What should bands and musicians know about SEO?

If you have a website for your music, you’ve likely heard the term SEO kicked around. And, If so, I wouldn’t blame you if your eyes glazed over and you dismissed it as some technical thing that you don’t understand or doesn’t apply to you.

I want to help you understand what SEO is, why it’s so important for musicians to get it right, and finally how to do it.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and that’s all it is. You’re optimizing your website so that search engines like Google, and now AI platforms like ChatGPT, can find the best information on a given topic. In this case - your music.

If someone hears your music for the first time and wants to know more about you, they can do a search and easily find your other albums, merch, and more.

How do you optimize your website for search engines?

This probably feels like it’s a super technical process but it’s really not. You’re likely using a website platform that should take care of the technical stuff like meta tags, sitemaps, fast loading times, custom domains, and SSL certificates for you. So, here’s what you as an artist should focus on.

Write good content and keep it up-to-date

Make sure your bio, album descriptions, page titles, and all other text on each page is clear, concise, and contains keywords that people will likely use to search for you and your music. It’s important to ensure you don’t have any outdated information or broken links.

Link to your platform profiles

Include links to your music and social platforms somewhere on your site, such as the footer. And, if your website builder supports it, put a simple snippet of code in the head tag of your layout - see below. This helps search engines connect the dots that the artist with a profile on one platform is the same as the one on another. This can ultimately lead to getting a sidebar knowledge panel.

Share your site

The more reputable places linking to your website the better. These “backlinks” are a strong signal to search engines that your website is not only legit, but the ultimate source for you and your music. The obvious ones are your Instagram, YouTube, and other social profiles. But look for other opportunities as well. If you do a podcast interview, get an album review, or have a page on your label’s site, ask for them to link to your website. Don’t flood message boards and comment sections with your site, spamming will get you worse results.

Don’t overthink it

That’s all you really need to know about SEO. If that still sounds like a lot of work you don’t want to deal with it, let Supertape do it for you. Just connect your platforms and we’ll automatically import all of your music, merch, videos, and tour dates and create a beautiful website with search engine-optimized pages for everything, ready for you to share.