Imagine a parent who's thinking about buying or renting an instrument for their child. Imagine a young musician who's thinking about a new guitar. Imagine an older person who wants to buy a top quality piano for the first time. If you want to sell to them, how will they find you?
I can see your hand. You think they’ll use a search engine like Google. And you’re right, at least partly.
When folks go looking on the Web for something they might buy locally, they usually use the same search tool they use for other Web searches. Google is the favorite just now.
If they know who you are, they may start by typing your name into the search box. To make it most likely that they find you, make sure that your name is in your title tag, description metatag and keyword metatag. If you’ve got a name that's easily misspelled, put common misspellings there, too.
Maybe they won’t start with your name. Maybe they’ll type in “clarinet,” for example, and get a couple of million hits and a few sponsored links. What do you think they’ll do next?
Most likely they’ll type in the name of your town. Make sure it's in those important places we talked about. If you’re in a suburb to a larger city, put both names in.
You can promote to most search engines with instrument-specific directories. Promote these in addition to your main site.
Where else might they look? They’ll look at any site that might reasonably connected in their mind with music or with music and education. So, make sure you’ve got links from local music sites, from band booster sites, and even from rock band sites if you can get them.
Make sure that you’re on other sites that provide entertainment information or calendars or are affiliated with the newspaper or chamber of commerce.
This is where it's real important to make sure that all your promotions work together. All your ads should mention your Web site. So should your phone message.
