A Google question

Rusty K · #1 02-02-2008

hello,

I've noticed that some bands/people have many listings when you google their names. Of course online accomplishments have something to do with this but my band has a few of those and hardly anything comes up when we're googled. I have one musician friend whose library email address even shows up when googled. How can my band improve these listings?

Also a related question...how can we improve our position in listings of such google searches as "dance band" (as just an example)?

Thanks,
Rusty K

Elton Bear · #2 02-02-2008

Two things - the top results are paid for in something a general as 'guitar shop' or 'dance band', so you can get hold of Google and splash out some savings, or you can hope that your site generates enough traffic to push you up the listings.

As for Googling your band name or whatever, META tags in your HTML code will help enormously. I can't quite remember how to do it, but it's a little piece of code you add to the <HEAD> tag on your page source, if you Google (oh the irony) HTML tutorials you'll find some easy websites, then you add your band name and members' names as keywords.
When google searches the internet, it looks for these META tags first.

Hope that helps a bit

Rusty K · #3 02-02-2008

Elton Bear,

Sorry I'm a little dense....google html tutorials for the proper meta tag to add? I just didn't quite get what you meant. I understand the meta tag stuff (kind of ) but I'm not sure what I'm googling for...lol.

Thanks so much for the help.
Rusty K

Rusty K · #4 02-04-2008

Well I got a yahoo verification meta tag into my webpage...maybe that will help. Google is a little more complicated. They want me to create a site map for my webpage. A little tedious but I guess I'll try.

Rusty K

IainDearg · #5 02-11-2008

Google "search engine optimisation" (SEO) and learn how to make your website friendly to Google so that your site has more chance of getting near the top of SERPS (search engine result pages).

It's hard work and takes time and determination to succeed.

Dave
Original Fingerstyle Acoustic Guitar Songs
"Interim Reports" at CDBaby!

Rusty K · #6 02-11-2008

Thanks...IainDearge,

I'll try that google.

Rusty K

irg82 · #7 02-22-2008

It also helps if you have a band name that nothing else is named after, because google would normally have no results for that. What's the name of your band? My band name is Wetmoore, google us and it'll take you right to our myspace.

TerraMortim · #8 02-22-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elton Bear

Two things - the top results are paid for in something a general as 'guitar shop' or 'dance band', so you can get hold of Google and splash out some savings, or you can hope that your site generates enough traffic to push you up the listings.

As for Googling your band name or whatever, META tags in your HTML code will help enormously. I can't quite remember how to do it, but it's a little piece of code you add to the <HEAD> tag on your page source, if you Google (oh the irony) HTML tutorials you'll find some easy websites, then you add your band name and members' names as keywords.
When google searches the internet, it looks for these META tags first.

Hope that helps a bit

I don't know if google uses meta tags to track relevance.. It works something like how many places link to the page, or something like that. The other search engines probably still do meta tags, anyway.

I could be wrong though, as I'm not an expert.

#9 02-22-2008

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is important, but what's more important (which was mentioned by someone else) is how many other sites either link to your site, or have content on their site about you.

I've done a lot of researching on SEO for my own web designing. A good rule of thumb, is to use keywords (in your <META> tags) that are relevant and appear a lot on that webpage.

Bad practice example...if I put these keywords for my website:
<meta name="keywords" content="britney spears,sex,xxx,adult..." />

Many people would think it would get you a good ranking on Google, when actually, it just gets you a good chance of getting your site removed from the index completely. A better thing would be:

<meta name="keywords" content="danny.guitar,danny,guitar,music,about,contact,guestbook" />

Those would be good words for the index page since "danny.guitar" comes up frequently and it contains the names of the links on the main page.

The keywords should be different for each page on your site as should be the description and <title> of your page.

Another important thing is using images as little as possible...use text as much as you can and try not to ever replace it with an image since search engines can't read images.

Rusty K · #10 02-22-2008

danny.guitar,

I use a drag and drop program to put my website together. Learning how to design a website the proper way is most definitely on my list but unfortunately it's pretty far down the list right now. I did realize the part about the images. The program I use to generate our webpage was converting text to images which I reversed....but if you don't mind taking a little more time with a novice, I'd like to know exactly how to insert the meta tags. I know how to get to the sourse html in my index page and I know how to edit a little but I don't know exactly what to insert or where.

I really appreciate the help. Thank you.

Rusty K

#11 02-23-2008

Rusty, if you look at the HTML source, you should see the <head> </head> tags. <meta> tags go between those. Example:

<html>

<head>
<meta name="keywords" content="enter,your,keywords,here">
<meta name="description" content="A brief description of your website.">
<title>My Webpage</title>
</head>
<body>
...etc

So you would put those 2 <meta> lines somewhere (anywhere) between <head> and </head>

Rusty K · #12 02-23-2008

danny.guitar,

Fantastic! Thanks a million.

Rusty K

Rusty K · #13 02-24-2008

danny.guitar,

What a difference meta tags and 24hrs makes. I can't thank you enough for your help. The final thing we'll work on is getting some cross-linking with some other websites.

Rusty K

mjr · #14 03-07-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rusty K

danny.guitar,

What a difference meta tags and 24hrs makes. I can't thank you enough for your help. The final thing we'll work on is getting some cross-linking with some other websites.

Rusty K

Rusty:

Try this, too:

http://www.google.com/intl/en/submit_content.html

You can submit directly to Google that way.

Rusty K · #15 03-07-2008

mjr,

Excellent! Thanks for the help.

Rusty K

#16 03-07-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rusty K

danny.guitar,

What a difference meta tags and 24hrs makes. I can't thank you enough for your help. The final thing we'll work on is getting some cross-linking with some other websites.

Rusty K

I completely forgot to mention what mrj said, that's really an important step in getting Google to index your site faster.

But yeah, definitely go put your content/links on a bunch of other websites, and if the website supports features like "tags" or "keywords" use the same ones you used in your Meta tags; ie: what you expect people to search for when trying to find your website.

Ex: Some sites let you upload your songs/mp3s. Like SoundClick.com. They let you enter keywords for your music. This is usually a good place to put those keywords you used in your <META> tags.

For me, probably: danny.guitar, danny, guitar, acoustic, instrumental, fingerstyle, etc.

There are literally thousands of sites out there you can put your content on and that will probably help more than anything. MySpace, SoundClick, GarageBand.com, PureVolume, Friendster (or whatever it's called), MySongBook, FaceBook, etc.

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