This blog post is dedicated to those of you that have blogs of your own and may even be a more advanced blogger than myself. This is for the people that really pay attention to their social status and care about the people that follow you. The business of the music business requires that you handle all aspects of your business. Social media is the gatekeeper to your success. Blogs are not just for providing content, it is about recognizing who your audience is and where there are coming from. The information that is vital to keeping up with your audience is Search Engine Optimization. This is the process of bringing visibility to your website or blog. Below is a 10-minute video that explains the basics of SEO.

 10 Minute SEO Basics

The basics of SEO are an area that is new to me in getting the world familiar with my blog “The Business of Music Publishing”. I had no clue whatsoever about the ins and outs of the world of neither SEO  nor what it was. This tutorial comes from a person on Google webmasters team by the name of Maile Ohye. Here are some things that she will cover.

1. Startups better qualified for this talk- website with 50 pages or less; rank with a few keywords or less

2. Be objective

3. Select www or not

4. Verify ownership in Webmaster Tools-

5. Perform background check on your domain- check for "spammy" domain

6. Add Webmaster Tools; Fetch as Googlebot

7. Include analytics code

8. Strategy in site design

9. Define your conversion

10. Be smart about your copy- include relevent keywords

11. Answer your visitor questions

12. Every page should include- Topic, Title, meta description, descriptive anchor text

13. Do not hire a rouge SEO

14. Do not participate in Link schemes

15. Focus more on site speed

16. Speed- the longer your page takes to load the likely they will go away

17. Check your ranking- provide an awesome product or service

18. Think holistically- create identity on key sites

19. Use social media to your advantage

20. Stay focused

                                                       Source: YouTube and Entrprenuer.com

I encourage all music professionals to either hire someone or study this topic to gain a better appreciation of this subject. You can gain a lot of insight in knowing where your audience is and use that information to grow your audience as well. This type of information can be used to sell more of your product or market to a certain audience that you may want to have. SEO can change the way you view your business marketing model. Blogging is a great way for music professionals to broaden their social platforms and communicate with that audience as well.

 Reference:

1. Fell, J. (June 26, 2012). Google’s 10-Minute Guide To SEO Basics, Retrieved on July 1, 2012 from http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/223883

2. Hedger, J. ( n.d.). Basic Optimization Techniques. Retrieved on July 1, 2012 from http://www.searchengineguide.com/jim-hedger/seo-101-basic.php

3. Maile, B. (June 1, 2012). 10 Basic SEO Tips To Get You Started. Retrieved on July 1, 2012 from
http://www.businessinsider.com/10-basic-seo-tips-everyone-should-know-2010-1?op=1