© CHRISCB PHOTOGRAPHIE

If you want to promote yourself and sell your music Online, in my view, you need to get yourself a website (not just a number social networking profiles and a blog) - that’s what UnsignedBandPromotion.com is all about! But it doesn’t stop there, once you’ve got yourself a website you will need to promote it to get visitors - your website needs "traffic".

Targeted Traffic is the Buzzword here. What I’m talking about is attracting hundreds of visitors who are interested in your genre and lifestyle to your website. And quite frankly it doesn’t matter what you are promoting online, whether it’s music or cars, if you want to be successful you need masses of targeted traffic. Most websites get the bulk of their traffic from Google! Google is the most important supplier of traffic for the typical business website, in fact, an average of 65% of visitors could come from Google - that’s a lot, but I’m not talking about search engine optimization, I’m talking about asking your fans, friends and family to help - and don’t forget to keep saying Thank You.

5 Ways Fans Can Help To Promote Your Band

1. Ask fans, friends and family (FFF) to join you on: Facebook, Myspace, ReverbNation, Twitter, Wordpress, Youtube. Then ask FFF to spread the word by/via: Updates, Bookmarks, Bulletins, Emails, Pings, Retweets, Tagging, Comments and Posts… talking about your band, genre and lifestyle.
2. ReverbNation almost has a plethora of widgets and a street team ‘organizer’. Ask FFF to share your widget by putting it on their websites, blogs and social networking pages. Via email, ask your FFF to join your street team, then create a street team mission. Read Brian Hazard’s excellent blog post, My first ReverbNation street team mission.
3. Ask FFF to link to you and encourage others to do the same. Create a set of banners and links. Display the banners, provide the code… eg.,
   <!– Start of YourBandName link code - copy & paste to your website –>
   <p><a href="http://www.YourBandName.com/">YourBandName - Rock Band</a></p>
   <!– End of YourBandName code –>
4. Set yourself up with an e-mailing list (MailChimp?). Ask FFF to include the sign-up form on their sites and ask their friends to join your mailing list. They can also include mailing list sign-up details in their email signatures as well as adding a tell a friend link.
5. Tell your fans, friends and family not to Spam on your behalf. Tell them not to contaminate the Internet with the same mind numbing bollocks that would cause a brain seizure in even the most dim-witted music fan and come up with something new and interesting and while you’re at it tell them that if they use the phrase "This band is AWESOME they TOTALLY Rock" you will personally come around to their house and stick the rough end of your Flying V up their arse and the same goes for "Sorry about the shameless self promotion" and if they say "These guys are definitely musicians’ musicians - check ‘em out they’re totally amazing, OMG I can’t wait for the album, everything by this band is SO awesome" send the band around and stick the fully wired and throbbing Roland D-Bass-210 amplifier up their ignorant arse to block the flow of mindless crap that will have the readers and your potential future fans sticking red-hot needles into their eyes rather than read another turd fuelled fabrication about your awesome band, these stupid tossers are only going to impress the lemming-minded who will not actually buy your hard worked album, they will spend their lives exploring how they can download it for free and if you think that they will pass it on to their friends and ’spread the word’ you have got another think coming because they couldn’t pass on influenza. Feed your fans, friends and family with plenty of content and warn them about spamming and quality or it will cost you dearly - silence can be a virtue. You guys totally rock!

If you want to promote your band on on social networking sites, a good idea is to find bands of the same genre and from the same locale and get into conversation with them. You can find these bands by searching in Google [click to search for Punk Rock Bands London].

Type this into Google: site:profile.myspace.com punk rock london [you can just click!] and it will find MySpace Profiles that are predominantly about "Punk Rock" and in or about "London"!

Today I came upon this little nugget via Twitter, 7 Insanely Useful Ways to Search Twitter for Marketing by John Jantsch - it’s well worth a read.

From that article by John Jantsch we get: intitle:"punk rock* on twitter" site:twitter.com [you can just click!] - nice, elegant, handy.

Helping Indie Bands With Their Promotion,
Unsigned Band Promotion
UnsignedBandPromotion.com
Helping musicians and artists get their websites noticed by fans, search engines
and the music industry in half the time they could do it on their own.

Band Directory

Sebastian Gibbs of Band Directory contacted me regarding a link - I wonder if that’s a reciprocal link? Anyway, Band Directory is one of those sites like Unsigned Band Promotion and London Gigs, that needs your support if you want to benefit from it - sort of in it to win it - Give tham a try.

If you read this blog regularly you will know that I feel strongly about indie bands promoting themselves locally i.e., Gigdoggy’s Gigs List was high in my esteem (sadly the beta version came to nothing) because it promoted collaborative networking, Band Directory could be seen in a similar light. Their aim is to, “match lots of suitable local bands to venues” and it’s basically Free unless you want Premium Promotion.

I must say, Band Directory does sound a little like Band Direction (a social network for musicians, venue owners and producers)! However, I’m not going to worry about that because Band Directory is UK based and up-and-running, Band Direction hasn’t gone live (may never go live) and is USA based. Lemonrock is worth a mention and more than a gander.

The Slips New Website

After slating the Slips’ website in "The Slips - Electro Band London" about a year ago, I thought they deserved a big WELL DONE for creating such a positive and attractive site.

The only thing I liked on The Slips’s old website, was the way they collected a fan’s email so they could download free remixes - very few bands did it so well as The Slips. The new website however is very entertaining. The Slips’ website is pulsating, gloriously bouncy and super-hot. I’m Loving The Slips New Website.

<strange>They’ve changed their website address too, from theslips.net to theslipsmusic.com</strange> Which is a little odd, but I’m sure they have their reasons.

The Slips released a 7" single Girls At The Back Up in the States as part of LA based IAMSOUND’s Singles Club, reaching No. 6 on The Hype Machine on the day of the release - awesome BUY it NOW - Click Here - $6.99 uses PayPal or you can BUY NOW From iTunes - MP3s or 7" vinyl including DRM-free MP3s.
The Slips have also released their first ever mix tape: Vol 1 Download Mix Tape Vol 1 FREE

• The Slips
• MySpace
• @The_Slips [Join The Slips on Twitter]
• DNR Music Productions

Promoting your band’s website locally is about getting more people to come to your gigs (if you don’t gig, don’t bother), it’s usually only locals who’ll turn up and support you. By promoting your band’s website locally you are also promoting your band locally - it works best if you’re hands-on, real world, for instance, if you want to get a link from the local press or local radio, it would help if your band proactively supports a local charity.

Local is the area around your favourite venue (the venue you like and play most) or your town. Get a map. Find the venue or town centre. Draw a circle with a radius of about 25 miles (about 40 kilometres) around the venue or town centre. That’s local. 25 miles represents the distance people would be prepared to travel to see an independent band in the UK. Because of the transport infrastructure and familiarity with commuting, you can have a 35 mile radius around a London venue (same in most large cities). Bands who operate in large cities have a big advantage - of course you don’t have to target everyone!

1. Swap links and get involved with local: businesses, charities, record shops, fashion shops, cafes, pubs, clubs, venues. Get links from local: press, radio.
2. (Legally) Hand out, post, pin up, stick and drop (accidentally!): flyers, stickers, business cards, button badges - in and around: schools, colleges, universities, record shops, fashion shops, cafes, pubs, clubs, venues and churches. Include your band’s name, website address and free gift details.
3. Team-up and collaborate with 5 or more local bands of the same or complementary genre and promote each other online and offline.
4. Use the networking communities (esp. Facebook, MySpace, ReverbNation) to communicate with the locals. Always make your website The focal point.
5. Create a mailing list / database of fans, friends and family, target those within your locale and ask them for support. And don’t forget, if you can’t make it locally with the support of your fans, friends and family, you’re not going to make it anywhere!

1. Tweak and improve your band’s website 5 times a year. Don’t cloud your mind (or website) with Web 2.0 and Apps., just think about your fans and aim to project your band’s identity.
2. Find the top 5 keywords and key-phrases that best describe your band. Think about what your potential fans will search for. Then stick them in your Title tag, Description meta tag and Body of the appropriate page. Now you’re being found for something else in the search engines other than your band’s name. Example:- it could be: your genre (indie rock band), your location (Chelsea, London), the name of your favourite venue or your album and song titles…
3. Link with 5 other websites each week. For linking think networking and for networking think conversations. So that’s, get into conversation with five new people each week and swap links. Start off by making your website the focal point of your social networking profiles.
4. Blog 3 times a week (What? Not five!). Blogging regularly will really get you thinking about your subject and enable you to talk about your music. It will increase the size, quality and visibility of your website and therefore make linking easier.
5. Announce your website 5 times a year via a newsletter. Start off with a free MailChimp (mailchimp.com) mailing list. Four band members should easily be able to assemble a legitimate mailing list of about 300 people - ask them first if they want to be on the list, then ask them to recommend you to their friends.

Andy Kostek has just released his new album My Mirage on CD Baby, and to help him out I’ve just updated his Micro-Site with the new information. I’ve made a few other little changes too! Andy’s well set up with a website and networking profiles - MySpace, CD Baby, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, ReverbNation - but, how many of you bands and artists know the difference between a website and a profile? Ever since I started helping bands to promote their websites back in August 2004, I have been amazed by the number of bands who have folded and by the number of bands who have abandoned their websites in favour of social networking portfolios (a collection of social networking profiles)! While I realize that these two facts aren’t wholly connected, there is in my opinion a correlation. I think that when a band gives up its website in favour of a social networking portfolio it is a sign of decline and dissolution - it certainly says their website wasn’t working, and maybe it also says they are not very good at networking - I was not talking about Andy there!

A Website is your place on the Internet, you own it and you can express yourself no matter how you like there. A Profile Page is part of someone else’s website, you don’t own it and there are limitations. MySpace, for instance, isn’t your space, it’s Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation’s space! So, an important difference between a website and a profile page is, you own the website not the profile page. I’ve got a 101 Reasons Why Your Band Needs A Website but, I think the top three are (not in any special order):

• Owning a Website shows credibility, control and professionalism.
• Your website is at the top of the promotion, marketing pyramid, your profile pages should form the strong foundation.
• Your fans want you to have a Website.

The Crème de la Crème of profile pages is the UBP Micro-Site - they’re a marketeer’s linking dream, however, they are much under valued and misunderstood by the music community who are in favour of social networking. It will be interesting to see if my little effort helps him. Good Luck Andy.

TURN UP THE VOLUME
Unsigned Band Promotion
UnsignedBandPromotion.com
~ helping musicians and artists get their websites noticed by fans, search engines
and the music industry in half the time they could do it on their own ~
http://www.unsignedbandpromotion.com/

Video Drum Head Are Copycats

Video Drum Head Have Copied My ‘Old’ Home Page!

…And the reason Video Drum Head are copying Unsigned Band Promotion is because, I am number one in Google for “Band Promotion”. Video Drum Head just don’t get it. And yes, I did send Video Drum Head an email. And no, Video Drum Head did not reply or remove the content! And do you know what? At the bottom of the Video Drum Head page is, Content copyright 2009-2010. Video Drum Head. All rights reserved. Video Drum Head Are Video Dick Heads - I wouldn’t deal with them or trust them. God Help Me.

Cutting The Crap,
Unsigned Band Promotion
UnsignedBandPromotion.com
~ helping musicians and artists get their websites noticed by fans, search engines
and the music industry in half the time they could do it on their own ~
http://www.unsignedbandpromotion.com/

I was contacted by Michael Swando of Swanzai - he wants a link, I wonder if he’ll link back? I doubt it! I get the impression he’s on the up - he has done some very good posters. This is what he has to say about himself:

Swanzai.net is a small graphic design firm based in Chicago, IL, specializing in creating high-end show posters, websites, flyers, and merchandise for bands and musicians. We’ve got over 8 years experience and dozens of stunning posters and websites already created for bands in Detroit, Chicago, and Phoenix. On top of this, we’ve adjusted our pricing down to nearly self-defeatingly low rates, and pulled out all the stops to bring in every unsigned band who needs the step-up quality design can give you.

Hanging out, working, and living with numerous musicians and bands over the past 4-5 years especially has opened our eyes to the symbiotic relationship between visual artists and bands. Oftentimes a band can be identified by a unique visual style that accompanies their music in the forms of Album Art, Merchandise, Show Posters and now Websites, and similarly - the work that designers do could scarcely be possible without the legacy of musicians sharing their music for inspiration.

Swanzai understands this. We also understand the budget unsigned artists can be under, and the priority of getting your music out there so the world can hear. We believe our prices are about as low as can be justified, and we’re working to include more relevant discounted package deals. Not every band has the pull to afford a different show poster for every show, so we make it easy to buy a discounted set of different posters that are reusable - just write in the info for each show and keep your promos fresh while still stretching your buck.

Apart from being, in our opinion, pretty good-looking, Swanzai.net’s Web Products can help out the unsigned band in several ways. Starting at $150 for your basic landing site to $600 for a fully-automatic multimedia music-selling machine, each of our websites are 100% custom-made and never from a template. Integrating your web site into a Content Management System (starting at $300) not only gives every bandmate the ability to update your site from anywhere from a familiar (think Blogger / Facebook) interface, but allows us to easily incorporate advanced features such as selling your music, swag, & mp3s online, incorporating a blog, videos, and social media, and more.

Swanzai is a fresh, young update to the online band design scene. With fresh, unique, high-end work and the lowest prices around, we’re primed to become the go-to source for budget show posters and web sites for the Unsigned + Indie Band Scene. Rock on.

As I said I like Michael’s work, I was taken by the Amen Cowboy poster. One thing that did strike me as very odd though, Amen Cowboy who have got a MySpace, haven’t got a website!! Stranger and stranger, they haven’t even bought their Domain Name. www.amencowboy.com is still up for grabs - I like the name Amen Cowboy… I think I might do me some rustling.

I’d like things to change around here in 2010!

I am sure my strap-line (Helping musicians and artists get their Websites noticed by fans, search engines and the music industry in half the time they could do it on their own) will not change, UnsignedBandPromotion will still be sweet music for your website, and be the worlds best free website promotion resource and service for musicians and artists - I just want it to be better!

It all started with Matt posting a link to a website that calculated how much ones website is worth. What’s my website worth? I asked, £28,000 came the reply. Yeah, right! I didn’t believe it, but it did get me thinking. Of course there are a whole range of variables to be considered when determining the worth of ones website: How much is the domain name worth? What are the monthly or annual earnings and is there a history of profits? How long has the website been up and running? How much traffic does the website get and are the sources of traffic reliable - is the website itself reliable? How does the website compare with other websites of its type? Does the website have potential to progress? What are the running costs of the website? ect… Then I took a cold, hard look at UnsignedBandPromotion.com, and I came to the conclusion that it’s worth about £8000 at best. Wow, not much for all that effort and what it offers. I also realized that it is I who makes this website and gives the free service, and therefore it is I who will have to change in 2010 and give a better service.

Over the last ten years or so there’s been lots of whingeing from the music industry about piracy, file sharing and profits. And there’s been bounteous and gleeful criticism from the industry commentators telling us that the music industry isn’t keeping up with technology or the mood and temper of the times. But, I really don’t feel sorry for either parties especially the multinational conglomerates like EMI, News Corp., Sony, Universal, Warner and Apple Inc., who have such an influence and massive hold on the industry, their fingers are in so many pies the little indie band doesn’t stand a chance - no change there then!

My simplistic understanding of the music industry is that it falls into two distinct groups, 1. the musicians who create the music, and 2. everyone else in the business!! Why is it when these two groups don’t make their expected profits they blame each other AND The Consumer - never themselves? I know it’s a complex industry but isn’t the customer always right? Ah, the consumer and the customer are two different entities (I’m being ironic)! I believe that a man who takes a business risk is entitled (not guaranteed) to make a profit as a reward, i.e., make a profit by giving customers what they want. And maybe that’s one of the problems, the music industry isn’t heading in the same direction as the one the customer would have chosen for himself?

One of the big changes over the last ten years has been the way musicians are able to create, market and promote their music and themselves. New technology has enabled completely useless and incompetent musicians to stand shoulder to shoulder alongside the idols they admire, follow and emulate (yeah of course I’m talking purely on a ‘Website’ basis here), independent musicians have never had it so good! And yes, that’s another problem for the music industry, sorting out the wheat from the chaff for the consumer. Marketing (the art/business of selling) is about customers, not producers; demand, not supply.

I do not differentiate between musicians good or bad, useless or talented I aim help anyone get their websites noticed by fans, search engines and the music industry in half the time they could do it on their own, as I said, that’s my strap line (BUT, you must have a website. I do not help bands to promote MySpace, PureVolume and profiles in general, or FreeWebs, Yahoo! GeoCities, LYCOS.tripod and other free webhosting type of pages. You need a real Website*). …Which is a pretty big call, but true, and I do it for free. Pound for pound I offer the worlds best free resources and services to help with website promotion for musicians and in the next decade I’m going to do it even better.