John Reese’s Traffic Secrets: A music industry perspective on internet marketing

“Finally.

The time has come.

4+ years in the making.

A small fortune spent.

Thousands of tests conducted.

A valuable system made even better.

“Traffic Secrets 2.0″ gets officially released
today at Noon EST!

If you’re serious about making money
online and growing an online business
then this is the course for you.

And I’ll stake my reputation on this… this may
very well be one of the last traffic-generation
courses you’ll ever need to buy.”

 

 

 

So today is the launch of John Reese’s “Traffic Secrets 2” and it is a big event in internet marketing.

This should be a great post because not only can we learn from John Reese in regards to applying online promotion ideas from his amazing free video material . . .

. . . but we can reflect on how John was able to create such a huge buzz for his product in an already overhyped and oversaturated market.

I understand the reason a lot of musicians come to me is because they understand the importance of promoting themselves and engaging fans online, but they’re not really interested in learning and practicing “IM” or internet marketing themselves, they wanna do their music.

Which is cool, that gives me a job to do, especially as there seems to be so very few music industry people interested in IM.

Which seems pretty strange to me, I mean call me crazy but if you were say in the recording industry and you kinda figured your whole industry was shifting to a digital, web enabled environment and you were wondering how to make money . . .

 

You’d probably start by looking at people who were already making money in a digital web enabled environment.

And I don’t mean like bill gates. I mean like garden variety twenty something geeks with a handful of computer skills (who me? haha), who to which the idea of not having to leave their bedroom to make money appeals.

You see no one who is involved in IM is interested in the music business because these kids are just trying to make quick bucks and there are no quick bucks in music.

Quick bucks are in diets and porn and peddling get rich schemes, and don’t forget the cornerstone of IM, the ebook. And when people are focused on one thing such as making fast, easy money selling whatever they can online, they begin to get very good at it. And a whole economic ecosystem has sprung up to support those who either work full time as a professional or part time or as a hobby earning extra cash as an internet marketer, and the industry has become ever more streamlined.

And it’s true that a lot more people are interested in miraculous weight loss cures than they are your music, but given that people make so much money out of weight loss online and anything else you can think of probably with a lot less resources then you have - while you’re still thinking about how to quit your day job - kinda suggests there’s some things we can learn.

And so that’s what I’ve been doing. Watching and learning from the ways that marketing is carried out on the web for RESULTS.

As in money results.

And I don’t mean results for Bill gates or Radiohead or anyone who doesn’t need my help.

 

I mean for you, at the arse end of the music industry, in a sinking ship with the rest of us, working out how to turn a crust.

 

So you can focus on your music, and I will focus on getting you to the best place online to get paid for it.

Lets get back to John Reese’s traffic secrets. I think the thing about Traffic Secrets is that it’s done a radiohead. Or is it a led zep reunion? The point is, within the internet marketing and blogging world people are hyped up about his product.

People that are masters of hype are hyped. Why?

Well the whole point of this post was to highlight his Free videos.

He has 3 free videos totalling almost an hour of free material where he discusses several in depth online promotion strategies and techniques.

You should watch them because theyre great, they’ll teach you a lot . . .

But - If you want direct access to these free videos then you have to jump into our new artist community.

http://newmusicmarketing.com

 

It’s free to join, (currently the whole site is free but there’s not much happening just yet, early days – by August should be a different story)

So back to this massive launch campaign. The first thing I noticed when I heard about this was that a lot of top IM people were blogging about the free videos from their friend John.

 

What if you had a dozen top bands all telling their fans you had a new album coming out?

 

But it wasn’t just talking about the videos it was what they were saying. Needless to say the free videos were packed with info and insight, they were distinctly authentic and valuable in content. In fact its only in the last half of the last video he even starts talking about the product itself.

 

But it wasn’t just the content. These bloggers and IM gurus couldn’t stop talking about the quality of the presentation, as although video has been growing in IM for the last 18 months, the general consensus was that he had risen the bar in promotional videos for internet products with the standard of his presentation.

And this is what many of the marketers touched on: They were personally excited about the product.

What they had seen and been given free was of such high standard they couldn’t help but be connected with the product and feel confident about purchasing it.

And this is the world we’re now living in. In order to stand out, you have to demonstrate superior value in a way that is accessible before you even create the opportunity to realise significant revenue.

Interesting aside:

I saw an ad emblazoned “John Reese is a scammer and owes me $30,000” I clicked through to a sale page for . . .

 

Traffic secrets . . .

I guess that’s one way of advertising. I don’t see myself running a “Matt Turner is a scammer and Kurb ripped me off” campaign . . .

blogging for musicians: search, revenue and relationships

Kurb is a media promotions company providing a regular blog on digital music promotion, marketing digital content and creating revenue from new media online.

Kurb also provides online promotion and revenue management services for musicians and artists internationally CD / DVD printing and duplication and poster services.Our physical media services come with free graphic set up and support, free delivery, and free promotions advice and support for musicians.


A lot of my readers and clients are tuning into what I’ve been saying about blogging - except I know I can get a bit rabid at times at run away with myself so I thought it was important to do a solid post outlining some more basic concepts here for musicians to think about approaching their blogs:

- what blogging represents for musicians in 2008

- benefits of your blog as it develops: from google juice, to revenue, to engaging your audience

- what to post about and good blog karma

- what about blogging on myspace / facebook?

After this weekend I have no doubt musicians can make money blogging! But that is just ONE part of the opportunities blogging represents for artists.

So as I've described, in the last 3 years Myspace normalized a lot of behaviour, especially amongst younger people, that was previously perhaps considered geeky or isolated to techies such as actively socializing, bookmarking, blogging and discovering music online.

But users are leaving myspace and they’ve matured in their social behaviour online. Artists are also maturing with their promotion, looking to engage audiences, build relationships and create value in new ways, and this is why the return in popularity of blogging over the last 6 months or so has resonated with artists. Lets go over the reasons:

Blogging for musicians in 2008 represents:

First it represents independence from myspace, facebook etc. in creating your own platform in which to present content, be found and interact with fans, and control the way revenue is created from those interactions.

These other points I think will have value if I make them chronologically in order of development.:

STAGE 1: SEARCH ACCESS AND GOOGLE GOODNESS (SEO)

When I first set up a blog for an artist I am aware only a handful of people will read it in the first few months but you just gotta get in there and get those 50 first posts out. 300 words. You’re creating text content that represents accumulative search authority.

Most fortunately, I have managed to maintain my wordpress blog’s page rank at a respectable 4 out of a possible 10. And the value of having a page that is highly ranked for authority – I PASS ON that authority to every site I link to through my blog. That’s why I regularly link back to my site and to my clients sites, to pass on the google goodies I’ve earned.

If you use the term “downbeat/chill out artist from Auckland New Zealand” A LOT in your blog . . . then your blog is going start ranking for those searches.

That’s why you find a lot of blogs like mine full of dumb SEO sentences like:

”If you’re interested in cd or dvd duplication and printing in Auckland New Zealand you should see budget cd and dvd duplication specialists kurb promotions in Auckland New Zealand for all your cd and dvd duplication and printing needs in Auckland, New Zealand.”

Google really likes blogs, (they own one of the biggest blogging platforms, blogger, where I’ve been making my $US1 a day or so with adsense.) because:

1: they’re tidy and organised as a platform which is part of bigger network of platforms. No dead links and the navigation of links is already set up to accommodate users as well as Googles “search spiders” which run around on your blog trying to work out if you're any good.

2: They’re updated regularly. Google definitely ranks older more established sites higher BUT also likes fresh content - not crusty old sites that haven’t been updated with new information, so making a weekly posting on your blog is a bare minimum.

3: All those words. Googles spiders read they don’t see. The only thing theyre interested in is the text on your site. Though video and audio present other exciting new opportunities online, when it comes to google and search optimization its about words!!!!

STAGE 2: GROWTH AND REVENUE:

After around your first 6 months or 50 posts, Google and the rest of the internet is going to start taking you a bit more seriously and it will be time for you to start taking your blog a little more seriously.

I’ve done 88 posts in almost 8 months.

You’ll be moving to the point where I’m at, where having 100 or more visitors to my Wordpress blog in a day isn’t surprising and I’m actually earning a few dollars a week from my Blogger blog through the easy instalment of Google’s adsense program.

By this stage you’ll recognise the need to be active constantly on your blog posting every few days to keep the momentum building. But just like anything that grows you’ll face new problems.

Recently I’ve had to accept my blog is getting too big for simply copying and pasting articles to my blog. Google loves content but can be very dubious about “duplicate content” so although other bloggers love it when you link back to them, when you copy and paste a whole article without any commentary or point of difference at all, it can make some bloggers a little disgruntled.

That means posting lame spider friendly SEO articles is probably out to, because your readers are not going to get value and thats the most important thing.

STAGE 3: RELATIONSHIPS AND ENGAGING YOUR AUDIENCEA lot of people say the best reason to start a blog is simply for visibitlity and networking but the final point of value to be found in blogging usually comes a couple of years in - building that relationship with your fans that they have access to you and you remain continuously visible to them, maintaining your engagement.



I firmly believe a well kept blog should prevent you from ever having to spend hours a day corresponding by email to your fans, which I don’t think serious artists have time for, unfortunately. The commitment to bloggin creates the compelling depth you need to develop your true fanbase, especially as you develop what they call your “voice”. The character of your writing in your blogs.

Your blog allows you to keep your fans engaged without having to actively maintain relationships, and as you go further down the path of ad supported and fan supported revenue ideas . . . when you have the attention of a trusting and loyal audience (an audience that you probably engaged when you offered them a free mp3 they enjoyed or they “stole”) making money in the 21st century is not going to be a great leap, trust me.

Again, look at the way I use my blog for a few cues. My blog is active and out there, and a major part of my marketing as well as communication and branding strategy. The message there is inviting - come to my blog, get this free, valuable information, learn about the work I do, BUT the emphasis is always lurking there on the desired outcome: come to my site where you can think more seriously about giving me your money.

MUAHAHAHAHA

Am I running round the street screaming “I’ll make you famous on mysapce and youtube for $50 a week!!!!”

Should you be running around screaming “Buy! Buy! Buy my album!!! It’s NEW!!!! Buy it! You have to! I don’t care who you are, I’m a musician and this is my new album and it’s new!!! Buy it!!!”

that’s not going to work is it? Slowly building a relationship and maintaining a relationship with fans is how you’re going to eventually quit your day job.

SO WHAT DO I BLOG ABOUT? BLOGGING KARMA . . .

Here’s the point of difference between me and you. I blog about a very specific and topical developments in a popular industry niche.

You blog about your music, your self and the things that are important to you that represent your music, and I can see theres a challenge there in keeping the content coming.

But if you’re not obsessed about creating art through your music or other mediums you may as well not be here. If you are obsessed, share it!!!

I’ve never been able to release my own solo project album of recordings because I was so deeply obsessive about it! How many songs? Which songs? A mixture of songs or just the upbeat ones or just the downbeat ones? What about the album art? WHat about the name???

Share your obsessions!!! Share that passion for what youre doing – let peole know! whatever problems you’re facing, other musicians and artists are facing them too, and as an artist, talking about problems and solutions and reflecting on them for the benefit of others is ultimately what youre about!

Got other interests, political or religious views that are part of who you are as an artist? Interested in other artistic or technical endeavours? Don’t take the safe, palid, non offensive route! Fans are engaged by artists who are not afraid to speak their minds and become three dimensional characters, with personal brands that represent clearly defined ideals.

Now building Blog karma is a great way to start out if youre stuck for posts. Don't feel interesting? then blog about something related that is!
Remember you want to blog about things relevant to your artistic image to build the keyword and search optimisation of your content. If you’re a rock band from Melbourne . . . blog about other rock bands from Melbourne!!! Eventually theyre going to find out you blogged about them and they’ll feel special, strengthening your network.

Look it happened to me just yesterday

http://www.nerdy-frames.org/2008/04/dj-romantech.html

Your fans and readers will get increased value out of finding out about new underground artists and you could become an authoritive source! Sure, you want to get in the media, but whats better than being in the media? BEING the media!!!!

Next year, I want to be working with artist who have built loyal readership fanbases on their blog and are able to partner with high quality product and service providers that equate to killer affiliate earning opportunities!!!

WHAT ABOUT BLOGGING ON MYSPACE AND FACEBOOK????

Well lets just get facebook and reverbnation and squidoo a couple of other important sites out of the way because web 2.0 means its relatively easy just to hook your RSS feed from your wordpress or blogger blog up to display on your facebook or reverbnation whenever you post.

For my clients I will be developing more concise content management techniques based on RSS feeds – as it is I will be cutting and pasting this to 8 different blogs/myspaces and that’ll take me half an hour alone, not to mention the forums.

But this is a good question asked by a couple of my clients to highlight some elements of what blogging is all about.

From a search perspective, it does add value to search engine optimization but not that much. You should already have quality links back to your site from your myspace profile page giving you “google juice” or search authority from myspace, and having such links from other authoritive sites such as top blog sites (wordpress, blogger) increases that authority.

My experience with wordpress though sometimes frustrating to use because they don’t make it easy for you to just throw in videos, ad platforms etc. like the Google owned Blogger, is that wordpress has created a lot of authority and random traffic for me, and that is why I recommend it. I get more traffic to my blog than to my site these days.

While you can publish your pieces on a myspace blog, the features are a lot more limited. Most popular blogging platforms offer built in navigation that also improves search authority by immediately linking all the content in the blog. The myspace blog is really just a satellite attached to your profile

And it will be a very cold day in hell before myspace writes any checks for an artists share of the advertising revenue they create from the artists content on myspace.

HOWEVER – it is not yet determined how much traffic myspace blogs bring in from within myspace through searches etc.

BUT in terms of building relationship and engaing your audience ALONE, you should be getting into the habit of addressing your fanbase regularly.

You’re not one of those artist who just users a friend adder and a plays increaser to look good are you? Or are you actually interested in building relationships with your fanbase?

To me the most important reason to just do a simple cut and paste to your myspace blog AND your myspace bulletin, is that you’re still using myspace to create the opportunity to have someone on your friends list come closer to being a true fan by moving the interaction forward.

You don’t just become another band on somebodies friends list, another 2-dimensional somebody just using the internet to get their 15 minutes.

OKAY LETS FINISH UP!!!

MUSICIANS BLOGGING CHECKLIST

Tags – don’t forget your tags! Both internal search and google loves them so using keyword “tags” on blogging platforms such as wordpress and blogger is fundamental to getting that initial traffic going.

Links – Link back to your site, your myspace, any other blog that talks about you, anything thats interesting or relevant to your readers! - the link button in the writing panel makes it easy, but I also suggest creating a signature which you cut and paste into every blog like I have below - which could be your “link family” linking back to your site, your cd baby, your youtube, myspace etc.

Search and Comment on other blogs – comment on other relevant blogs – make sure you contribute something to the discussion, just DON’T forget to fill in your website

Post Titles - use title that engage users and searchers. if I called this post "about blogging and stuff" do you think that will target my desired audience or pull in curious traffic?

Kurb is a media promotions company providing a regular blog on digital music promotion, marketing digital content and creating revenue from new media online.

Kurb also provides online promotion and revenue management services for musicians and artists internationally CD / DVD printing and duplication and poster services.Our physical media services come with free graphic set up and support, free delivery, and free promotions advice and support for musicians.

NZ MUSIC MONTH SPECIAL FOR NZers - 3 MONTHS BARE BASICS DIGITAL SERVICES NZ$400

kurbpromo@gmail.com

Ad supported music revenue rampage: Amazon associates etc.

Interested in making money off your music or other digital content? Kurb provides online promotion and revenue management services for musicians and artists internationally And the best value fast turnover physical media services in New Zealand including CD / DVD printing and duplication and poster services.


I WAS waiting to post about a bunch of stuff thats going on including youtube promotion and stuff but coming off the back of my big time $10 Adsense earnings this month as a blogger I've just embarked on an ad supported revenue rampage. I'm sure me being proud as punch of my $10 raised a few sniggers of indifference but now I've got my foot in the door I'm going for the jugular!

I earnt this money doing nothing other than what I'd do otherwise. Write on my blog. I'm wading into this big time to help musicians and other content creators get paid for what they do.

It's a brave new world.

Monetizing free content people. That's the name of the game. No money changes hands between you and your fan base theres no hard sell because theres no sale! Attention is the value that artists and creators offer advertisers.

So my first effort in ramping up my ad supported revenue earnings as well as knowledge and experience was taking the next step - into affiliate marketing, and signing up as an Amazon associate, so I can run their ads on my sites and blogs, and if any one clicks through the ad and amazon makes a sale I get 10% as commission!

you can check out my ad units here:

http://kurbpromotion.blogspot.com/

http://www.kurb.co.nz/

Now this code is 3rd party javascript which a lot of sites like myspace won't allow, not only because its easy to slip in something nasty but also the last thing myspace wants is YOU making advertising revenue of their site, because their site is designed for them to make revenue off you!!!!

And so similarly now AGAIN we're having a problem on wordpress!!!! Blogger is an immensely popular, useful and basic platform which allows pretty straightforward integration of this advertising stuff but all the action is on wordpress!

What's to be done? What I've done for myself and most of my clients is signed up for a free wordpress blog, when what I really need to do now is learn the free wordpress software platform and the technicalities of maintaining wordpress blogs myself because by using the software platform instead of the free online platform it allows you acces to a endless host of awesome free designs and plug in applications - just like facebook - yknow - that will allow you to add all kinds of functions to your wordpress and all importantly java boxes for us to ram full of ads!!!! arhahaha

Okay so back to these ad units.

Google serve thier ads based on relevancy to the content on your page and the demographics of the person viewing the ads it's all very clever, I guess it's why they're the biggest generators of ad revenue in the world - theyre very good at it, and of course they have all the data.

We have to recognise the expanding role that such data will play in connecting users and consumers with content and products. Yes big brother is watching. But he's really only interested in selling you something.

So like Google, Amazon offers a whole range of ad unit options and I chose the "Omakase" unit because it runs on the same premise of responding to the content and the user in selecting which products to display, and also like Google, you have to cross a $100 threshold before you get your first cheque, so if you're starting from scratch thats a good 6 months away as they only pay directly on $10 threshold to US based partners.

This was the point I started rampaging and adding google adsense and amazon associates to every blog and decided with the Kurb site doing so well as a result of my SEO work, it was time to tool that up too.

You see it's important to build and mainatain your relationship with your "true fans" over time but for every true fan - especially if I do my job well - theres going to 10 or maybe a lot more people who are only passing through or who are casual fans, who are not there to make any kind of investment in what you're doing, and if while they're checking you out there's an opportunity to make 20c, I'd suggest thats opportunity, because its only a matter of perserverance over time before thats happening 100 times a day.

That way the work I do, and other promotion spends you employ to promote your website - such as adwords for example which has become a marketing staple here at kurb - not only builds your exposure and brand, not only gives you the opportunity to connect with those few rare fans who will support you directly by purchasing your music and other related products and services, but allows you to recoup from less accurately targeted traffic who click away through ads.

Now Google is what I'll be using on my website because theyre excellent at connecting your traffic with little ads just for them, but for Amazon, and Ebay which also has a similar program which I will be checking out - to make you money its about connecting your audience with stuff theyre actually likely to want to fork out for and in the future I think smart bands working with smart people (like me! haha) are going to be able to put together offers featuring the kind of products (I mean just imagine anything on ebay) that the kind of people who love your music are just going to be snapping up!!!!



Andrew Dubber from new music strategies has just gone and opened his own online music store - why wouldn't it be an excellent idea for you to sell other music from your site and recieve a commission? THEN what you're actually doing is creating value as an OPINION LEADER!!!!

This is basically ad supported revenue madness!!!! Let's crank that content people, lets get thos platforms rockin' and lets monetize!!!

Now that we're stepping up the ad supported revenue onslaught delvinging into the affiliate game, you gotta realise theres still much more to come! Learning about CPM and CPA adds, lets not forget about paid leads like myfuncards that I discussed earlier that could be used to seriously leverage a committed fanbase into a decent earn.

I still don't know what a chitika minimall is nor have I checked out clickbank but once you can show decent data for the traffic on your site (100+ unique visitors per day) even more options become available from using more specialised and high reward programmes like and even selling advertising space on your site or blog to a locla business or auctioning it online!!!

Okay. I'm excited. I'm not saying cover your sites and blogs in huge ugly ads so they look cheap and nasty. I'm not saying ad supported revenue will create a windfall.

But for musicians who are willing to persevere with creating regular consistent content it might just be a lot more rewarding and a lot less painless than pushing those little plastic discs or hauling your show around every watering hole that will take you.


AD SUPPORTED MUSIC REVENUE IS SO HOT RIGHT NOW!!!

For more, check out Marc Cohen's Ad supported music central:

The Ad-Supported Music Central blog provides news, analysis and opinion about the market for free, listener selected, recorded music that is supported by advertisers. The blog is written by Marc Cohen, founder of Lirix, Inc., www.lirix.net, the developer of on-device dynamic ad insertion and a pioneer in the field of advertising supported music.

He JUST blogs about ad supported music. His bag is more about integrating and including advertising into the download of digital products such as mp3's but i'm telling you, it just shows the scope of this new paradigm!!!




Kurb is a media promotions company providing a regular blog on digital music promotion, marketing digital content and creating revenue from new media online.

Kurb also provides online promotion and revenue management services for musicians and artists internationally

And the best value fast turnover physical media services in New Zealand including CD / DVD printing and duplication and poster services.Our physical media services come with free graphic set up and support, free delivery, and free promotions advice and support for musicians.

All the best with your project, from KurbFor direct enquiries get us on gmail as kurbpromoDIGITAL COACHING AND ONLINE MANAGEMENT STARTS @ $NZ250

music promotion and spam: A reformed Black Hat

Http://www.nickycakes.com

Nicky Cakes aka partner ZU9whatever is an internet marketer and blogs on internet marketing under the bi-line "confessions of a reformed* black hat"

I know most of you just want to write your songs and earn a living. I wanna earn a living too promoting the songs you write, what those songs and what you represent, and creating value out of that that results in income. but one of the most inefficient parts of the work I do is explaining my work and the sorts of skills I have that make me in such demand right now to the people who pay me - people who just wanna make songs and make a buck from it.

My work involves learning about how internet marketing is carried out and looking at where that intersects with marketing music online in an appropriate way. Which is pretty unique because I'm doing pretty well with it.

I say "appropriate" because to me whether something is right or wrong or black hat or white hat spam or not is not the issue in marketing and promotion. I feel that if internet marketing messages and techniques are not useful to those who recieve them, because they are untargeted, unoriginal, and disruptive, then they are spam and damaging to your brand whether you used software, bots, scripts or automated techniques or not.

To me it's not spam that's wrong or the methodology of communication but all communication that isn't thought out with the interests of those recieving the message in mind.

Thats why the richest internet marketers are not software developers or code gurus. Unique ideas and innovation still drive music marketing and promotion as it always has.

THIS FROM Nicky Cakes:

Nickycakes gets asked this question quite often. “What is a Reformed Blackhat?” Most people assume that it has something to do with spam or making cloaked pages to fool the search engines. Wrong, WRONG. First, take a look at what “blackhat” really means.

For years, the terms “Black Hat” and “White Hat” have been used to describe hackers, people who break into computer systems, etc. A Black Hat hacker is someone who breaks into systems with malicious intent. Personal gain, causing a general ruckus, or making a name for themselves are a few of the motivating factors. White Hat hackers, on the other hand, is someone who breaks into systems to help. These people are generally the ones who notify the vendors of problems in their systems, help write patches, etc.

Anyway, along came SEO. Like hacking, there were 2 sides of the SEO coin. There were webmasters who got their search engine rankings naturally by writing “good content” or developing relationships with other webmasters for backlinks, etc. Then there were people on the cutting edge who came up with creative ways to rank higher in search engines with less work. Sometimes these practices are thought of as “spammy” but generally none are illegal unless computer systems are being broken into, or can-spam laws are being violated.

So the terms “White Hat SEO” and “Black Hat SEO” were born. Neither have much real meaning, but both are thrown around quite liberally. It’s kind of silly, really. The self proclaimed “White Hat SEO” will try to build inbound links to his website by manually visiting related blogs and making comments on them with his website’s url in the comment. Someone more clever than him will write a program to automatically post comments on all related blogs with the push of one button, and the “White Hat” screams “BLACKHAT!”.

That’s really what Blackhat SEO boils down to. It’s just a term thrown around a lot by idiots who are continually 1-up’d by people more clever than they are. It’s pretty much meaningless.

Ok so that’s the end of that tangent. What does Nickycakes mean by “Reformed Blackhat?” Well, many years ago the Cakes could have been labeled as the type of blackhat first mentioned in this post. Since then many things have changed and now he’s devoting that energy to something more productive: making money on teh intraweb. Hence Reformed Blackhat.

Keep it real.





Kurb is a media promotions company providing a regular blog on digital music promotion, marketing digital content and artists creating revenue from new media online. .. ..

Kurb also provides online promotion and revenue management services for musicians and artists internationally And the best value fast turnover physical media services in ....New Zealand.... including CD / DVD printing and duplication and poster printing services. Our physical media services come with free graphic set up and support, free delivery, and free promotions advice and support for musicians.

http://www. kurb. co. nzhttp://www. myspace. com/kurbpromohttp://www. youtube. com/user/kurbpromo -http://kurbpromotion. wordpress. comhttp://kurbpromotion. blogspot. comhttp://www. squidoo. com/kurb

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Element - New Zealand Hip HopKanarek - psychedelic ambient beatnik popNow You Die - Melbourne Metal Punk! Golpe Con Classe - Latin Hip Hop SpainKoshowko - Polish Electropop in MelbourneRoger Greenaway - New Zeland singer/songwriterAzumuth - New Zealand epic modern rockbased in Melbourne, AustraliaDJ TKD - Te Puke's finest - New Zealand DJ and turntablistAl Walser - Pop/ R&B Prince - Liechtenstien / HollywoodRomantech - Liquid Drum'n Bass Auckland New ZealandGanga - Downbeat CHill out Lounge Dub - Denmark

learning search engine optimisation for your website

Here’s a pretty long but still real simple and useful article on search engine optimisation.



The thing about SEO work is it doesn’t happen straight away it often takes MONTHS to see the tiniest changes.

But this is the thing about music promotion. We all know the music industry is heading online. And I can tell you that for the foreseeable future that searches drive online information and basically as boring and un rock’n roll as this stuff is, it’s SO VITAL in the long term!!!

Luckily for musicians search engine optimisation is just one of many skills I make available on our digital coaching packages for artists as well as small business – check it out more here:

http://kurbartistmanagement.info
Remember on our digital coaching and online promotion packages we take care of all of this stuff it’s all inclusive!!!

Kurb SEO search engine optimisation search marketing adwords auckland new zealand

Kurb small business marketing and online promotion auckland new zealand

Kurb online marketing and web 2.0 promotion auckland new zealand

Let’s face it. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a complicated subject—and not only is it complicated, but the professionals don’t even agree about what works best.

On the other hand, it’s become pretty obvious that SEO is no longer something businesses can ignore. Especially small businesses.

Where does SEO fit in with small businesses, home businesses, and freelancers? How can a small business owner make sense of the many parts? Is SEO practical or effective for small business?

These are all questions I’ve been asked repeatedly by clients, and I’m pretty sure they are questions that are on the minds of many business owners out there. With that as my motive, I’ve created this article to explain everything a business owner should (and shouldn’t) know about SEO.

What is SEO and Why You Should Care

Search Engine Optimization is about getting more traffic by improving your rank in organic search. By organic search, I mean free search. So at it’s root, SEO is about getting free long-term exposure for your business.

Now there is an important distinction to make regarding types of SEO. There are generally considered two types of SEO, white-hat and black-hat, and they vary based on their primary goal. White-hat SEO is about making your site easy for Google to read, creating valuable content with relevant keywords, and building links in an honest fashion (more on these later). Black-hat SEO is pretty much about tricking Google into ranking higher, and doing anything dishonest to influence your search positions. There are several blurry areas, but for the purposes of this article I’m going to stay firmly within white-hat territory.

Now that we have that finished, let’s move on to the interesting parts.

Why you should care about SEO

The internet is only growing, and people are spending more and more time immersed in its digital waters. At the very center of this trend are search engines—they are the primary way of finding or being found on the internet. SEO is about getting you ranked well and helping you profit from search engines.

• SEO brings traffic. As in, people looking at your business.


• SEO increases visibility, so your business can be found.


• If you set yourself up correctly you can benefit for years.


• SEO helps manage your company’s reputation online.


• SEO is a necessary step to marketing your business online.

If you want to expand your business onto the internet, there really isn’t another choice but to understand and implement good SEO practices. Without them, chances are you won’t get very far online.

Code, URLs, and Crawlability

The first step in optimizing your site for search engines lies with making the code and URLs of your website “crawlable”. Just as a quick warning, these are things you should know about, but you should probably have your web guru implement them.

The code

Basically, in order for you to rank and get traffic from Google or other search engines, they have to be able to read your website. The key point is that search engines can only read text. This means all of your images should have a textual description, you should have a lot of textual content, and you shouldn’t have an entirely flash or javascript website.

The URLs

Once search engines can read your website, they index (save and file) each page based on the unique URL (the address you type into the bar). This is important because some websites don’t have a unique URL for each page, which leads to the content getting all mixed up in the search engines. If your website does this, chances are you won’t rank well in Google or any other engines. Take a look at the picture below for examples of good and bad URLs.

Not only are unique URLs important, but having keywords in the URL is also important. Search engines count URL and Title Bar keywords heavily, and if you aren’t using them then you’re missing out on a vital piece of SEO.

Semantics

This is something that we’ll look at more in the content section, but it needs to be at least brought up with regard to code. A properly optimized website will use semantic code to market headings, paragraphs, lists, etc… This means that each part of your content is given a relative importance. Google uses this prioritization to figure out which keywords are important, so you should ask your webmaster to make sure your website is coded properly to use these standards.

Content and Keywords

The content and keywords of your website are both things you probably have control over (you might even be able to edit them yourself), and are both parts of SEO that you can implement yourself.

Content

Content includes any text, images, audio, or video that you put on your website. For this article we’ll focus on text, since it is the primary way Google understands your website. The others need to be described with text in order for Google to register them.

Here’s the simple overview of content and SEO:

1. Content is good


2. More content is better


3. Lots of content is the best

Content is what search engines rank. If you have a lot of content, you will have more pages that can rank, and more ways to get traffic. So the more content you have, the better.

But it’s not quite that simple, content quality is very important. A high quality article will get a lot of traffic from social media and will get more links, which is a big factor in SEO (see the next big section). Also good content will be relevant to your website and have relative keywords in it. So don’t just throw up a crappy page and expect it to rank well—your content needs to be well thought out and provide some good value.

Keywords

When Google reads your content, it distills everything into a list of keywords. It is those keywords and phrases that control what searches your website will show up for, so they are of crucial importance.

There are three important things to consider when looking for keywords. Is the keyword relevant to my business? How often is the keyword searched for? How competitive is the keyword?

Keyword Relevance You want to find keywords that have to do with your business so that they will bring in traffic that is valuable to you. A good way to come up with relevant keywords is to just brainstorm and come up with a list of words and phrases your target customer might use to find your website.

Keyword Popularity You need to find keywords and phrases that are being searched for regularly, or else you might rank #1 and get no traffic.

Keyword Difficulty Once you have a nice list of popular and relevant keyword phrases, it’s time to cross out most of them. Many keyword phrases, and most individual words, are extremely competitive and very difficult to rank for. When you’re just starting out, it’s best to go for the easy ones first.

Content Structure

It’s important to structure your content in a way that is semantically correct. This means using the right heading style for each heading, and using them in order of importance. A properly structured page will look like an outline with big headlines, little headlines, and paragraphs. This semantic structure helps accessibility, helps people scan your pages, and help search engines rank you properly. Here’s an example of good and bad page structure:

Popularity, Links, and PageRank

Once you’ve dealt with code, content, and keywords, the rest of SEO is kind of like a big popularity contest based on who links to you. Each website that links to you is saying “hey, this site is cool” so your ranking goes up a little. But it goes a step further than that.

Do you remember what happened in high-school when one of the cool kids said something was cool? That something all of a sudden became much more popular than if a normal kid had said it was cool. Google works in much the same way—links from authority sites count much more than links from a new website. The end result of all of this is something Google calls PageRank, similar to link popularity in other search engines, all of which is basically a measure of how important your website is online.

More Links, Higher PageRank, Better Rankings

In order to give your site more weight, and get ranked higher, you need to build links from other websites—especially authority sites (sites with high trust and high PageRank). There are many different ways to get links to your site, some are good, and some are bad.

Some good ways to get links include quality directory listings, blog comments, writing articles, guest posts on blogs, and social media.

Get Trustworthy and Natural Links

Probably because of the number of people competing for search rankings, it has become reasonably common for businesses to try cheating the system. Most of this cheating involves the process of automatic link building, and most of the time it works terribly.

In order to defeat the cheaters, Google has made trust a key element of ranking well. This trust is not built upon the number of links you have, but on the type and quality of each link, and the overall appearance of all of your links (your link profile). Because of this trust system, it’s very important for you to get links naturally and really aim for quality links.

Link Quality

Getting a quality link has several parts to it:

Originating Page The page that the link comes from needs to be a quality page, with relevant content, and not too many other links. If the page is a “links page” and has little text and mostly other links, it probably isn’t a great source. Also important is finding a page that has a relatively high PageRank itself.

Anchor Text Anchor text is the text that actually links to your website. Good anchor text will have relevant keywords in it. Bad anchor text will be irrelevant or just a URL.

No-Follow This point needs to be here for accuracy, but it definitely complicates the matter and is something that you should probably ignore if you’re new to this. Basically, a link can be formatted such that it won’t transfer any benefits to your site. These links are called “No-Follow” links, and shouldn’t necessarily be avoided (they can still send traffic) but they won’t help your search engine rankings.

Basically, you’re looking for other up-standing citizens of the internet who will link to your content because it provides value. If you try to pay for links, or get free links with no editorial control (anyone can get in), chances are you’ll end up with low quality links.

Getting Links With Content

One of the best ways to generate links is by creating outstanding content and publishing it on your website—you want to create the type of article that is so in-depth, or of such high quality, that other people can’t help but link to it. This type of content is often called linkbait because it is designed to get links. Some people find that a term a bit spammy, but either way the fact remains that you can get good links by creating really valuable content.

Should You Pay For This Stuff?

Whether or not you should pay for SEO services depends on your situation and your marketing goals. If you want to build a popular website that generates a significant number of leads, it’s probably going to be necessary to get some SEO help. On the other hand, if you only have a business card website that helps you sell in person, and don’t really want to sell or market online, then it might not be worth the time or expense to go after search traffic.

Consider whether or not you’ll be able to get a return on your SEO investment. If you send more people there, will your earnings go up?

If your website can’t generate leads, or sell your product, or make money, then you might want to think about that in more detail before investing in SEO.

When thinking about investing in SEO, it’s a good idea to see what resources you can afford to spend. You may be in a position where you want to pay someone to do all of the work for you, or you might be in a situation where it’s better to spend the time and do it yourself.

Whatever your situation, I always recommend hiring a professional to deal with things like code and website structure. It’s very rarely worth it to learn highly technical parts, especially considering they change frequently in SEO. The content and link building are things you can do on your own if you have the time and energy.

Kurb SEO search engine optimisation search marketing adwords auckland new zealand

Kurb small business marketing and online promotion auckland new zealand

Kurb online marketing and web 2.0 promotion auckland new zealand

CD and DVD duplication Auckland New Zealand

CD and DVD duplication and printing in Auckland and New Zealand

You absolutely shouldn’t waste your time reading this. What follows is SEO drone (SEO stans for search engine optimisation, the art of ranking highest for Google and other search engines. Google is the search engine used in 92% of New Zealand based searches.)

Why is this important? 72% of ALL visitors to http://www.kurb.co.nz come through search engines.

So these are the types of articles dudes in India write for businesses which have no purpose – because, seriously who would read this? - except to tell google that the site that this article and the links in it are important for search terms to do with CD and DVD duplication because . . .

You’ll notice in the way its written, it just keeps hammering those keyword phrases again and again.



That’s why when I’m writing about Auckland new Zealand based drum and bass and downbeat artist romantech I will go on about how he is a drum and bass DJ and drum and bass producer of drum and bass songs and provides free drum and bass mp3’s so you can download free drum and bass mixes from his site.


you get me?

just make sure you get your code right for when you're commenting , blogging, etc.

Not just the name of your band goes here in the "anchor text", but important search keyword terms - genre, location, even bands that sound like you!!!






cd dvd duplication and printing auckland new zealand





Worried about the deadline for pressing CDs that you need to give away at the upcoming trade show or training seminar? Well, you need not loose sleep over it, for you can utilize the services of a company that specialize in bulk CD and DVD production. Please ask for that assistance from one of these renowned CD manufacturing companies in New Zealand that have been forerunners in the business:

http://cd-dvd-duplication.co.nz

cd dvd duplication and printing auckland new zealand

Kurb cd dvd duplication

The company has a vast experience in DVD and CD manufacturing and the methods adopted are – CD and DVD duplication. CD duplication or burning means making copies of CDs. This method is only used when you need less than 1000 copies.

By using the method of bulk CD duplication, you can save a lot of money and at the same time get CDs that look like the original. You can get all kinds of CDs replicated – be it music CDs, data CDs or movies. You can also go for CD replication along with different packaging combos /options available at DVD Replication’s website, to save additional costs.

Everyone enjoys listening to music, which is why music CDs are the perfect companion for almost any occasion or event. Many musicians are now becoming their own records companies and doing their own CD and DVD retail and distribution. Independent distribution of music CDs is now commonplace in the market as the cost of CD replication technology has fallen dramatically since the turn of the century. It is now the case that you can get studio quality copies of your music CD by getting them duplicated at local vendors and market them on your tours and your venues and concerts.

The duplication process can complete studio quality cds and DVD in a relatively short The quality of the CDs created by CD and DVD are world class and also very cost effective, due to which this process is being adopted very successfully by the music industry now.

For getting professional quality music CD replication, you can simply log on to Kurb cd dvd duplication and get quote your bulk CD ad DVD duplication project from one of New Zealand’s leading media companies that offers specialised CD and DVD duplication services. In addition, you can also get a huge range of cover printing and packaging options.

CD Roms or Compact Disc Read Only Memory-type of optical disks are the most commonly used medium for storing large quantities of data. You can get these CD Roms manufactured in bulk by using the method of CD duplication. This is the most cost effective and quickest method of getting copies of any kind of CDs - be it music CDs, data CDs, movie CDs or any other form of CDs.

The method of CD duplication is adopted when the quantity of CDs are in the range of 1000 or less. The advantage of this process is that it can be completely automated by using a robotic arm with a duplicating tower. As each disc is burned the robotic arm will remove it and replace the disc with another blank disc to repeat the burning process again. In this way, you can get these CDs duplicated in a very short period of time. However, if you need more than 1000 copies of CDs, you should go for the process called CD replication.

To get worldclass cd replication,n which is a better quality process that CD Rom duplication services, log on to Kurb cd dvd duplication. We will be happy to quote for you project. Offering excellent service, quick turnaround time and door to door delivery for all purchases.

The advance in technology has give rise to a new method of pressing CDs and DVDs in bulk. This method is called CD and DVD duplication. In this method, you can create replicas of the original disc. The artwork will be printed directly onto the disc surface just like you find in retail stores.

There are many advantages of using this method. CD and DVD duplication saves a lot of money that can be channeled for other purposes.

With so many advantages offered by DVD and CD duplication, you can do away with all your worries and concerns and go for media duplication services. For more details in CD duplication and to order your set of bulk DVDs, please visit Kurb cd dvd duplication

Over the past few years, the way we store data has changed significantly. Floppy disks and video cassettes are virtually obsolete. Now, with state of art technology, we have entered into the age of the DVD (Digital Video Disk). DVD’s can store large amounts of data in comparison to regular CD/VCD, as you can store anything from 4.7GB (DVD 5) up to 17GB. As an optical storage facility, it is superior for its resolution quality and amazing storage capacity.

At Kurb cd dvd duplication we provide the best facilities for the production of customised DVDs that can be duplicated in bulk. we provide DVD printing, duplication and packaging solutions with expertise and professionalism, you can market your products and services in a novel and innovative way, which is sure to capture the attention of potential customers.

At Kurb cd dvd duplication our DVD s can be useful in making business presentations and showcasing multimedia utilities. CDs and DVDs can also be used to carry resumes. Because they are portable and can be customised according to your needs, our mini DVD’s are great value for money. For more information about our DVD business card, DVD replicated services and DVDs, visit us at Kurb cd dvd duplication

The DVD is a relatively new storage method which lets you store 14 times more data than on a CD-ROM - from 4.7 to 17 gigabytes. DVD’s can be replicated with data on one or both sides and a dual DVD can also be produced to increase the amount of data you can save on one disk. Today, the use of the DVD has become widespread as people have come to prefer them as a media storage device. For commercial DVD production, duplicating or copying a DVD can be a tedious task. Therefore, it is better to appoint a commercial CD/DVD manufacturer to meet bulk duplication requirements.

Commercial DVD production will deliver a professional and innovative marketing tool in the format of a DVD business card. The DVD is perfect for sales catalogues, presentations, training, multimedia content and resumes. The Mini DVD is also a smart option for commercial DVD production. The Mini DVD is an 80mm diameter disk, with a capacity for holding 120 minutes of footage.

There are various types of DVD’s. DVD 9 is a marketing term for Dual Layer DVDR-R and DVD+R. DVD 5 is a one-sided, single layer disk on which data of up to 4.7 gigabytes can be stored.

The DVD is a relatively new storage method which lets you store 14 times more data than on a CD-ROM - from 4.7 to 17 gigabytes. Your DVD can be replicated with data on one or on both sides. www.dvdreplication.co.nz offers one of the best DVD/CD replication facilities. We offer fast, efficient CD and DVD replication services to customers world-wide.

For more information about CD manufacturing, DVD replication, Bulk CD replication log on to Kurb cd dvd duplication For all your bulk DVD replication requirements, our company offers great value, expertise and professionalism both locally and internationally. We produce DVD’s and CD’s of exceptional quality at very affordable prices. Our expertise and professionalism is second to none. Something else - we offer 100% customer satisfaction and are committed to delivering excellence of product and service..

DVD is the new generation of optical disc storage technology. DVD stands for Digital video disc. DVD is essentially a bigger, faster CD that can hold cinema-like video, still photos, better-than-CD audio, and computer data.

DVD has replaced laserdisc, is well on the way to replacing videotape and video game cartridges, and could eventually replace audio CD and CD-ROM. It aims to include home entertainment, computers, and business information.

DVD has widespread support from all major electronics companies, all major computer hardware companies, and all major movie and music studios. With this unprecedented support, DVD became the most successful consumer electronics product of all time in less than three years of its introduction.

To find out more about what DVD is please visit Kurb cd dvd duplication

More Link Building on Myspace

MORE KURB LINK BUILDING ON MYSPACE


Okay just some extra morsels on SEO and link building.

Please bare in mind what I’m talking about here is known as “whitehat SEO” that means your not doing anything wrong but if you know anything about what I do and know you’ll probably be aware I’ve got tricks up my sleeve which are just naughty and plain not fair – but that’s not something I discuss “freely” haha – at least not yet!

But what I’m doing now is making up word documents with my different link family set ups.

For example I want to be able to choose to leave just a few of my most important links on a blog or a myspace comment and I also want the choice between the rich html/non html URLs and the normal html.

But if I’m creating or posting a blog or a bulletin or developing a new profile, or a squidoo lense I’ll want the full roll call of all my links, kurb links, my personal artist links, client links - the works.

Now one of the reasons I’ve been down in the dumps a little is because the myspace madness continues, and it’s been a BUMPY ride.

Myspace used to have some MASSIVE loopholes for exploiting links and google but for the last year you can’t go 5 minutes without myspace changing the rules. Now their intentions are noble – to stop the spammers - although the damage was done a year ago and those guys have taken their money and gone. To be honest myspace is taking it to a level at which the site is becoming increasingly restrictive to use for even muso’s and punters – who are suffering with annoying hassles after the spammers have cleared out.

As if the captcha code’s weren’t enough they’ve now developed their “msplinks” system so you can’t leave myspace through a link directly without myspace interfering with a warning screen.

It’s weird. Blogs are fine but profiles and bulletins . . . not so much. This is a real drag - especially as some of my links have been shut down because myspace have decided they are spam links to some unsavoury site. I’ve worked out how to get around it already, but its still a big DRAG!!!! I’ve lost about 20% of my website traffic that used to come to my site through myspace alone.





So here’s my short link list in rich html, in URL form so it can be cut and pasted in non html also.

http://www.kurb.co.nz/
http://www.myspace.com/kurbpromo
http://www.youtube.com/user/kurbpromo
http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com/
http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_cds.htm
http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_artists.htm
http://www.romantech.co.nz/
http://www.romantech.co.nz/


Here’s the same list in Html

<a href="http://www.kurb.co.nz/">http://www.kurb.co.nz</a><a href="http://www.myspace.com/kurbpromo">http://www.myspace.com/kurbpromo</a><a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/kurbpromo">http://www.youtube.com/user/kurbpromo</a><a href="http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com/">http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com</a><a href="http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_cds.htm">http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_cds.htm</a><a href="http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_artists.htm">http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_artists.htm</a></span><a href="http://www.romantech.co.nz/">http://www.romantech.co.nz</a>

<a href="http://www.romantech.co.nz/">http://www.realitycompound.com</a>

But given in html I can use keywords and phrases to lure both google and punters, that’s what I’ll do! SO instead in normal html fields, which include most comment boxes and all bullitens on myspace, I’ll aim for this:

Kurb Promotions Website
Kurb Myspace
Kurb Promo on Youtube
Official Kurb Blog - click through to subscribe
Kurb - Auckland and NZ's best value CD and DVD duplication - no set up costs, free delivery.
Check out our digital coaching - online promotion and income generating packages for artists
Drum'n Bass DJ Romantech
Electroclash Media Group Reality Compound

Which in html code will look like this:

<a href="http://www.kurb.co.nz/">Kurb Promotions Website </a><a href="http://www.myspace.com/kurbpromo">Kurb Myspace</a><a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/kurbpromo">Kurb Promo on Youtube</a><a href="http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com/">Official Kurb Blog - click through to subscribe</a><a href="http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_cds.htm">Kurb - Auckland and NZ's best value CD and DVD duplication - no set up costs, free delivery.</a><a href="http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_artists.htm">Check out our digital coaching - online promotion and income generating packages for artists</a><a href="http://www.romantech.co.nz/">Drum'n Bass DJ Romantech</a>

<a href="http://www.romantech.co.nz/">Electroclash Media Group Reality Compound</a>

And finally: all the links in rich html.

http://www.kurb.co.nz/
http://www.myspace.com/kurbpromo
http://www.youtube.com/user/kurbpromo -
http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com/
http://kurbpromotion.blogspot.com/
http://www.squidoo.com/kurbHow I approach a new client at Kurb (Dec 07)
Kurb - Auckland and NZ's best value CD and DVD duplication - no set up costs, free delivery.
http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_promotions.htm
Check out our digital coaching - online promotion and income generating packages for artists
Info on digital Video marketing - and production services available in Auckland
http://databass.giantrobot.co.nz/kurb_online.htm
More promotions articles features and info for artists
Cheap posters - placement in AUckland or Free delivery in NZhttp://www.romantech.co.nz/
http://www.myspace.com/romantech
http://www.youtube.com/user/djromantech
http://www.last.fm/music/Romantech
http://www.ilike.com/artist/Romantech
http://www.squidoo.com/romantech
http://romantech.wordpress.com/
http://romantech.blogspot.com/
http://www.amplifier.co.nz/artist/7718/
http://cdbaby.com/cd/djromantech
http://www.reverbnation.com/romantechhttp://www.romantech.co.nz/
http://www.myspace.com/realitycompound
http://www.youtube.com/user/realitycompound
http://www.last.fm/music/Reality+Compound
http://www.squidoo.com/realitycompound
http://romantech.wordpress.com/
http://romantech.blogspot.com/
www.amplifier.co.nz/artist/13634/reality_compound.html