The music industry is an exciting yet challenging field for link builders and SEO professionals, as it covers wide facets of approaches to link building phases such as link prospecting and outreach.
If you can execute strategies well, you can expect results just like this (see image below):
In mid-2017, we started building links to this eCommerce client that sells violins and cellos. As of today, the site is ranking for commercial keywords such as “violin” and “cello”.
In this post, we’ll cover how to build links specifically to music eCommerce websites (we’ll have some more link building discussions in the next few weeks for musicians and bands per se).
For now, we’ll have a closer look at online stores that produce and sell musical instruments, music sheets and music courses.
Let’s go straight to some available link building tactics for online music stores.
LEVERAGE WHERE TO BUY PAGES
Whether you are a retailer, dealer or any merchant of musical instruments, you can’t simply overlook link opportunities from “where to buy” pages.
“Where to buy” pages are specific pages for vendors, resellers, retailers, suppliers of a specific or multiple product line or services.
They are dedicated for customers and potential customers looking for a specific store location of the product/service they wanted to purchase.
One approach that you can make to find these “where to buy” pages is to get an inventory of manufacturers or suppliers (If you are a retailer). Check if each product or product line has its own “where to buy” or store locator page.
The next approach to discover this eCommerce link opportunity is to do Google searches for any of the following phrases (take note that your search would depend on what type of vendor are you):
- “store locator” “PRODUCTNAME”
- “authorized retailers” “PRODUCTNAME”
- inurl:links “suppliers” “INDUSTRY”
- inurl:dealers “INDUSTRY”
- inurl:links “merchant” “PRODUCTNAME”
- inurl:links “merchant” “INDUSTRY”
- “where to buy” ‘PRODUCTNAME”
- “where to purchase” “PRODUCTNAME”
- inurl:”where to buy” “PRODUCTNAME”
The next phase of link building is to reach out to contacts handling these “where to buy” pages. Conversion rates for this type of outreach depend on the legitimacy of your partnership (i.e. if you are an accredited vendor of the product).
Use the corporate email address when pitching, as it gives you the leverage of identication with a specific product line or service. A corporate email sticks more than a gmail account in a link request outreach campaign for list pages of commercial links.
DISCOVER .edu MUSIC LINKS PAGES
One of the challenges of link builders and SEOs is building links to commercial pages.
For music eCommerce sites, there is a strategic way to do this. You can actually get high-quality contextual links by targeting your site’s category and product pages for links from .edu commercial-like links/resource pages.
You can start by prospecting for backlink opportunities using any of these keyphrases:
- site:.edu “MUSICALINSTRUMENT” “links”
- site:.edu “music links”
- site:.edu inurl:libguides “music links”
- site:.edu “music library”
- site:.edu “purchase supplies”
ACQUIRE ASSISTED CONVERSION IN FORUMS
Forum link building is not dead. If it’s executed properly, it can become one of the strongest lead generation sources of your site.
The reality in customer behavior is that they tend to conduct initial research before making purchasing decisions. So, if you’re selling musical instruments and other related products (like chord charts and tutorial courses), you may look for any music-specific forums with ongoing threads on musical instruments.
Here are examples of a forum threads on purchasing violin strings:
You can prospect by yourself or with the help of a virtual assistant thread discussions leveled on the decision stage of customers (e.g. want to purchase).
Here are some useful keyphrases that can get you started with niche forum prospecting:
- inurl:forum “case for violin”
- inurl:thread “case for violin”
- inurl:discussion “case for violin”
- inurl:forum “bass repair” needed
- inurl:thread “bass repair” needed
- inurl:discussion “bass repair” needed
- inurl:forum “best rosins”
- inurl:thread “best rosins”
- inurl:discussion “best rosins”
- inurl:forum “where to buy strings” “LOCATION”
- inurl:thread “where to buy strings” “LOCATION”
- inurl:discussion “where to buy strings” “LOCATION”
- inurl:forum “looking for” “MUSICALINSTRUMENT”
- inurl:thread “looking for” “MUSICALINSTRUMENT”
- inurl:discussion “looking for” “MUSICALINSTRUMENT”
- inurl:forum “in search of” “MUSICALINSTRUMENT”
- inurl:thread “in search of” “MUSICALINSTRUMENT”
- inurl:discussion “in search of” “MUSICALINSTRUMENT”
- inurl:forum “recommendations” “MUSICALINSTRUMENT”
- inurl:thread “recommendations” “MUSICALINSTRUMENT”
- inurl:discussion “recommendations” “MUSICALINSTRUMENT”
Make variations with your keyphrases, i.e. for the query, “inurl:discussion “bass repair” needed, you can change bass repair to violin or cello repair (if you’re offering repairs for violins).
GET CONTEXTUAL LINKS FROM RESOURCE PAGES FOR MUSIC CONTENT ASSETS
We went over discussing getting links from links/resource pages for money pages.
Now, let’s go over to some types of music resource pages where your content assets can earn organic links from.
If your eCommerce site has blog section for publishing extremely good content assets that can be well received by links pages – like free music sheet downloads (if this is not one of your online products), you can find any related links pages.
Here is one example below of a resource page for bassists that links out to music sheets, guides about history of bass, learning materials for school teachers — to name a few.
BUILD INITIAL LINKS IN COUPON SITES
Any starting eCommerce sites in any space need a couple of links to get the ball rolling. And these links aren’t the ones that are quickly automated, but you should find your initial set of links that are still relevant to what your business can offer.
For example, if you provide coupon codes for customers on a regular basis, you can submit your coupon code page that are likely to give links to your money (or money coupon pages, which you can internally link to its related offer page).
BE HARMONIOUS IN LINK BUILDING
There are a lot of facets in the link acquisition process – they may come as difficult in the execution process, but well-worth if you have find the right opportunities in the market.
In the music industry, it’s pretty much about understanding where the potential customers are engaging in. Getting the most out of the links, not solely for rankings, gives you the ability to hit both top-line and bottomline goals.