EAR’s 2022 Simple Guide to Music Marketing: Website Domain, Subdomain, Tracking, SEO.

Dec 11

Being able to share your information quickly and easily has been the entire push around link in bio services, websites, advertising, and even social media content strategy. Over the last few years, EAR has been doing plenty of research on what is the best combination of apps and services are to minimize costs, and optimize your campaign efforts for pushing your music. This guide will show you our way to maximize your presence online (no matter your content strategy).

Step 1. Have a memorable username on all social networks.

When it comes to building a brand under a name, the information someone has to type in to find you makes all the difference. Underscores, special characters, and misspelled words can confuse your audience, so it’s important to have something simple to remember. Take @eltonaudio for example; it is the only username we use for all our social media accounts, it follows our domain name eltonaudio.com, and our brand name Elton Audio Records. Consistency helps with discoverability, communications, and ultimately helps in all aspects of marketing. Checking to see if you name will work on all social platforms at once, can be easily accomplished by using Namechk.

Step 2. Get a custom domain name & website host.

Having a website gives creatives a whole range of new possibilities on the internet, and even in real life. Having your own domain also enforces your brand, allowing for multiple applications in marketing. A domain name will tie into your website, while adding pages to your site adds layers of information optimized for specific uses. About, Store, Contact, Mobile, Email Subscription, Clickfunnels, Embeds, Blogging, and more can all be done in a custom way that fits your brand image. Domains can be purchased from website hosts, or through a domain host provider. Some popular website hosts include Squarespace, Wordpress, Wix, and Webflow, however, if custom coding a website in HTML, CSS, and Javascript escapes you, consider hiring us to build and manage your website. Learn more about EAR Online, and how you can save up to 75% off with Artist Hub.

Step 3. Set up a Koji link & subdomain.

We recently talked about why Linktree isn’t the best solution for your link in bio in this article, however, you can create a simple bio link with Koji. Not only is it free, but offers a customizable option to add your own subdomain. A subdomain appears before your domain, while a top level domain (TLD) appears after your domain. Take www.eltonaudio.com for example; the “www” acts as the subdomain, “eltonaudio” acts as the domain, and “com” acts as the TLD.

Going through your domain host provider, a custom subdomain can be created to point to a specific website link. We added earlink as our subdomain to our domain provider, and pointed it to Koji.com. Click here to see the steps to add a custom subdomain to your Koji profile.

One you’re all set up, you can add your social media, streaming, and website links as content to your profile, and customize it with colors and backgrounds. Take your custom subdomain and paste it into your social media bio. If using Koji isn’t your thing, and you would prefer to use your website as a landing page, you can easily customize your own link in bio page on your website to direct people where they want to go.

Our Koki: https://earlink.eltonaudio.com/

Step 4. Create a Facebook Business & Ads Account.

Having a business account on Facebook allows your to post content on Instagram and Facebook simultaneously, but also provides access to run expert-level ads. Facebook currently offers a free course for anyone interested in learning how to run ads effectively, but it can be a bit complicated. If you prefer to have some help setting up your ads, you can learn more about our music marketing services.

Once your Facebook page and Instagram profiles are linked, you can now begin advertising, create a shop, and create a Facebook tracking Pixel. There are tons of applications that use Facebook Pixel, which can provide additional optimization to campaigns and tracking.

Step 5. Build a Toneden clickfunnel & SmartURL Pre-Save.

Tired of paying monthly for a pre-save campaign? We were too. SmartURL does a great job when collecting pre-saves for Spotify, and offers support for Apple Music pre-add, for free. Toneden can also help in this department, but also excels at building links that do multiple functions. For example, you can set up a pre-save that automatically follows your profile, the new song, and a playlist at the same time.

Step 6. Photo Metadata & Social Niche.

Before you post your next photo on Instagram or website, consider adding tags and renaming the file. As Google and other search engines index (scan) the web for new information, it groups data into categories ranked by keyword relevance. When you post content to the web, the filename and metadata is read to find the perfect place for search results. By adding your artist name to the photo, and adding metadata tags to the file, finding your content will become easy and help your audience grow.

Step 7. Automate & Scale.

Once you have all these set up, it’s time to build your first clickfunnel. We mentioned how using sites like Koji can be interchangeable with a website page, but you can use both to accomplish different tasks. Say someone comes to your Instagram after seeing a post on their newsfeed, and prompts them to visit your link in bio to learn more, or stream the new song. Now they click on your custom subdomain linked Koji profile (yoursubdomain.yourdomain.com).

On the Koji profile, you can list all your links (19 maximum) linking people directly to your social media, website, and 3rd party profiles. Pre-save links can be displayed using SmartURL, or continue pushing a new song with a Toneden link. Website pages can connect to a custom landing page for your tour, merchandise, or something else. Advertising this link will provide you the most versatility to let someone choose what interests them the most (social media, music video, streaming service, etc).

Step 8. Get Physical with your Marketing.

Business cards are still used today, but are not nearly as popular as they once were. Environmentally, they pose a problem since most people either discard the paper, or lose it without retaining the information on the card. Additionally, some people may feel uncomfortable taking a physical item due to the push for contactless interaction to prevent spread of germs and virus. Instead of a business card, you can use a tap sticker to network in public. Hiwave currently offers their customers a free sticker when signing up that attaches to the back of your phone. In a simple tap from another persons phone, all your contact info is displayed (phone number, email, website, social, etc.)

Another alternative to physical marketing is using QR codes on stickers. Spotify makes this quick and easy with their Spotify Code Generator, which links directly to your profile, album, or playlist. If pushing Spotify isn’t your only interest, you can use what is called a 302 redirect to send scans to any location on the web, even after the sticker has been printed. Ideally, this sort of function should be available in the website host you choose. You can use QR Code Monkey for example to create your custom QR Code, and then create stickers on Printrunner for a large quantity of affordable quality stickers.