Getting hardworking independent artists their deserved recognition is difficult. They may never get on the radars of bigger publications without first laying the groundwork. When it comes to tastemakers, music blogs are some of the most influential authorities out there, and they vary in accessibility.
Being featured on a smaller blog can boost your exposure and grow your fanbase little-by-little. With anything lasting in this life, it never happens overnight. Here’s a quick breakdown on why music blogs are still relevant and how they can help further your music career.
SEO – Marketing’s G.O.A.T
SEO means search engine optimization, and it’s a highly effective, digital marketing strategy used to rank websites or web pages. The highest ranking pages show up at the top of the first page of search results. And statistics show the first three search results get way more clicks than pages listed lower.
Good bloggers always apply SEO practices to their content, because SEO helps bring quality traffic to their website. SEO is so valuable, it can produce better results than running paid ads. SEO draws new viewers 24/7, 365 days a year, every year, ad infinitum. It’s basically forever as long as the content is live, using the right keywords, and getting shared.
Building good SEO requires a unique strategy for each artist. It is important to consider creating a strategy that leverages multiple websites backlinking to your various streaming sites and products. This helps your profiles and website get more traffic plus it also improves your website’s SEO ranking. This growth has direct impact on how many people Google shows your brand to when people are searching for certain keywords.
Music Blogs Build Brand Awareness
Blogging is extremely helpful for establishing and maintaining brand identities. Scouts, agents, promoters, publishers, producers, and music lovers discover new music every day through music blogs. Posting in them can be highly effective for brand building and getting your music out there to audiences that want to discover new music.
And that’s just another branch of the blogging tree. Getting featured in music blogs can boost exposure to your music and your story on various other platforms, especially when paired with SEO and social media strategies. Blogs are a great tool for getting stories out there. If you can focus on crafting stories that help get your content out to the masses, you’ll notice a consistent increase in fans.
Get Verified On Instagram
With more than 1 billion active monthly users, Instagram is one of the best places to build visual recognition. Artists can use IG features like the grid, IGTV, Stories, and Reels to promote brand awareness and encourage fan participation.
Anytime you submit content to a music blog, be sure to include links to your Instagram account. Bloggers use it as part of their SEO strategy, and readers use it to find and connect with you. Those backlinks provide visibility and boost your credibility too.
However, there are few safeguards against impersonation on the regular platform. To protect your brand and improve your ranking, you should work towards Instagram verification. The verification process positively identifies users and boosts your credibility. When your IG artist profile is verified, you’re more likely to be seen as trustworthy, and visitors are more likely to follow, click links, or purchase your music, tickets, and merchandise.
In order to get verified on Instagram you need to meet a certain criteria. A big piece of this criteria is your level of notoriety and credible past press coverage. Both Google News and indexed blogs or news sites will work for this. Try getting an interview written up about you and sending that out to editors or journalists at various music blogs or local publications. See how many syndications you can get.
Co-Branding for Credibility
Influencer marketing is rapidly growing as an effective marketing tactic. The biggest influencers have hundreds of thousands, even millions of followers on various platforms. Their is a select group of people called micro-influencers who generally have a few thousand followers. They can help you get in front of the right people for a cheaper price usually—if they have curated the right community for you.
Influencers can be bloggers, vloggers, Instagrammers, YouTubers, artists, critics, just about anyone with a large, loyal following. When they give you a shout-out, post your content, or mention you, you may acquire some of their fans. You can talk about yourself all day and get some results, but when someone else with a solid brand promotes you, you may get better results faster.
Partnering with bloggers and other influencers also gives you the ability to run co-signed ads to existing communities of music fans. This strategy lets you hop on that influencer’s platform and benefit from their popularity, sometimes even monetizing the relationship through a successful campaign.
Music Blogs Lend Validity
Blogging provides a platform on which you can reveal the authentic voice behind your music. Getting your story/press release/upcoming album, etc., on a blog is proven to grow artist audiences. While the times of mega artists busting out through blogs are gone, they are still a major component in building your brand as an artist.
Top blogs like Pitchfork and NPR All Songs Considered have launched many artists into the mainstream. But smaller blogs can boost your online presence too. And when it comes to your music career, the more buzz the better. When you get featured on any publication, people who love music assume that the platform featuring them cosigns their dopeness.
Backlinks Boost Your Buzz
When new listeners discover you online, they often find you through backlinks (links to your website or social media profile on other websites.) Search engines basically consider backlinks as verification of value and credibility from other websites.
Music blogs, music news sites, pretty much every worthwhile website use backlinks to reference artists and music and point readers to more sources. Getting backlinks from quality websites is super helpful for building brand awareness and boosting your buzz.
The more backlinks you have on other websites, the higher search engines will rank your website or social platforms. But it’s not just about getting backlinks from random websites. Relevant backlinks from musically relevant websites provide more value because search engines like content and communities make sense and overlap at a higher level. So, look for suitable blogs to post playlists, press releases, and interviews on.
In conclusion, yes, music blogs still matter, big time. You do need a strategy to attract the attention of quality music blogs. Start with finding the right blogs for you and then make a list of the people you need to contact to potentially be featured.
We also encourage you to consider reaching out to us if you need assistance pitching your music. Our team is also happy to help you with getting featured on music publications, Spotify playlists, being interviewed, and running ads on Facebook or Instagram.
