The unspoken truth about being a working artist is that marketing yourself takes up as much time, sometimes more, than the actual act of creation. Building hype around your album release and getting it onto the radar and into the ears of potential fans requires an entirely different skill set, and it can trip up many musicians. To keep up with the dense, rapidly developing world of online content, you have to stay up to date with the newest trends. White hat link-building is the latest strategy among marketing companies, 92% of marketing professionals believe that it will be a vital factor in Google’s algorithm over the next 5 years.
What Changed
In early 2024, Google announced that they were updating the search algorithm. It’s widely considered after this update that white hat link-building is the future of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). White hat link-building is when the quality of the source page that contains the backlink is high. This stands in opposition to black hat link-building, which is more focused on the volume of backlinks and usually on pages that don’t have any substance. Before the Google changes, the number of backlinks was weighted heavily, after the changes, the quality of the source page is taken into account.
What to Focus On
The vital subset of white hat link-building we are going to introduce you to today is referred to as local link building. This is the concept that backlinks from sites that are related to yours thematically will have an exponential effect on the rating of your website. As a musician, it’s incredibly important to place backlinks on pages related to the field of music and considered high-quality sites. Whereas the old strategy might be to just get links to your page on as many sites as possible, almost like throwing a handful of darts at a board and hoping for some to stick, it’s now more important to get your backlinks onto reputable sites.
What does this mean for musicians marketing their work or music labels promoting a new album? This means prioritizing websites that have strong, official affiliations. Fan-run band websites, non-profit websites, or other bands websites that have performed at the same venues or are within the same genre of music. These are some strong options when starting as they have high-quality connections either directly to the band being promoted or operate within the same thematic setting, i.e., the same genre. There are also thousands if not tens of thousands, of online newsletters, non-profit websites, and other organizations that report on the world of music.
This may seem daunting, but as the strategic concept of white hat link-building has been growing, some businesses have had the foresight to put all of their research capabilities and resources behind it. Websites like PRNEWS.IO are almost like directories, researching and categorizing hundreds of thousands of websites. They can link your website to source websites that are best related to your album or single and have the longest possible reach. After all, in the end, it’s all about getting the music to the fans. And with the new Google algorithm, you’ll be rewarded with even more exposure by prioritizing the fans.
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