band website search engine optimization – backstagepass! – Data Science, Data Analytics and Machine Learning Consulting in Koblenz Germany

As everyone knows I am doing quite a lot search engine optimization for my band In Legend. After the new records Ballads and Bullets has been released last friday and I had already optimized the website so it would rank #1 for lyric search and also quite well if people search for illegal downloads. Now as a followup to my article Band Page SEO I decided to share some statistics with you about search engine optimization for websites of bands and take you kind of backstage!

Rammstein SEO vs In Legend SEO

First have an impression why this is actually important! watch in fullscreen

50 % of queries for our band name

Almost 50% of all search requests that lead to our page is search for our band name i.e. “in legend” the landing page of course would be www.inlegend.de. Quite interesting is that it doesn’t rank #1 due to the fact that legend is a highly amigious keyword. Anyway the absolut number of clicks that come from this query indicates how popular the band is.
All the other search requests distribute in the longtail but yesterday I took the time and grouped them by hand:

22% of all queries for illegal downloads

Antoher 22% of all search requests are searches for illegal downloads. In most cases the landing page is optimzed to the keyword
ballads n bullets mp3 download by in legend
On that page (and also in this article!) we spread link power to the following higher specialized long tail illegal download pages:
Rapidshare, torrents, filesharing, warez, emule, bit torrent, streaming, megaupload, sendspace, direct download link, p2p, edonkey, napster, megashare, ftp
If people search for this they will in any case find some chances to listen all our songs in an online stream. We also offer them verious ways to share email adress or become facebook fans. c.f. http://www.rene-pickhardt.de/how-to-take-care-of-your-fans-%E2%80%93-the-perfect-band-website-part-2/
So if you want to help a musician to fight illegal downloads you might want to share this post

17% of all queries for In Legend lyrics

Next 17% of all searches go for lyrics of our songs. Instead of going to some lyric portal the fan is taken to the website of our band where we also offer merchandise, albums and have the chance to start a communication with the fan.
note that each song has its own page optimzied to the corresponding keyword.
01. Heaven Inside [4:23]
02. Pandemonium [3:50]
03. Elekbö [4:44]
04. At Her Side [3:29]
05. Vortex [3:40]
06. Life Is Up To You [3:22]
07. The Healer (Inclusive Remedy) [5:56]
08. Yue [5:01]
09. Soul Apart [3:06]
10. Stardust (feat. Inga Scharf of Van Canto) [3:59]
11. A Hanging Matter [4:40]
12. Prestinate [4:01]
13. Heya [4:31]
14. Universe [3:24]

10% for the Longtail

this alreads sums up to 90% of our search traffic!
The rest would be some longtail keywords. Almost all of them lead to our message board.
I am pretty satisfied with this result. Though I am still amazed that every one out of five queries is about illegal downloads. Especially if you consider that a lot of searchers might not even click to the official band website even though it ranks high! Which means that the black number should be much higher. It is nice to see that my theory according to which most bands throw away potential by not optimizing their page for lyrics and downloads holds true!

4 Comments

Patrick Walch says:

May 24, 2011 at 5:44 pm

hi rene,
super artikel! bin schon gespannt auf die fortsetzung!
nur der sound im video könnte besser sein 😛
die generelle frage ist halt, ob man die leute, die nach illegalen downloads suchen unbedingt auf seiner seite haben muss…
cheers,
patrick
edit: (english translation by Rene)
hi rene,
nice article! I am already excited to see how you will continue!
but the sound in the video could be better 😛
the important question is: Do you want to have people on your site who are looking for illegal downloads
cheers,
patrick

Rene says:
May 24, 2011 at 7:35 pm

Reply

Hey Patrick,
I am happy you liked it! And I see the point you make with your question.
The quick answer: “This depends if you are a band or a record label”
The longer remarks to it:
As a musician you want those people on your page because you also sell concert tickets, merchandise and it is always usefull to start a conversation with your fans!
If your are a record label and your only business is selling music you think you probably don’t want to talk to the people looking for illegal downloads.
But I don’t agree: Even as a record label you should be interessted in establishing a conversation with the fans. Someone who is now looking for an illegal download might become a loyal customer tomorrow. Especially if you have the chance to contact him several times or bring him in contact with other fans.
Not winning those rankings in search engine doesn’t helpt you to let the fan stop downloading music anyway. But not winning these rankings make you loose the chance to talk to him constantly. That is sad because he was already interested in the musician!
With In legend we offered our first demo EP for free download (in exchange for an email adress) and we had a great experience! Even though we are a newcomer we hit the top 100 list of musicians in Amazon several times with our new album). Furthermore we were able to see that most of the sales came from our very own CRM and newsletter.
I really don’t see why the best way to fight illegal downloads should be to ignore them. This did’t lead the industry anywhere over the last 15 years ;( I think it is much better to realize what people are doing and ask how one can make a profit out of it.

Patrick Walch says:

May 24, 2011 at 5:44 pm

Rene says:
May 24, 2011 at 7:35 pm

Reply

Hey Patrick,
I am happy you liked it! And I see the point you make with your question.
The quick answer: “This depends if you are a band or a record label”
The longer remarks to it:
As a musician you want those people on your page because you also sell concert tickets, merchandise and it is always usefull to start a conversation with your fans!
If your are a record label and your only business is selling music you think you probably don’t want to talk to the people looking for illegal downloads.
But I don’t agree: Even as a record label you should be interessted in establishing a conversation with the fans. Someone who is now looking for an illegal download might become a loyal customer tomorrow. Especially if you have the chance to contact him several times or bring him in contact with other fans.
Not winning those rankings in search engine doesn’t helpt you to let the fan stop downloading music anyway. But not winning these rankings make you loose the chance to talk to him constantly. That is sad because he was already interested in the musician!
With In legend we offered our first demo EP for free download (in exchange for an email adress) and we had a great experience! Even though we are a newcomer we hit the top 100 list of musicians in Amazon several times with our new album). Furthermore we were able to see that most of the sales came from our very own CRM and newsletter.
I really don’t see why the best way to fight illegal downloads should be to ignore them. This did’t lead the industry anywhere over the last 15 years ;( I think it is much better to realize what people are doing and ask how one can make a profit out of it.