Technical SEO for Music Websites: A Comprehensive Guide

SEO is a Layered Concept that Needs to be Conducted step-by-step

The first thing to focus on is research and analysis. This is where you need to find suitable keywords for your website content. Keywords are queries that users search on search engines. 

For example, when a user search “top 10 country songs”, this query becomes a keyword. If more people search the same query, it becomes a keyword with a high volume. When more websites target the same keyword, those keywords become highly competitive. You must spend extra time and resources for the keyword to rank.

One way to rank a keyword is to have a highly authoritative domain, unique content, and quality backlink. You can use your keywords in your site content but don’t overuse them. Keyword stuffing is a bad practice, and Google will penalize your site if it finds you are using keywords to manipulate the search engine algorithm.

Your Keywords Should Align Perfectly with the Content and Messaging

Once the content is prepared for your music website, you must focus on coding and implementing them. This involves processes like using headings, titles, interlinking, adding pictures, alt tags, etc. Most people simply post their pieces without attending to the technical part. 

This is something you need to take care of attentively. The technical part of SEO is equally important. If fact, a minor glitch in code makes you lose all your search engine gains. 

Once your content is published, you need to focus on link building. This involves getting relevant backlinks from authoritative sites and marketing yourself. Backlinks help sites to gain credibility and trust scores from search engines. If you have a highly authoritative domain, it means other sites, including Google trust your content. As a result, your site will rank higher in search results, driving more visitors and increasing conversion.

Simultaneously, you must also work on your site performance and page speed. Even a 2-second delay can cost you massive traffic. People leave a website if it doesn’t load within 3 seconds. Several factors can slow down your site’s page load speed. This is where you might need technical SEO practices like removing unnecessary scripts.

Best Technical SEO Practices to Improve Your Music Website’s Visibility in Search Engines

Work on Title Tags

Most title tags in musicians’ or bands' websites comprise single-word headings. This includes me/us, tours, gigs, merchandise, etc.

When someone wants to book you or buy your merchandise, they will use the artist or band name in their search query. 

For example, Imagine Dragons discography, Jonas brothers merchandise, Rihanna Tour Dates, etc. 

• Use your brand name in your primary and secondary keywords

• Use keywords in your titles

• Keep the titles within 55 characters

• Don’t use stop words like the, an, etc.

• Use action words like Learn (Learn Guitar Basics)

Modify your URL

• Use primary keywords in your URL

• Keep it short

• Don’t use capital letters in URL

• Use hyphens or underscores as word separators

Use Keywords at the Right Spot

• Use keywords once in the H1 tag

• Use the primary keyword in the first paragraph of the content

• Use the primary keyword in at least one subheading

• Use secondary keywords on each page

• Use primary keywords in the meta title

Write a click-worthy Meta Description

Meta descriptions are your window to get clicks once your page starts ranking on the search engine results page.

• Use call-to-action

• Avoid copying from others

• Avoid non-alphanumeric characters like commas, brackets, spaces, asterisks, etc.

• Write in active voice

• Use primary keyword

Place Target Keywords in your Content

• Use relevant and unique content to get more points from Google. Plagiarized content can invite penalties from search engines.

• Keywords should stay relevant to the content.

• Don’t overuse keywords. Use only one keyword every 250-500 words.

• Create separate content for social handles, press releases, and blog posts.

• Use anchor texts wisely (use keywords as anchor texts if possible)

Use Header Tags 

Many people just bold their headings and increase the size of the headings and subheadings. This is a bad practice. Use HTML header tags (H1. H2, H3, etc.). This makes it easier for Google to understand your content hierarchy.

• Use only one H1 on each page

• Keep the character limit to 20-70 for h1 tags

• Use h2 and h3 headers to break and add structure to your text

Use Alt Tags

All images should have alt tags. It increases accessibility, allowing people with visual disabilities to understand the image's context. Alt tags are also helpful when images within a page fail to load. Then people can understand the image’s context through these alt tags.

• Keep them short, within 125 characters

• Use keywords if possible

• Rename the filename of the image to match the context (use keywords if possible)

• Don’t use non-alphanumeric characters

• Use lowercase alphabets

• Use the primary keyword in at least one image alt tag

Additional Technical SEO Tips

• Make your website mobile-friendly

• Check 301 redirects 

• Use disavow tools to block bad links

• Use robot-txt, allowing Google to crawl your most important pages

• Add important links to your sitemap

• Invest in a great domain name (Possibly your name or your band’s name)

• Set up Google Search Console

• Create wiki entries for your band

• Use SEO to get your information in the knowledge panel

Conclusion

SEO is important for any musician looking to increase his online presence and create a successful music website. Technical SEO can help you do that by leveraging the power of search engines, technical SEO can optimize every aspect of your website structure for maximum visibility on SERPs. So, make sure you do it right through expert professionals.