Music Publicity Blog

And this music publicity blog case study using Thirty Day Challenge methods is officially concluded!

My main take away lesson echoes what Ed Dale said in the Thirty Day Challenge: Market research is where 95% of internet marketing mistakes are made. My addendum to that lesson is: check out the competition.

So what’s next for this music publicity blog? Simple. As I am still a musician & music biz maven, I’m keeping this site to share indie music marketing ideas, Ariel Hyatt’s music publicity resources, and whatever other music publicity tools that catch my eye. Now that my initial test is complete, I’m free to play around with other related and “long tail” music keywords, and catch the “low hanging fruit” as suggested in the Thirty Day Challenge.

Who knows? Maybe this site will raise in ranking on its own. But I’m not going to worry about it. I still have music of my own to make.

But I must announce a different victory. If you’ve been following allowing along in this case study, you may remember that last week I created a “superquick” blog at the NYC Accountant Blog in two hours exactly one week ago using WordPress Direct. I started it up for someone else, and put it aside to continue on my case study.

After realizing that I hadn’t checked out the competition for the NYC Accountant blog, I panicked, and started checking out its competition with the Market Samurai tool. And what would you know? The NYC Accountant Blog was already on my list of competitors for the “nyc accountant” niche. I didn’t even know that the site had been indexed by Google yet, so I decided to visit Google…

Looky here at the ranking results for NYCAccountantBlog.com!:

• Google Page Rank: #5 out of 14,600,000 competing pages for broad match

• Number of visitors yesterday September 17, 2008: 33
  
• Affiliate Sales: $0 (No affiliate product posted yet, but I’m seeking ideas!)

That’s right, Folks! The NYC Accountant Blog is currently on the first page of Google for both exact AND broad keyword match. Within a week’s time. With only two measly posts (My debut “Hello World!” post, and a semi-lame accountant joke!). If I had an affiliate product on there, I might have made my Thirty Day Challenge dollar already.

Regardless, these are great results, and I have to share my gratitude with Ed Dale, Dan Raine, GuruBob, and Company from The Thirty Day Challenge internet marketing course. I definitely feel like I’m “bringing a gun to a knife fight” now that I understand their niche market testing process. I also have to thank Marty Rozmanith and the “shifty looking Boston bunch” from the WordPress Direct team, and last but not least, Eugene Ware and his Samurais at Market Samurai. Thanks Guys, I’m on my way!!!

And for you visiting the music publicity blog, thanks so much for visiting. I hope I was able to share some knowledge that you can use on your internet marketing journey!

Technorati Tags: 30dc, dan raine, ed dale, eugene ware, google, gurubob, Indie Music, Indie Music Marketing, internet marketing, market samurai, marty rozmanith, music promotion, Music Publicity, nyc accountant, seo, wordpress direct

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Today’s current statistics for musicpublicityblog.com:

* Google Page Rank: #44 out of 35,200 competing pages for exact match

* Number of visitors yesterday September 17, 2008: 9

* Affiliate Sales: $0

Without a big story to StumbleUpon, musicpublicityblog.com only pulled 9 visitors to the site yesterday. I’d been feeling like I had been dragging my feet regarding the testing of this music publicity blog, so yesterday I dug into the awesome features of the Market Samurai software.

While using the Market Samurai tool, I feel like I learned one of the biggest lessons of my Thirty Day Challenge testing: Check out the competition before you choose your niche.

While I did research my niche, I had no idea who or what I was up against in the music publicity market, much less what my site would need in order to reach a certain ranking. After checking out the competition via Market Samurai, I realized that I might need at least 800 backlinks to reach the first page.

When I realized that I was in over my head, I actually felt relief, as I accepted that the work involved in getting to the 1st page was outside the scope of this case study. And frankly, if I’m going to work that hard to promote a blog, it will be for my personal music publicity blog at Rock Star Life Lessons.

Technorati Tags: 30dc, Music Publicity, rock star life lessons

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Today’s current statistics for musicpublicityblog.com:

* Google Page Rank: #42 out of 35,200 competing pages for exact match

* Number of visitors yesterday September 16, 2008: 151

* Affiliate Sales: $0

Interesting results we have here at the music publicity blog!

My page ranking went down 2 points, while 200 competing pages have turned up in Google. Yesterday’s posting of the Thirty Day Challenge Task List was popular, thanks to bookmarking that I did using OnlyWire.com, as well as SocialMarker.com.

As sites like Digg and StumbleUpon are sensitive to you bookmarking too many webpages from a single domain, I’ve only been using my OnlyWire accounts to bookmark pages in Blinklist, Del.icio.us, Furl, Ma.gnolia, and Spurl. Since yesterday’s list was something I knew that many people would find useful, I used SocialMarker.com, which bookmarks pages in StumbleUpon, Digg, Propeller, and Twitter. Sure enough, the crowds came to this music publicity blog to check out the Thirty Day Challenge list.

Admittedly, getting a spike in web traffic was a cool trick, but to really optimize this site, I’ll need to load up more music publicity content in musicpublicityblog.com in order for this to be useful to artists and bands seeking music publicity.

Today’s tasks will include firing up the Market Samurai tool to begin the Thirty Day Challenge “rinse and repeat” steps. Thanks for visiting this music publicity blog!

Technorati Tags: 30dc, Music Publicity, search engine optimization, social bookmarking, social networking

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The Thirty Day Challenge is a great way to learn how to build a business online for FREE. Before I get into the meat of my Thirty Day Challenge case study for this music publicity blog, I’ll include this year’s task list:

Thirty Day Challenge 2008 Task List & Action Plan

Day 01 - Brainstorm niche ideas
Day 02 - Lesson: Definition of markets and niches
* Test niche ideas
* Introduction to Market Samurai tool
Day 03 - Decide on keyword niche
Day 04 - Choose affiliate product to sell
* Write blurb for affiliate product
* Get affiliate link for product
Day 05 - Research content for writing articles
* Create first blog post using attribution method
Day 06 - Set up web hosting
* Set up WordPress Direct blog
* Post well-optimized original article as blog post
* Add affiliate product and link to blog
Day 07 - Set up Google Analytics account
* Add Google Analytics Tracking ID to your blog
* Set up TDC Stats Tracking link for your affiliate product
* Add TDC tracking link for sale offer (sidebar blog widget)
Day 08 - Set up Socialmarker.com account to bookmark online content
Day 09 - Find forums and groups for creating backlinks
Check Google to learn if your site has been indexed yet
Day 10 - Add blog’s URL to TDC RSS Submitter
Day 11 - Build Squidoo.com lens for your keyword
* Find additional article content using Market Samurai
Day 12 - Set up Hubpages.com site for your keyword
Day 13 - Measure your traffic using Google Analytics
Day 14 - Set up a Tumblr.com blog for your keyword
Day 15 - Set up a Weebly.com site
Day 16 - Write and submit an article to EzineArticles.com
Day 17 - Check your blog ranking
Day 18 - Decide if you need to change your keyword or affiliate product
Day 19 - Lesson: The Basics of Any Internet Business
Day 20 - Introduction to Google Adwords
Day 21 - Google AdWords Part 2
Day 22 - Google AdWords Part 3
Day 23 - Introduction to WordPress Direct Content Software
* TDC podcast with Ed Dale and GuruBob
Day 24 - PDF report: “How to Write Killer Sales Copy”
Day 25 - Decide on the future of your niche
Day 26 - How to monetize your blog
* How to “build out” your niche
Day 27 - How to find “long tail” derivative keywords
Day 28 - How to create blog authority
Day 29 - How to get authority backlinks
Day 30 - Lesson: Mistakes Marketers Make
Day 31 - Thirty Day Challenge Conclusion

The idea behind Thirty Day Challenge is to create a repeatable process to test keyword niches, and taking this online course was the best use of my time this past August.

However, the Thirty Day Challenge can be taken year-round (and did I mention that it was FREE?), and I wholeheartedly recommend the Thirty Day Challenge to anyone interested in building their own online business.

Technorati Tags: 30dc, ed dale, seo

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Today’s current statistics for musicpublicityblog.com:

• Number of visitors yesterday September 15, 2008: 9

• Affiliate Sales: $0

Woo hoo!!! Today, this music publicity blog ranked #40 in Google’s exact search for “music publicity”, and musicpublicityblog.com has returned to Page 4 of the Google results! How exciting!

Considering that I haven’t done any search engine optimization (I’ve only posted blogs) for this music publicity blog since last Wednesday, Sept 10th, that’s pretty good. Now that this week has started rolling along, I will be taking bigger steps towards better rankings. Can’t wait.

Stay tuned to this music publicity blog!

Technorati Tags: 30dc, music publicist, seo

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Today’s current statistics for musicpublicityblog.com:

• Number of visitors yesterday September 14, 2008: 6

• Affiliate Sales: $0

Today was a light day for this music publicity blog, as my focus was overhauling my music newsletter system. Having a working newsletter is also important for your music publicity campaign, and this was yet another task that had to be done asap.

Musicpublicityblog.com went down one number in ranking, while the missing 100 competing pages returned (where did they go?) from hiding. The daily movement of search engine results are quite interesting, indeed!

But don’t you worry! Stay tuned to the music publicity blog!

Technorati Tags: 30dc, Music Publicity, seo

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Today’s current statistics for musicpublicityblog.com:

• Number of visitors yesterday September 13, 2008: 6

• Affiliate Sales: $0

Although I didn’t do any search engine optimization tasks for this music publicity blog this weekend, it’s interesting to note two things: 1) The number of competing website for the keyword “music publicity” went from 35,000 pages to 34,900 pages, and 2) My page rank for the term “music publicity” rose from #46 to #43.

Where those 100 competing pages went, I couldn’t tell you, but I’m happy to climb the “music publicity” rankings at Google! Stay tuned for more drama at musicpublicityblog.com!

Technorati Tags: Music Publicity, seo

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Today’s current statistics for musicpublicityblog.com:

• Google Page Rank: #46 out of 35,000 competing pages for exact match

• Number of visitors yesterday, September 12, 2008: 7

• Affiliate Sales: $0

It’s the weekend, and I’ll bounce back on Monday. I didn’t do anything to the site, and I’ve slipped down further in page ranking for the term “music publicity”. This does make me wonder how much upkeep is involved with search engine optimization.

Time will tell, at musicpublicityblog.com!

Technorati Tags: 30dc, Music Publicity

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After posting my Music Publicity blog case study, I visited Pandora.com’s blog, and what do you know?

Folks from the Pandora team will be having an NYC Meet Up on Sept 24th. From Pandora’s Founder Tim Westergren’s blog:

We are having a Pandora meet-up at the Chelsea Cinemas in New York. Hope to see you there–excited to meet our New York listeners!

If you would like to attend, please RSVP by sending an email to Angie at tour@pandora.com with “NEW YORK” in the subject line.

When: Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 @ 7:00 PM
Where: Chelsea Cinemas, 260 West 23rd Street, New York(map)

Cheers,
Tim

Now how exciting is that? That’s less than 2 weeks away. Looks like I’ll be returning to NYC sooner than I thought! We here (or just me, really) at musicpublicityblog.com like coincidences like this. Could be auspicious!

Technorati Tags: Music Publicity, nyc meetup, pandora, tim westergren

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