presents his online tv show “wine library” passionately and hyperactively, and it’s not exactly a sophisticated affair, it’s generally him sitting at his desk swilling wine and talking a million miles an hour in his chipmink voice.

He is well known for throwing his passion into his work in a way that polarizes people. And the end of the day he is irritating, but he is recognized for the brand he has created and has become a very successful online entrepreneur because of it. His online wine store turns over US$50m pa.

So let’s be bold enough to build powerful brands that connect with people that we can leverage. Build a vibe that’s big. Don’t play it safe, but make sure you can back it up, maverick.

Powerful brands are built on strong messages and strong messages are not always well received, but at least if you upset somebody, you know you’re making waves.

I must admit I’m still a little bit apprehensive about the months ahead as I’m articulating my new brand, because I’m moving forawrd and I’m not going to be playing it safe.

The brand I want to build represents building success online and what that means to me, part of that is the freedom of knowing I never have to work for anybody else, and I’m at liberty to say what I like.

No one can fire me.

The brand I want to build represents building revenue and income, and enjoying the lifestyle I’ve always wanted, and that lifestyle is the embodiment of me, it’s the embodiment of everything I’ve strived for.

That will be my brand, that’s my story, and I’m the main character. And just as that story has only begun, so the story must go on, as I continue to develop my success with my online digital content and bringing more of my personal character to that.

So no one has to like my attitude, like my stories or my new brand. They don’t have to make money for the reasons I do. But they’re going to need my attitude if they want to learn how to make money online in music.

So what’s your story? What’s going to be the compelling story and powerful brand you employ to draw people into your tribe, what is the message that will connect them and bring their support behind you?

Alright right now I am getting right into whitehat search engine optimization!

White hat search engine optimization is good guy by-the-book seo, which means it’s a little bit of hard work, there’s no shortcuts, but it is really effective when done right.

So we’re combining what we learnt about anchored keywords when showing link love on your music artist blog, with a lesson about how to go about creating one way back links from relevant sites - the most effective SEO links you can get.

We learnt before why I want to anchor my link with music marketing or DVD duplication. Because people aren’t looking for Matt @ Kurb, they’re looking for someone who can give them music marketing services or a DVD duplication company.  So I need to put that in the “anchor text” to tell Google that that's whats going on.

That’s what’s going to help whatever I’m linking to come up for that exact term in google searches.

So we’ve learnt how to build an effective back link, now we’re going to learn about using white hat techniques - otherwise known as “asking nicely” - to get one way links from relevant sites.

A one way back link with exact key phrases anchoring it  from a highly relevant and highly ranked site is the holy grail of search engine optimization.

Now I’ve always been shy of hard work as some of you will know, I haven’t had a proper job in 8 years, and that’s as it should be, because there’s so many ways that you can make yourself more valuable in general by leveraging a brand and offering products and services online.

I first began learning about search engine optimization over 5 years ago so it was quite an epiphany when I moved beyond myspace promotion and all this stuff I’d begun learning about but never had any results with began to come back to me.

The problem was, like most musicians I wasn’t keen to keep putting effort into it at the time because it didn’t pay off immediately. Mainly because their weren’t nearly so many people online. The internet was still a novelty. But like a lot of things in my creative career,  what I learned and appreciated at that point became extremely valuable to me later.

But through learning about automating myspace  began learning all the tricks I do now about promoting music online and the types of techniques that internet marketers used.

I first recognized the power of SEO because my myspace promotion had been so effective - and this was before they bought in all the anti spam measures such as msplinks - that I was dominating Google results for some of my original businesses - my postering business and my CD and DVD duplication service.

For CD Duplication I used to get nicely up around 3 or 4 which guaranteed me continued business.

What this gave me was a chance to recognize how powerful ranking in Google could be.

I must of had one of the shoddiest looking DVD Copying sites around, but the google traffic in combination with my other marketing tactics, ensured I got a good amount of business.

Of course about 18 months ago, myspace bought in msplinks and killed the massive Google juice I was getting from their site, I think my old kurb site is still blacklisted by myspace, but also, because it’s been up there for 5 years, it still gets massive SEO advantages. This is why it’s so important just to get your website set up on a domain you intend to stick with, even if it’s not pretty.

Now since then blogging, pay per click and a little bit of ad supported revenue has kept things moving for me online until I recently got my first gig doing SEO consultation which put me under pressure to get results. It was a little bit iffy there, but I ended up suprising myself, so after a brief flirt with being a ppc expert, which I definitely endorse when done right, I am also back into “organic search”.

I’ve also been influenced recently by an internet marketing guru who is completely lazy and refuses to do all but a very small amount of work. He swears by playing by the rules. 100 decent links will trump 10,000 trash links any day of the week. In New Zealand the competition tends to be so weak that you still beat your competitors even when you’re being penalized.

But the advice I’m getting here from one of the big boys is that the key is relevance.

Yes I want links for DVD duplication and dvd copying. But those links are only as good as the sites they come from and if the site has nothing to do with DVD's then there’s no way I’ll reap the benefits I could be if it was.

It’s all about relevance.

Now the second point is about “link exchanges” link exchanges are good, but they are nowhere near as effective as one way links, a link where they link to you

This is where webmasters will often get together, if I can get a link for “music marketing” or “CD duplication” off a music site, then I will link to them from one of my other sites mainly http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com because it’s no longer my main blog part has a PR4 ranking which means it passes a lot of influence and webmasters are always keen for me to link to them from there.

I also have a lot of PR3’s which are fairly decent too.

If I can get an internet marketing or a technology blogger to link to music marketing or DVD copying I will often then link to them from my small business marketing bloghttp://smallbusinesspromotion.info

This shows why it’s so effective to have more than one site, and also be developing niche properties on wordpress.com and blogger.com where you can build your niche link exchanges, and generally do a few other trashy things that your adoring fans might find a little less than rock star.

Remember when I said that internet marketing is all about “owning more of the web”? This is what I’m talking about. Developing and leveraging online niche properties. Everyday, more niches are being filled online by newcomers capturing that space with a new blog or site, pretty soon becoming an online entrepreneur from your bedroom isn’t going to be as easy as it has been, and nor is creating impact and attention in entertainment.

See, I counted up how many “splogs” I have. Over 50, almost 60.  Well They’re not really splogs. A splog is a blog that rips articles from an RSS feed and repost them automatically. My splogs are just trashy niche based blogs that I put next to no effort into just so I can expand my web presence.

As I say, links from these sites are not highly valued, but get enough of them . . . and of course where I’m able to leverage these blogs for links back to my main sites, they are very effective.

So to finish up . . .

Have you got a blog or a site or a particular post on your blog that talks about music, CD/DVD, graphic design or youtube or - is your website based on a New Zealand server?

Google’s geo targeting also means that websites who are closer to who’s searching are also deemed more relevant, which is particularly of concern where my DVD business is involved because I only offer these service within New Zealand.

Websites on a NZ server or containing a .co.nz are both considered as being more relevant to NZ searchers.

My terms of course are

“Music Marketing” or “Online Music Marketing”

“DVD duplication” and “DVD copying”

and my new businesses I’m developing

“youtube promotions”

“cheap graphic design”

“small business marketing”

All you have to do is copy the links above and past them into a blog post - editing them into a post that you’ve already done on a relevant topic is a great way to give me my link without raising readers suspicions.

If your sites aren’t too trashy and are decent, I can give you sweet as one way links from my wordpress blog as well as this one - both very high quality sites, PR4 and PR3, and of course I’ve got plenty of music sites that I can also give you one way links from.

Whitehat SEO one way link exchanges in music baby. Let it work for you!

Drop me a line at kurbpromo@gmail.com if you’re keen on an exchange!

I’m so excited I’m heading into the quiet time of the year for me as far as my main dvd duplication and dvd copying operation goes and although I’ll be beavering away on client websites, I’m right back into the internet marketing scene.

Checking out lots of gurus.

Now one guru who I’ve been getting a great deal of knowledge off recently did a series where he pointed out that the beginning of any internet marketing campaign begins with sales.

It doesn’t end with sales, it begins with sales on a website. Sales of a product, a service . . . a fixed fee for some bundled content, any or all of those future music business models we love here on this blog.

This is why I’m doing the work I am with artists, building music and artist sites that are going to work. Because unless you can prove that you have a website and you are selling a product, and that sales are actually happening , there’s no point launching an online music marketing campaign just to have a whole lot of people come to your site and not buy anything.

If anything it should help you understand perhaps people want to buy your products or experience your music in a more interesting and accessible way than a CD.

And understand that we do want to sell things. We do want to leverage propositions, we want to make money online with our music. BUT we can also understand that it’s not easy anymore and just getting those email sign ups means we’re still moving forward towards music monetization.

Sales are hard. But emails are something.

This is the thing, old guru face reckons you don’t even need a product. Once you implement solid online music promotion tactics, you can read the market, and gauge the potential receptivity of a product or service you may only still be developing. It’s clever stuff once you know what you’re doing with a strong email list and traffic flow to your website.

I’ve been going quite crazy again in online music marketing and other little niches I’m crawling into - my disc duplication services, of course as well as youtube promotions, cheap graphic design.

Redesigns are underway and I’ll be relaunching a few over the new year.

My artist community at new music marketing is now almost completely free of spam and nasty porn, and I’m leaning close to posting some articles in there about two relevant subjects to this topic, because that’s where I put all the juicy stuff.

Starting crazy amounts of junky trash blogs and spinning your written content for links.

I got almost 70 blogs going now. They’re like my pawns.

If you want to make money online with music you really have to get into an internet marketing space. Or well your management does anyway. You need to own more of the net.

You need to be absolutely hammering those niches, if you want to make money you may have to accept one website may not be enough. One blog. Not enough. Perhaps you’re the manager now, managing your web properties, filling out your niche and looking for the breakaway.

But not really. Really, your niche sites are your pawns, moving forward into new niche territory to cover the strike power of your flagship sites.

Put it this way. If you have a christmas album, you need a Christmas album website. Sure it only makes  money once a year but that’s good, it’ll be the only time you have to update it.

What other niches can you cover, do you cover more than one genre? Maybe you need to think about creating and developing satellite sites.

You’ll probably want a separate site for your licensing. You’ll want separate sites or blogs for all your music business activities.

You should “ready, fire, aim,” as they say. Get started, gauge interest, and most importantly, start aging your domain, adding content, developing your concept over the months it will need to mature as an online entity - mainly of course, in the eyes of Google.

Start now, grab your niche web property and start developing it. If somethings a dumb idea, get it out of your system. Just like me you might come back to a lot of stuff 2 years later and realize there was something to it, and you’ve still got the web property you established to work with.

Grab your wordpress, blogspot, live journal blogs, load your content up with keyword links and fire it out.

Get decent domains as an investment decent domains.

Not

www.mattfromkurb.com

but something smart that people are looking for

www.cheapmusiclicensing.com

www.licensedancemusic.com

www.musicindustrybusiness.com

www.makemoneymusicbusiness.com

Last one not so much. As a general rule of thumb in web real estate, a good, searchabe 3 word .com domain can always sell for more than you bought it.

Slap a word press blog on it and 10 original non duplicate posts and leave it for a year, that should be worth $US100.

.info’s are good if you’re looking for decent key phrases but don’t have the perceived value that .com’s do.

Get into article marketing, start at www.ezinearticles.com. Request link exchanges with relevant sites, and join up with our music marketing forum, it’s still free and for one there’s a huge list of do follow blogs you can comment on to get decent one way backlinks.

These seo strategies as well as access to graphic design, myspace promotion, youtube promotion, blog promotion, email list management, website and blog set up and development as well as foundational online music marketing strategy are all available on our packages starting at US$500 for 3 months. email me Matt, kurbpromo@gmail.com

THE WORKS. Online Music Marketing starts from $US500 for 3 months. email kurbpromo@gmail.com

Well lets have your youtube account looking halfway decent for a start, it’s not much chop having this wonderful video if it doesn’t look like your serious about presenting it. Youtube is run by Google it’s teaming with Google juice and Google runs on text! So add text! Lots of it.

You don’t want your youtube completely barren so fix that - start by pulling stuff off your website if you have to.

You want your Myspace looking good. A professional band wants to have a professional looking myspace that looks like they take themselves seriously. Looks like they’re music probably shouldn’t be free, I mean what exactly makes a difference these days?

The you can get started on some promo, with a decent myspace that looks good and makes sense that should start kicking over. It’s like any space, give people a reason to be there and show them what to do. Get their emails.

Do some tweaks when events take place - when a new video arrives, new downloads, other juicy content bundles that are full of goodies.

Like software and apps. Forgive me this is so a whole other post, but as you see your web designer now, so you will see the guy who designs your custom software and apps in the future.

There’s stuff to do. let me put it this way if I’m promoting some commercial emo or hip hop, I’d be a lot more blunt with my approach, but with grown up music, it needs a slightly more sophisticated approach, so we’ve probably got a lot of stuff to get straight, I hope you can bare with me.

With kids, they’re either into it or not and that’s the end of it.

But where the local scene is mature even by international standards, you have to attempt to grow your
reputation and rapport with the existing context.

Myspace won’t be a problem if your work and presentation is of a standard.

But I do like to be a little bit clearer on my research for youtube, it’s worth making the effort to really target the audience, there is going to be an interest in new high quality material, and I feel we want to get these peoples emails so you can sell them things later on, and leverage it to create more buzz, where there is this established scene to feed off.

Again, this sophisticated market expects free music. Maybe they expect bootlegs and remixes or other interactive 2.0ful experiences.  That’s something we’ve just got to negotiate how we can with.

How you say? I said! Get the emails! Get me a few hundred emails, anyone got a few hundred people on email? Show me those emails then we get to work.

When we get to auto responding those fans down the endless funnel of delightful digital products, we got fan management revenue locked up.

Check me out I’m so fly I don’t even collect emails, but you not fly like me.

So your plan is pushing your traffic where exactly? To itunes? To the video for paid views?

Where’s the high value prospect? That’s why I fly, because of the value of my prospect is high!

You feel me?

Your awesome video you’ve spent too much money on is there to engage so that the target is excited about what they’ve seen.

What do you want them to do after the video? Buy the track? Download free material? Submit email?

They want to sign up for email and they might participate in actions that result in revenue that you will solicit by email and a later time!

This is where I focus on a landing page - which fulfill all these specific outcomes.

We herd them up toward this page where we know should to they happen to have not previewed the video, they can do so, there’s purchase buttons, your social network buttons, your download for the free mixes you’re offering, plus email sign up.

This is where it goes down.

Otherwise where’s your written content, new release, new video? we need to have that “press release” type copy prepared as I will be formatting that message for different social media - blogs, forums, groups etc.

Each of these platforms needs to be spammed engaged in the most appropriate manner.

But you need to start, as always with  your keywords, don’t forget based around artists you sound like.

Same with on site youtube promotion, you don’t want to run around youtube spamming the place, there’s a place for spam , it’s called myspace.

If you’re clever and experienced like me, you use keywords when automating promotion on youtube so you only get highly qualified matches. Otherwise seriously you’re just spamming the place.

Again with your youtube, your copy, you’re going to want to mention artists and labels that you’re distinctly akin to in sound and vibe, and just all the normal press release stuff, if you can do quotes . . . anything I can work with!

So what do we do with our writing? Where do we put it? How do we get it to all the different social media, how will people come to watch our video?

How do we make the landing page with the email and the buttons?

How can we auto respond with delightful funnels?

Well you can wait around and keep reading or you can get your wallet out and email me, Matt

kurbpromo@gmail.com