THE WHY

Studies have shown that the #1 position in a Google search gets almost 33% of the traffic (meaning 33 percent of the potential customers click through to that person’s website). Using Google’s nifty online Keyword Planner, I found that the phrase “drum lessons Omaha” is searched about 40 times every month.

That number is extremely low compared to many other things that people are searching for online, but let’s do a little math.

• 40 Google searches X 33% (.33) = 13.2 people who are obviously interested in taking drum lessons clicking through to check out the first link they see (which also tends to psychologically seem more legit than those pushed further down the page).

Let’s say only about a third of those 13 people end up starting lessons with you.

• 4 new students X 4 lessons per month = 16 lesson slots taught

• 16 lessons X $25 per lesson = $400 per month

You just gave yourself a $400 raise and avoided taking that job flipping burgers. Stay at #1 continually for months on end and you’ll see a steady (even if occasionally slow) flow of more traffic, students and income. Easier to see now why that’s such a sought-after spot?

There are obviously ad programs that you can pay for, in order to get your site in front of the eyes of even more web surfers every day, but that’s not the approach I want to take here. This positioning can be accomplished for essentially no cost, just by putting in some work that most musicians never think to, or care to bother with. But I’m here to tell you that it’s worth it.

On top of that, this concept of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can work to draw more traffic to nearly any endeavor you’re pursuing (music or otherwise): teaching lessons, landing gigs, getting hired for recording sessions, selling your artwork, filling your dojo’s martial arts student roster, promoting your rad little Kickstarter campaign, raising awareness about your non-profit organization, etc., etc., etc.

THE DISCLAIMER

I am by no means an SEO expert. To be honest, I know very little about it at all and you can use (surprise!) Google to find people who are super educated about it (and are so genuinely superb at it that they rank highly on Google for the phrases “search engine optimization,” “SEO” and similar). Through experimenting and much trial-and-error, I have learned a few things that have seemed to work for me thus far. So as we move forward, you won’t be getting a how-to course on the topic, filled with “do this, do that” tutorials and tips. You will, on the other hand, get a peak at exactly what I’m doing to get my website, PowersPercussion.com, onto Google’s first page of results for the phrase “drum lessons Omaha,” and then gradually work my way into that #1 ranked position.

Time to get our hands dirty . . .

THE HOW

I searched our target phrase and scrolled through pages one through five that Google offered up. My site is currently nowhere to be found.

It’ll take some time, but that’s about to change! For today, all I’m going to do are two simple things: make a few tiny tweaks to get my website rolling in the right direction; and research what competition I’m up against. Let’s jump in.

META TWEAKS

The meta data on your website . . . wait a second, you do have a website, right? If not, back the jolly trolley up, get yourself a domain name and some web hosting purchased, then come back and join in here where you left off. People are out there in cyberspace searching for whatever it is that you do and, without an online presence that you are able to manage, develop and promote, you essentially do not exist to them. Truth. Get a website. Or message me and I’ll gladly help.

So, the meta data on your website includes things like your site’s page titles, descriptions and the tags (keywords) associated with each page. Among a handful of other things, these are all elements that Google and other search engines check out when they crawl through your website to see what it’s all about. There are certainly additional factors involved, but if you suggest to the search engines that your website (or a specific page) is largely about, say “drum lessons Omaha,” then they are more likely to suggest your site to random web surfers out there searching precisely for that.

Quick sidenote: you might be asking, why “drum lessons Omaha” over “Omaha drum lessons”? Well, because when I was doing my initial research above using the Google Keyword Planner, I found that there were roughly 40 monthly searches for the former and nearly zilch for the latter. Thirty three percent of nothing is nothing. If no one is searching for it, there’s no reason to bother with it.

Back to our meta data. We want to change some of the titles, descriptions and keywords on our website (using our webmaster dashboard, or WordPress admin area, or other applicable channel) to reflect our desired search term. I chose to add “drum lessons Omaha,” as well as each of those words separately, to my Home page keywords, as well as the title and keywords of my Private Lessons page. Some of those additions aren’t visible when you visit the web page but they’re certainly there. Once the search engine “spiders” have next crawled through my site’s pages, they’ll likely now consider it an at least slightly more viable option that someone searching for “drum lessons Omaha” might very well be interested in. That will take a bit of time and, in and of itself, won’t ensure the positioning that we’re shooting for, but it’s a great place to start.