How do I get hits to my website?

  • Thread starter Thread starter demensia
  • Start date Start date
demensia

demensia

www.lukemacneil.com
I've been working dillilgantly on writing my website straight out the text editor... but it seems like I have to beg people (friends) to go there.. Its not listed on the search engines, and even if it were I dont know what Keywords I would use to promote the site.

I figure If i could actually get a nice steady flow of hits to the site I could probably sell demos for $2.00 or $3.00 just for the hell of it.

Get ready, heres the plug: www.demensiax.com

Is there anyone out there that can help me out with this..?
Sorry I didnt do a search, I'm sure this has been covered numerous times before, but its too late now.

-- Demensia.
 
hmmm

I don't have a huge number of hits on my website, but if you frequent message boards like this and include your website as part of your signature you'll get a little bit of a boost in traffic. Make sure your posts are worth posting though. Also, playing shows and telling people about your website at them is a good way. There are some free services out there that will submit your site to search engines.....I think one is
www.addme.com

not positive about that one though. Your site looks pretty good...looks like you kind of know what you're doing as far as web design goes. I would put some sort of slogan or description on the front page that lets people know what "Mental Evolution" is all about as soon as they hit your site.

Tucci
www.locuststreettaxi.com
Horns, Harmony, & Humor
 
Hey man I listened to the 5th ace tune. Not my kind of music but a good tune with a pretty complex set of tracks I'm sure.

The mix sounds great though......what did you use to mic your drums?? What program are you using on your comp to do the tracking and mixing??.......Site looks good too..... BJ
 
Tucci, thanks for the tips man.

Antz: The drums are loops that I bought. W.I.S.C. is responsible for the mixing, I just did bass and guitar.
 
The best way to get traffic these days is to trade links with other sites that are popular. Many offer link for link. There are some stipulations with many. If you have an IUMA account you can link sites together. They have a button for your other site....Just some Ideas.
Myx
 
Okay I looked at your site. Here's why you're not on search engines.

1) It takes at least 2 months for a search engine to catalog your site. This goes for about all search engines except google, which has already cataloged your site (type in "demensiax" into google search). Actually I found you at altavista also, so your problem may be more found in the points below. You can speed this up by submitting to search engines or go through a company to do this for you. Still most places say a minimum of 2 months even on submitting.

2) One of the main ways that search engines catalog your site is using the html metatags. I opened up your page, looked at the source. Here's what I got...

<META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="">
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="">

absolutely nothing.

The html spiders use this to associate words and descriptions to your site. If you don't have anything in there, how are these bots supposed to know what to catalog it as?

3) I look at your website's front page and see practically no written content at all, just news, which changes quite a bit I'm sure. Keep in mind that an html spider also catalogs your pages based on the words you put on it. So if you were to make an "about" page that describes what your project is about, this would help. Or even better include that summary at the bottom of the main page.

4) Some engines also catalog by picture names (I know at least google does). So the names of these pictures could be important in how your site is cataloged.

Hope this stuff helps,
Sal
 
Oh also, here's a side problem found. When I opened you up in my Opera browser, the whole left menu was not there - there were no options for me at all to click on. It was fine in IE however. You might want to investigate your code.
 
Hello Sal, how do you put meta descriptions and keywords into your front page? I'm not sure if I have them or not.
I was helped by your post there. Thanks.

Tucci
www.locuststreettaxi.com
Horns, Harmony, & Humor
 
You put them in the <HEAD> of the document like this...

<HEAD>
<TITLE>My Totally Sweet Webpage</TITLE>

<META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="blah, blahty, blah, blah">
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="This is the sweetest site in the universe. Ninjas flip out all the time. etc. ">

</HEAD>

Keywords you want to put words, separated by commas, that are relevant to your site. If someone wanted to find your site what would they search for?

Description is pretty much that - describe the site. This can be in sentence form. If I remember correctly most sites use this section for the little blurb you get below the webpage title in search results.

Don't forget the <TITLE> tag either. This appears at the very top, in the browser bar, but is also cataloged by search engine spiders.

You immediately want to put any word you can think of in the Keywords section to get traffic. However many search engines frown on this, you might get banned from their engine. People can get pissed too, if your site is irrelevant to what they were looking for. I don't remember if there is an official search engine limit on the number of words.
 
Sal, I fixed up the meta tags this morning.
Will the spiders catalog index.php or do I need to make an HTML about page?

The whole site is on one page except for the news section which is an IFRAME... so I'm not sure why its not working with your opera browser. Can you highlight the left navbar, maybe opera doesnt like text color codes.

I really appreciate the feedback and info.
 
"so I'm not sure why its not working with your opera browser"

I wouldn't let this worry you too much. Last time I checked Opera has about 2-5% market share compared to Internet Explorer's 95%. I could be wrong though I havn't see the latest figures.
 
Hey there Saljustsal,

you are a man who knows what he's talking about. I would greatly appreciate it if you could cast an eye over my site www.song-central.com for similar teething problems.

I think I've got the meta thing down after A LOT of tinkering.

Thanks Pak
 
By the way, for those truly interested in "the best way to get hits to your site". The answer is simple:

PAY FOR IT. That's right, if you don't have something worth putting your (or someone else's) hard earned money into then obviously you need to consider what you're doing. Trading links will get you a few hits but nothing worthwhile. Meta Tags are great for people who are searching "on your name or band name" but if you expect to get a high listing on a popular keyword, keep dreaming. Again, unless you want to pay for it.

Independent music marketing is a slow tedious process. I'm working on my own cd which I plan to release "some day" but when I do I will have a professional website ready to go, links to cd sales, audio demos to download, visibility on SEVERAL music websites, a decent bank roll saved up to promote my music.

Get some money behind you or be prepared to join the ranks of other independent musicians who are complaining about no hits to their website, small number of plays on music sites, low cd sales, etc.

I'm a firm believer that marketing your music by yourself should be the ultimate last resort (unless you're like me and are doing it more or less as a experiment or hobby). If you have a completed work of music (10-12 tracks) you should first shop it around to indie lables, if after 2-3 indie lables, nobody wants to get behind you then if you're still interested in marketing your music that's when you take the doityourself approach.

One thing that seems so obvious to do is take your demo cd to a few local professional recording studios and talk to the owner or engineer and get them to listen to your music and ask them to give you their honest opinion. Hell, if you have to pay an hour of their time it's worth it. If you have something decent they'll let you know and possibly point you towards a local indie label they work with.

But hey, I'm just guiy typing this shit in at 2:30 in the frickin morning, what do I know? :)
 
Those indie labels

What exactly do Indie Labels do that people who are marketing their music on their own don't? Actually, I think I'm going to start a new thread about this. And do you really only need to try 2-3 Indie labels?

Tucci
www.locuststreettaxi.com
Horns, Harmony, & Humor
 
need hits on mine too!

I see people on MP3 with like 500,000 hits.... how the HELL do you get that? anyway, check mine out, there are some hot POP and some rap and r&b tracks on there www.mp3.com/jadion_music
 
In my experience, getting hits hasn't been all that hard. Neither has getting lots of downloads and a boatload of compliments on message boards and via email from site visitors. What's hard is getting folks to take that last step and actually ORDER a CD. I wish some PR genius could explain to me what one has to do on a website to shift the visitor's mindset from "that's really cool" to "that's something I have to have a copy of." Then again, from what I've read, I think realizing strong album sales from Internet promotion alone remains an elusive goal for the vast majority.

www.immovablemover.com
Hard-Hitting, Richly-Textured Progressive Rock Celebrating Individualism & the Heroic in Man
 
SalJustSal said:
You put them in the <HEAD> of the document like this...

<HEAD>
<TITLE>My Totally Sweet Webpage</TITLE>

<META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="blah, blahty, blah, blah">
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="This is the sweetest site in the universe. Ninjas flip out all the time. etc. ">

</HEAD>

Keywords you want to put words, separated by commas, that are relevant to your site. If someone wanted to find your site what would they search for?

Description is pretty much that - describe the site. This can be in sentence form. If I remember correctly most sites use this section for the little blurb you get below the webpage title in search results.

Don't forget the <TITLE> tag either. This appears at the very top, in the browser bar, but is also cataloged by search engine spiders.

You immediately want to put any word you can think of in the Keywords section to get traffic. However many search engines frown on this, you might get banned from their engine. People can get pissed too, if your site is irrelevant to what they were looking for. I don't remember if there is an official search engine limit on the number of words.
Click to expand...

It should be noted that though meta tags can help by making the purpose of your website very clear, they will not increase your chances of being returned on a search engine.

Here's a good link that explains the deprecation of meta tags, and the misnomers everyone seems to be clinging to.

http://www.rainboworange.net/search_engine_optimization_article_2.htm

Cheers.


~~~Turnip~~~~
www.turnipville.com
 
One tip for choosing the right 'key words' would be to go to a site by a similar artist to yourself. On the home page right-click and choose 'view source'. This will show you the HTML code behind the web page. At the top it will show the keywords that artists's site has used, which may give you a clue as to which words you should use yourself.

Unless you are prepared to spend money on advertising, I think the only way to get hits is to 'put yourself about' on line. That is to join discussion groups (busy ones only), list yourself on any site that alows free listings MP3.com, NowhereRadio, etc, (there are lots of these), exchange links with other similar but more succesful artists (you'll of course need to list them on your own links page in return), in short take ANY online opportunity to make yourself known and include your web site address in your signature and always use your signature - but DON'T make a total nuisance of yourself by spamming people - you want people to like what you do!

GlynB
http://www.dr-rox.co.uk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top