Adwords for Musicians?

Most people who have seen the Internet have got an idea what Adwords are - the small ads that appear usually on the side of web pages and they are from Google.

Now this has been a great way to market.

Why?

Well, you have people who only click on your ad because they like what they see, they are qualified, targetted and they know that it is an advert so they don't get angry when they see one. They click on the link, you pay Google a small fee per click, and everyone is happy.

Great!

Well yes, for certain businesses it is. But what I have seen regularly are musicians using it to sell their CDs.

This is not a good solution, especially when those musicians post their MySpace address...argghghgh!! Also, who are you? So what if you have released an album, why should I buy it...what is the incentive?

I believe these artists are doing it to get traffic, if that is so, STOP NOW!

There are plenty of free SEO (search engine optimisation) ways to go, and hopefully we will be covering most of them in this blog. However before anyone goes onto Adwords...make sure your site converts first, and you know what you want to accomplish!

This is bonkersly simple, but so important. If you have traffic going to your page where you sell, and they are not buying, then Adwords won't make any differece apart from your bank account will decrease. If people are buying, great...do you really need Adwords?

Also, what are you accomplishing? Sales, newsletter signups, traffic?

If you are a professional musician who is well known, then using Adwords is really good, especially if you say "get a 20% discount, not available anywhere else"...then you will do well. For the musician who isn't signed, why should people buy from you if they know nothing about you and haven't got a clue who you are?

It is hard enough to sell anything online, don't make it harder for yourself by spending out money on something that might give you nothing back in return.