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I would like to follow along and create a site of my own using the techniques here and on court’s site and grizz’s site, but I am having a little trouble getting started.
I have a project that I’m going to do. A member of my family sings traditional country. He has 4 albums released, has received many awards, been played on the radio, etc, but is still pretty much unknown. I’m going to build him a website, and I’d like to use the knowledge I’ve been gathering from you guys, but I’m not really sure how to get started on getting traffic to a site like this in what seems to be a pretty competitive market.
Do you have any ideas that could help me or push me in the right direction?
<– End of Comment
So our request to you is, what ideas for Mike, do you have that might be able to help push him in the right direction?
PS –> We have scheduled our next COWCast and if you want to get in on the call, you need to subscribe to our mailing list via email. I have also just arranged to have professional blogger and good friend of ours, Yaro Starak from the Entrepreneur’s Journey to be on next weeks COWcast.
Last of all we apologize for getting behind a couple days in the COWpetition posts, today we were suppose to talk about finding joint venture partners but we were just too backed up on too many things and so we have had to delay it a day.
Well Mike, that’s a good question. First at all, you need to know what do you want to create, if a blog or a website. I recommend you to create a website, because it’s more general for the thing you want to do.
Now to get traffic, you have many options, and I’m going to explain you some of them:
1- Sign up to more web directories as you can. This won’t give you a lot of traffic, but this will increment it.
2- Contact other webmasters who manage the same content than you. I mean, music stuff and those things… Then talk to them about your project, and ask them for a link exchange, or better, a banner exchange. It’s better to have a graphic than a text, it’s more representative. Also you can ask them to make a little review about your site, this will give you a good wave of traffic.
3- You could use these sites like MySpace, where you can easily promote your music with many people in the network. Also you could try giving *for free* some sample songs to motive the people to stay tuned with your site.
4- Buy advertising. By buying advertising, you could get a huge wave of traffic, getting exposed in many websites as you want. Of course, this is expensive but it will work. Investing in some Adwords you can get targeted traffic from Google.
5- By leaving comments in many blogs as you can related to music, with a little sign referring your parent.
Remember, the key of the success is to be persistent. Don’t desist and you will get what you want!
Greetings
Mr. Javos last blog post..Under What Name Is Best To Leave Comments In Other Blogs?
He said that he’s “going to build” a site. Get it built and then worry about getting traffic. A blog might be better because it will SEOed right out of the box and natural traffic should come…
Then it depends on your budget…but Facebook will be a great way to get traffic. The viral nature of the social network is amazing.
Keiths last blog post..Maizey Recommends PayPal Debit Card
Get at least the landing page built and an auto-responder to capture name/eMails for newsletters etc. later. Then, while you are building on the site and content, start to twitter (twitter.com) about it with links to your landing page and the new info as it gets created.
Comment Kahuna works great for commenting in related blogs and forums. Manual search for related blogs if you need to, but get your comments and signature with link to landing page out there in as many locations as possible.
Once your site begins to see traffic, then you can start banner/link exchanges and article exchanges on related materials.
A free song in mp3 format for signing up is a great idea… getting your songs on sites like Yahoo Music Jukebox and iTunes is going to get you the publicity and traffic you want as well.
Here’s the key… it’s a multi step process that starts with step one – having something worth while to view, read and listen too. It progresses through as many free and paid traffic steps as you have time and money for.
You are correct, you don’t have the budget to dominate this large market, but if there is a smaller niche you can tie too or move into (follow the niche research lesson to narrow your market), you may be able to make a name for them there.
Wes
FREE Downloadable Stationery
P.S. As you move along… JVs in other non-related niches that also cater to your primary type of prospect are a good source of traffic that isn’t usually touched by the big boys. Say a free downloadable stationery of the star or a related digital scrapbook page created from concert and publicity photos… Hint, hint, hint.
Wow! Thanks for featuring my question!
I planned to just use wordpress to create the site. I will have a few pages with biography, discography, awards, etc, and also will easily be able to submit content.
Creating content should be easy, as I will just have him write all the articles.
The main problem I’m having is trying to find which keywords to focus on. When I search for terms related to country music, there aren’t many advertisers. All I have done is a quick check on wordtracker free to find out what ‘country’ terms are being searched for, and then checked them with google.
Also, I’m not entirely sure on how to do the on-page optimzation once I’ve found my keywords. Do I put the main keyword in the title of the page, and title of the posts, and then use other long-tail keywords in the posts themselves? Or write a post about each long-tail? How do I tell which keyword is my main keyword anyway? Is it the most general keyword that gets the most searches? Is it the one word that is most common in the long tails? (like ‘country’ in ‘country music’ and ‘country music artists’)
My plan for the site would be to sell albums and use adsense or sell advertising. Should I just focus on one or the other?
I’ve been trying to absorb and apply as much knowledge on this internet marketing stuff as I can since just getting started about 4 weeks ago. I would like to do this without having to pay for traffic (adwords) if possible. I’m hoping this project will teach me everything I need to know to start other niche sites on my own.
Thanks again for all the help!
I think I am already late to response. But I want to help Mike the best I can. Here are my answers:
Mike: The main problem I’m having is trying to find which keywords to focus on. When I search for terms related to country music, there aren’t many advertisers. All I have done is a quick check on wordtracker free to find out what ‘country’ terms are being searched for, and then checked them with google.
MES: You can download free ebook from WordTracker.com titled “Keyword Research Guide” in PDF format. That’s the very good ebook I highly recommend to you.
Also, I’m not entirely sure on how to do the on-page optimzation once I’ve found my keywords. Do I put the main keyword in the title of the page, and title of the posts, and then use other long-tail keywords in the posts themselves? Or write a post about each long-tail? How do I tell which keyword is my main keyword anyway? Is it the most general keyword that gets the most searches? Is it the one word that is most common in the long tails? (like ‘country’ in ‘country music’ and ‘country music artists’)
MES: For better on-page optimization you should put your keywords twice at the first paragraph and twice at the last paragraph of your post. Write your keyword in bold, italic, and underline just once. At the end of the last sentence try to put your keyword as an anchor text that linked to your home page (or another page you want to optimize).
Please do not write your keywords over than 3% of your total words.
You should put your main keywords in the title of the page and in the title of the posts, combined with other words. Then you can add your secondary keywords (long-tail keywords) several times as a sub-title or description.
You can tell your main keyword on the Title page, Meta Keyword tag, and Meta Description tag. You can visit my SEO service web for details.
Mike: My plan for the site would be to sell albums and use adsense or sell advertising. Should I just focus on one or the other?
MES: You should combine them to monetize your website. Let’s your website get revenue from multi sources.
Mike: I’ve been trying to absorb and apply as much knowledge on this internet marketing stuff as I can since just getting started about 4 weeks ago. I would like to do this without having to pay for traffic (adwords) if possible. I’m hoping this project will teach me everything I need to know to start other niche sites on my own.
MES: You can use SEO to get free traffic from Search Engines. I have proved that SEO is the best way for me to get free traffic. But after I read John’s post, I think it’s better for us to use VEO (Visitor Engine Optimization) too. Create quality contents to attract visitors, and then do SEO to attract SEs. Btw, I want to answer your next question too on your other post. You can type “internet marketing forums” in Google search box to get list of forums you want
Hope I can help you Mike. Good luck
MESs last blog post..A case study for Making Money Online
Mike,
Congrats on your new project. Here are the steps I would recommend:
1. Build a blog, not a traditional website. It’s relatively easy to get started and should give you the functionality you need (shopping cart, flash/java, RSS, SEO ready, dynamic content and more). Make sure the look of the site is consistent with the style of music he plays so it feels right to the fans you want to attract, i.e. no goth for a conservative crowd, as an example. Go to other sites from artists that are similar and see how they are doing it and emulate them. Include his awards, testimonials from other popular musicians, an “about me” page that tells his heartfelt backstory, and samples of his music so people can get to know him and his music.
2. The music industry is about personality. Your relative needs to build his PR identity. It’s about him and his story as well as the music. Sign up and begin interacting with the social media sites such as FaceBook, MySpace, twitter, etc. Create a press page that you can use to promo him to radio stations and internet stations to have him interviewed. Use traditional PR too, to get him written up, even if it’s only local or regional at first. Announce his concerts, announce his new releases, etc. Make sure that he blogs often (get a ghost writer if he can’t do it himself). Interesting things are how he comes up with his song ideas, childhood memories, funny roadie stories, profile of his heroes, or reviews of newly released music by others. Don’t be too shy to create t-shirt designs (can use make on order service like cafepress at first if you have no moola) and such that fans can buy. If he has a slogan, use it. Get endorsements if you can from product suppliers (like his guitar company, etc.). Ask–you’d be surprised how often you will get yes. You have to build a platform of ancillary products to assist his identity. If you can pull off some kind of publicity stunt, that would be good–again, keep it complimentary to his fan base.
3. Interface with others who would be complimentary to or could use his music. Never underestimate the fan base he already has and every relative he knows to ask to get the word out. Don’t spam, but ask you fans for help. Be sure you have an opt-in email sign up above the fold and easily visible so you can begin building a great list. If you can get paid to promote similar musicians’ concerts, do so–you can use google adsense to sell other people’s music, but you’d almost be better off % wise negotiating JV deals with record publishers most similar to him. Partner all you can with other bloggers–get the big music critics to review his work. You can probably secure paid ads for people wanting to be on the site.
4. Be patient. Don’t give up. You can buy ads, but you have to be sure your website actually converts buyers first. You can have a million people come visit the site and if they don’t buy, you’ve wasted your money and the traffic. Do a small test run if you can to see your conversion stats. Be sure to really understand the ideal client profile and the market that already buys his material. Go where they go and give them what they want. Contests work too, but again, be sure it’s a prize worth having or it won’t work.
5. Keep listening to John. Hire me. I can help.
Long answer, but there is still so more to consider. I did the best I could.
Vicki Flaugher
Vicki Flaughers last blog post..Work Less to Make More: Leveraging your Time
Upload youtube videos and watermark them with site url, start PPC campaigns, let people see and hear him!
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[...] Your page is on StumbleUpon [...]
Hello,
As a newbie myself (90+ domain names, no list, website, or product- but at least 3-4 testimonials from people that I have offered advice to), all I can offer you is a little advice that you probably have already heard before.
Blogs (plural). Myspace, facebook, twitter, craigslist, & wordpress. Proliferate & flood the marketplace with “buzz” about your friend’s music. Since he’s already released four recordings, naybe he’s met some famous people in the country music industry? If so, and if he’s taken picturees with them, post them on the blogs & name the blogs with captions. The famous people will be then named in the blogs & help drive traffic. Since you will have multiple blogs up & running, change them up a bit. Monitor them & see which ones get you more traffic. In fact, did you know that you can link twitter with facebook? And, if propery linked, the one will update the other!
It’s good to give. In fact, it’s great to give! Send samples of his music to friends & family. Contact: Friday Morning Quareterback (fmqb.com), radio stations ,sirius & XM sattelite radio companies, too. Go to the top- speak to the Program Managers who are in charge of content.
Pay per click (ppc). Create an adwords campaign. Be sure that if you do, follow these rules, there are more, but these should help get you started:
1- Do not send people to a landing page that has ads.
2- Make your site look professional with a picture of him, and an about me page.
If any of this has been helpful, please feel free to contact me. I appreciate your feedback:
kevinpuls@gmail.com
Promotion needs to be multilayered. It’s best to use both digital and personal contact methods.
Personal;
1) dominate your local market. ;
a) play lots of gigs in local venues and work with other local musicians
b) find the coming festivals and open air concert events to get on their talent schedule
c) play for free for fundraisers, help the vets, flood victims, food pantry homeless shelter etc…
d) personally walk your demo and press kits to local radio stations, offer to do on air interviews, offer to read their call signs, ” this is Don singer and you’re listening to WDIY in Yourtown,… the best damn country music in Yourtown….”
e) always have a mailing list setup at every appearance and mention it on every contact. At shows give something away, TWICE, at intermission give a free tshirt or such to someone at random from the mailing list, then mention how you will be giving another away off the list AFTER the show, watch that list grow faster. make your fan base your evangelists, become their local hero.
f) be generous with info and be confident in asking your fan base to help get the word out through your contacts with them in your email newsletter.
g) Be a great listener. Listen to your fans, listen to your team. They’re all telling you stuff to help you grow and be more entertaining and successful.
Digital methods:
a) myspace, facebook, craigslist, digg, twitter , stumbleupon, whatever social networking sites you can think of. discussed above in detail.
b) use a tool like tube mogul that helps you distribute your video to all the video sharing sites.
c) a wordpress blog with video and audio plugins. blog often. write about your passion but also write about hot topic keywords. do a post about mylie and billy ray cyrus, the dixie chicks, garth brooks fat, whatever, BE Topical and dont be afraid to take a stand and state a strong opinion about just about anything except religion. linkbait
have keywords in your content and logical places ( title alt and meta tags) . seo optimize and use a seo optimized wordpress theme with seo plugins
d) do a podcast, see if you can get it distributed through itunes, free
e) have free stuff on your website, free downloads, free passes to your shows, run a contest
f) offer to cross promote other musicians music, they will want to offer to promote YOUR music.
g) inquire about sponsorships that align well with your fan base. contact the local tavern league or liquor distributors or something you think fits your personality and fan needs. maybe the sponsors will have free stuff like more shirts, free drinks
h) dont forget the mailing list opt ins at every chance that you get.
i) go to google webmaster tools and create a sitemap for the search spiders to find and use, this will help
j) install google analytics and take note of what your web visitors are doing and where they came from.
there is a fine line between promoting and pimping.
stay true to yourself and your fans.
build and keep your credibility with a sense of integrity and generosity and sincerity in everything you do.
do it all over again tomorrow, and again and again
dont give up
dont get distracted, especially by writing long listy type blog comments when you really have more pressing things to do, like take my wife to the hospital for surgery.
oops i digress
good luck and take care
bye,
Bri
This was our favorite answer and read the last comment for my decision.
This one was the one I thought was best too. Great advice, Brian. Thank you for sharing. I intend to incorporate everything you said here.
Vicki
Vicki Flaughers last blog post..4 Women Will Win Free Scholarships to Women’s Business Empowerment Summit!
What you need to consider Mike is whether the blog (wordpress) is justified in the amount that is intended to be spent writing posts, this is the fundamental reason to write a post. Mentioned in John’s e-book is to provide the full feeds and not just snippets unless you are going to be writing a lot posts that justifies having snippets of text and then users have to link to the full post via the ‘red more’ link. now will you be writing a lot of posts?
If not I suggest you use the FREE Content Management System Joomla. The set up is the same i.e. you need a MYSQL database and just upload and install.
Templates/themes are uploaded will one click and you can pick up a very good template for $40.
The amount of extensions that are freely available for the Joomla CMS is amazing 2000+.
You could use Seyret component to host a video section.
Smoothgallery plugin to host a lightbox style gallery for images.
There are plenty of audio related extensions.
You could even have a shopping cart using virtuemart or a digital download shopping cart solution using digistore.
I certainly suggest you have a look at the following:
http://www.joomla.org (main joomla site)
http://www.extensions.joomla.org (list of the available extensions, knock yourself out) just look through by the category.
http://www.forum.joomla.org (All the help you could need from over 50,000 members)
http://www.rockettheme.com (beautiful templates)
if you need more advice drop me a line. You site could be up and running as a professional look within 1 day.
Mike,
Unless you can find a reliable Joomla extension to create search engine friendly urls and are willing to spend time learning Joomla’s interface, I would suggest you stick with WordPress. It is simpler to set up and manage and has a high level of support if you have any questions or problems.
Sueblimelys last blog post..Blog Contest With + $3000 Prizes
You will drive yourself MAD trying to plan EVERYTHING ahead of time and will end up getting nothing accomplished. Honestly, the best way to learn how to build a website that gets good traffic and regular visitors is to just jump in and get started. You may not know all the answers at first. But trust me, you will learn very quickly once you get started. Plus, you will end up meeting many other bloggers who will end up being a great resource. Get started soon so you’ll have something that you can build upon a little at a time until it is achieving the results you want.
Good luck and its nice to meet you! (see how quickly you meet people
)
Jeff
Jeff – buzzmyblog.coms last blog post..You’ve Got An Hour To Blog, What Do You Do….GO!
Hey Mike,
You have alot of great advice here & I’m just a no name guy no “instant guru” here I have struggled with online marketing for years making just enough money to drive me crazy trying to figure out that one secret that one piece of software that will bust things loose.
You can find alot of decent software and website creation tools online
you might even find a decent domain name with already established traffic
but as alot of posters already stated, start with one thing and start seeing results with that and then try the next traffic generation piece
One step at a time use social networking sites Perhaps utube or myspace
to put up a video and if someone registers with your site a free download of
one of his new songs or an old one just to give a taste of what’s to come
Here’s a million dollar tip for you. Ipods have a download feature on them so that when you post a new entry they get the new message sent right to them
if they subscribed to your rss feed via ipod or blackberry
Just imagine having thousands of folks getting your music downloaded
that very same day powerful stuff It would generate a buzz & build viral traffic to your site guaranteed
So that’s my tip of the day I hope it helps you out
Kenny Michaels
http://www.netgigz.com
“It’s where the work gets done”
Social Marketing, that person needs to create a social web presence.at as many places possible. I’d recommend starting with YouTube and Myspace and Groupr (now Cracked -designed for the very purpose of attracting new talent to producers and talent finders). Get them to a professional studio or get some reasonably good recording equipment (it’s cheap and can always be returned when you’re done) and record a few songs (do some public domains one as well, just because they’re familiar – don’t do all new songs). Record them with audio and video, put them up on youtube after editing it a bit – boost the quality of the audio, even if it comes at the cost of the video quality.
After posting it on youtube and myspace, network with people – it’s quite simple. Myspace is worth more then YouTube in terms of networking, so start getting myspace friends, get them to listen yours songs, then ask them to visit your youtube page (converts well especially if they leave a comment). Moderate your comments on YouTube, keep the trolls out and delete comments that are overly negative. Submit the youtube page to Digg, and other Social networks.
If they have real talent, you should be attracting some attention – most likely moderate. At this point it may be a good time to buy a domain and start a website just to start branding. Use a blog to talk about the artist in 3rd person at first, and as popularity rises in 1st person (gives it a personal touch).
1- Keywords
2- Comments
3 – Social marketing
4 – Friends
5 – Paid Marketing
Jorges last blog post..Burro velho não aprende
Myspace, myspace, myspace. While setting up a blog where he can actually sell the music is a good idea, Myspace is still the center of the music community online, for all genres. He’ll be able to set up a few tracks as a preview (or the whole CD, if wanted). He might even get featured on the front page of Myspace, which is pretty much the equivalent of getting Dugg.
Even if not, if someone likes his music, they can very easily add it to their Myspace page. After that happens, if one of their friends hears it and likes it, they might do the same. It has the potential to spread very fast.
Also, I’m 99% positive you can sell the tracks right on Myspace if you’d like, which I’m sure a lot of users would be more comfortable with. It also wouldn’t be a bad idea to put them on iTunes, but I don’t know the process for that.
Aurys last blog post..Deal of the Day: Huge List of Wii and DS Games for $10.99 at Costco
Hello Mike,
My name is Milov Patel, I am normally assist new website owners in gaining a presence in saturated markets, and also in establishing contacts. After reading your comment to Cow, I was pleased that I could help out! So let’s jump right in, there are two points in your comment that really stand out.
1) You realize that the market you wish to enter is competitive and,
2) You are building a website for a family member just for fun
Those two key points are the basis of your success story. In the current market, the music industry is hard to enter with out a studio backing you up, but is not necessarily needed. You said he has many awards, and his songs were played on the radio, etc. This is a great starting point for your website, and you probably didn’t even know it. Typically end-users are attracted to names they are familiar with, and that is where you want to start. Take the radio to the next level, start a marketing campaign. Buy some ad space on the radio station the song was played at, since he is a small time artist at this point there are two ways you can cheaply land some air time. The first way is buying a 5 second ad, multiple times through out the day. You’re probably wondering, what can I possibly fit in five seconds? To tell you the truth, the best catch phrase ever – you won’t believe that a phrase like; I hate Mike LastName will do wonders if you have a proper website behind it. Another way to cheaply get air time is to land a deal with the radio station. Since the station was enthusiastic enough to play a small timer’s music, I am sure they would love to trade some air time if you in turn advertise them on your website / local gigs.
Sadly, the knowledge you gained from Cow, and Grizz isn’t going to assist you. Internet marketing and singer / album marketing are two different playing fields. In the music industry you will grow by name, an online campaign will not help – only local and radio campaigns will. The most you want to do online is set up a good website for his work and put some free samples up, when building the site focus on community and SEO. You shouldn’t focus on profits right now, as I like to say you make money by loosing it first. You will want to focus on community when creating the site because that is what will make your family member successful. Once you have a solid fan base, they will do 85% of the work for you. And you will want to focus on SEO since the majority of the end-user will not be technically inclined. Thus if they like your song, or hear your advertisement the first thing they will do is Google it – so SEO is your best friend own the first page.
Sorry I have to cut this short, I need to run to a meeting soon. But keep two things in mind, your doing this for a good cause (your family member), and you will need to work hard. Internet marketing is not your friend, though it could help but you will run into costs not imaginable. Create a fan base, create a community, stir up controversy (The good kind, don’t do to much there is such thing as bad press!). I hope this information has helped you. You can contact me any time – my details are on my blog (its outdated, but am firing it back up) and your welcome to chat any time you would like.
Best Regards,
Milov Patel
Milov Patels last blog post..47 Suspicious Deaths During Clintons Presidency…Think again before you vote Hillary…
There isn’t much I could add to all of the advice above. Using social sites and you tube to promote the music seems like a natural choice, also instead of spending money on PPC, like some have suggested, maybe you should spend some on a press release, once the site is created. Good luck.
Emmas last blog post..Everybody Loves Courtney Tuttle
You can make a socialnetwork to promote your music using phpfox so then fans can sign up download songs chat with other fans
You are all making it real hard on us over here… these are some fantastic answers!
Hey, John!
What a discussion you started here—I am swiping everything that’s been given so generously. Maybe Mike should have a vote as to which was most helpful? Just a thought….
Vicki Flaugher
Vicki Flaughers last blog post..BREAKING NEWS! Win a 3-day entrepreneur conference ticket! Announcement scheduled for Friday June 13th!
Great thought!
For a music/band website, you will not be using the advice given in the john cow v. garry conn competition. What you should be doing is making a myspace and facebook, primarily myspace, to socially market your way to success. The tips given in this competition will help to an extent, but you should be focused more on cold marketing more than all of this SEO and bum-marketing talk.
So what you should be doing is making a customized myspace page and add friends like crazy. In my experience, you can get about 70% of clients accepting your friend requests just by adding random people. Knowing this, why not go onto band websites that have music similar to yours and go through their friend lists, adding everyone you see.
Once you have a decent friend base built (100+ friends), go ahead and find some of the more popular myspacers and request that they put you in their “top friends” listing. You should offer to pay for the spot, because these top friends are one of the best places to get your advertising done. In facebook, you can use a similar tactic of adding friends and paying for the prime-time positioning.
Since you aren’t going to have people initially searching for your band organically through Google, you don’t want to follow all of the tips presented in this contest step-for-step. What you DO want to work on is SEO’ing your website to get things flowing nicely, but after that it is more a sense of cold marketing in social networking places than anything else.
Best of luck to your venture. Making a band myspace/facebook is an essential tool in pushing for traffic to your website, never forget this. You want to go about things very differently, but you should be able to break through in a a few months.
Make us proud
-Jim “The Net Fool”
Jims last blog post..Creating A Blog – Part Six: Optimizing Your Blog for Search Engines and More
Wow, wonderful responses. Thank you all so much for your help. You know, I see now that this project is different from affiliate marketing or keyword sniping.
I’m just getting into this IM stuff. I really love the ideas of keyword sniping and niche sites, and I thank you john cow ( and court and grizz) for actually providing useful info and guiding beginners like me. My goal is to quit my 9-5 and make money for myself doing this stuff. I was fortunate enough to wade through all the garbage and find you guys.
As a few of you have probably seen, the Bare Minerals Makeup blog is my first attempt at this stuff. I don’t know much yet, but I’m really excited to move forward and expand my knowledge and experience.
Is there a forum you guys use to discuss Internet marketing? If not, I’d like to see that. I feel like this site, court’s site (same person?), and grizz’s site are like the trifecta of information on getting started in this business. I’d love to see a forum where the community of these 3 sites could get together and discuss all these topics. I would even love to set it up.
Thanks again for all the help, and keep the info coming!!
Who is court (no its not us) and grizz? Also, we are emailing you a request about you picking the winner… we agree with Vicki that there is fantastic info here and snce it relates to you, it makes sense that you select the winner.
There are many forums that you can go to related to domain and marketing. Namepros.com and forums.digitalpoint.com are two majors ones, they are more domain/SEO based but that is important too.
John, is it still possible to me and other friends to add some advice for Mike? Or is it closed already?
Yes, you have until 12 pm eastern time today (Thursday) to provide an answer.
My reply is based more around attitude than specific recommendations:
Be prepared and willing to:
- Put time and effort into your project.
- Be consistent and regular in your updates.
- Continue learning as you go along – research, read and respond.
- Be aware of what is working and the preferences of your readers.
- Keep trying. Do not be disheartened if the success you wish for does not come as quickly as you would like.
- To widen your reach outside of your blog to bring people to your blog.
- Give and receive support from other bloggers.
Sueblimelys last blog post..Blog Contest With + $3000 Prizes
[...] in our online business.You have to be a brown noser!Now, you do not need to take this to.. Want to WIN a Free 125 x 125 Sponsor Ad on JohnCow? – 2 days ago We have a small favor to ask of you… in yesterdays post (Do Not be Afraid to go [...]
Thanks again for all your help guys! Tons of awesome info here. I will choose a winner this afternoon.
This conversation has been very enlightening to me. It’s interesting to see the different slants on it. John, I realize you are letting Mike pick the winner (because some crazy girl told you it was a great idea……yeah, it was me–LOL!) but would you also chime in once he does and tell us your opinion of the best answer? You’ve taught us a lot already–I’d like to learn how you’d do it, too.
Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman
Yes, I would like to hear john’s take as well.
Ok I have chosen the winner.
There were so many great answers and information here that I would never be able to choose the one ‘best answer’, especially with my limited experience so far.
So what I did was write down all the names who posted an answer (except the very short ones) on little pieces of paper and drew a name at random.
And the winner is…..
Kevin Puls
Thanks again everyone so much, and I really look forward to continue learning from you all.
Congratulations, Kevin! If any women here are still in the mood to try to win a contest, you can enter to win one of 4 free scholarships to a 3-day Women’s Business Empowerment Summit on my site, SmartWomanGuides.com. Started today and goes until the 25th. Act fast!
Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman
p.s. I have a JV deal if you want to do that to promote my contest…contact me.
Vicki Flaughers last blog post..4 Women Will Win Free Scholarships to Women’s Business Empowerment Summit!
The original rules of the contest were for whoever gave the best answer and since we changed the rules after the majority of the answers were added we feel it the best thing to select two winners. The first will be the name that Mike selected and the second will be the name we selected.
So, the comment that we thought was the best was from Bryan Bliss and the reason we liked it is because it really looked at covering all options off and on the internet which is very important for anyone to consider but especially in the music industry (in our opinion anyway).
There were many other answers we really liked, such as what Milov mentioned about how the music field is so different and Vicki’s thoughts about personalty… but overall we think that Bryan’s was our favorite.
So we will be in contact with the both of you to set up your ads… they will not be at the same time though… we will spread them apart by 30 days. If you do not receive any email from us, (probably spam filters or something) then please contact us through our contact form on this blog.
Very generous! Excellent choice of official winner. Congrats to both. Ah, the value of sharing…I love it!
Vicki
Vicki Flaughers last blog post..4 Women Will Win Free Scholarships to Women’s Business Empowerment Summit!
Thanks,
I appreciate the feedback. If I had more time I wish I could have written even more. There’s a ton more specific and more sophisticated strategies I have had great luck with.
Since kevin was picked first, it makes sense to me if his ad runs first.
I will be too busy to really give the level of service or attention online that I Strive for while I assist my wife through her surgery rehab, so I have taken my consulting practice offline for a month anyways.
I’ll still be in and out to keep learning and helping others learn whenever I can, sporadically and informally .
thanks and take care,
Bri
generositymarketing.com
I would like to suggest all of the following Myspace, facebook, craigslist, digg, twitter , stumbleupon.Get a good myspace page and a Myspace friend adder as well and you can actually target those people who enjoy his music.The fun thing about promoting this way is the unlimited people he can add with the program.
I hope this helps alot
Promomaker
clints last blog post..Real Life "Unicorn" Seen in Italy
Get at least the landing page built and an auto-responder to capture name/eMails for newsletters etc. later. Then, while you are building on the site and content, start to twitter (twitter.com) about it with links to your landing page and the new info as it gets created.
Comment Kahuna works great for commenting in related blogs and forums. Manual search for related blogs if you need to, but get your comments and signature with link to landing page out there in as many locations as possible.
Once your site begins to see traffic, then you can start banner/link exchanges and article exchanges on related materials.
A free song in mp3 format for signing up is a great idea… getting your songs on sites like Yahoo Music Jukebox and iTunes is going to get you the publicity and traffic you want as well.
Here's the key… it's a multi step process that starts with step one – having something worth while to view, read and listen too. It progresses through as many free and paid traffic steps as you have time and money for.
You are correct, you don't have the budget to dominate this large market, but if there is a smaller niche you can tie too or move into (follow the niche research lesson to narrow your market), you may be able to make a name for them there.
Wes
FREE Downloadable Stationery
P.S. As you move along… JVs in other non-related niches that also cater to your primary type of prospect are a good source of traffic that isn't usually touched by the big boys. Say a free downloadable stationery of the star or a related digital scrapbook page created from concert and publicity photos… Hint, hint, hint.