where do I go from here?

[inertia]

Orite people, ive posted this around a few forums but not had much response. Any tips would be appreciated.

For the few years that ive been into the SEO game i have never really done much "work" for myself or created my own site/online profile (there's the hip hop one in my signature - but that's a mess that isnt doing my skills any justice). All the work I do or online interaction I'm involved in has benefited the company or the clients I'm currently work for.

Im getting to the point now where i want to employ my knowledge for a personal project but I'm having a bit of trouble thinking of an idea which encompasses all of my skills.

I know a lot about music and could create loads of quality content relating to hip hop, music creation, music production and mastering, the music industry, dance music, the online music business and online music trends in general. I also know a bit (or think i do!) about SEO, link building, online marketing etc.

But, I'm struggling to come up with ideas which combine these two skill sets into a usable service/product which i can bring under one site and maybe monetise in the future. I'm thinking about maybe setting up a site/blog/profile which markets myself as a specialist in online music marketing or seo for musicians - something along those lines.

I'm sure many of you have sat there for hours thinking about how you can make your particular mark on the internet marketing world and with this in mind does anyone have any immediate thoughts on where I could go with this? Or does anyone have the benefit of knowledge from facing similar crossroads? I'm not asking for full business plans or a lot of info... just some initial thoughts to help me in this time of decision making.

Peace out...

[bj]

Simply setting up a wordpress blog on a good domain name and decent hosting, and starting to blog about what you want to accomplish will get you started.

Ideas for posts--

How is promoting a music site different than other sites?

Niche marketing for music sites

Monetizing a music site

Using adwords to promote a music site



You get my drift, I'm sure. Geez, just doing this sort of thing once a week or so, and then adding features as it gets rolling, and as you know more about what direction it seems to be going based on response, keyphrases used to find you, pages that are linked to, etc . . .

Keep in mind too that there are many different genres of music. It's obvious you like hip hop, but Celtic Traditional is hot here in the States, for example, and that's really a different sort of music from hip hop. Are the skills and approaches the same? Probably, but maybe not. Just doing the research on the differences for each type of music, and writing up the blogposts could keep you busy for a long, long time.

[nottheusual1]

Personally, I'm the plumber with the leaky pipe - my site has had no help in an embarrassingly long time...

I do see a wonderful opportunity for you, though - there is much $$ to be made today within the blogosphere for people with your skill set. Many will pay for you to drop their name amongst the concise and relevant content you could create, and you could be very successful with Google adwords (or whatever), too.

Add in your SEO skills and you could be placing well organically in short order for a well crafted keyword set.

Content is the king of the internet. Putting together a plan to capitali$e on your knowledge is the ultimate win.

Relevant thread:

Blogging Your Way to Success

[suzstephens]

Inertia, I would think that combining your familiarity with the music industry with SEO would work well, especially if you are familiar with the keyphrases typically used to search for a particular type of music business. I know from experience with my husband's site at Home: SD Pickups, Custom-Made Hand-Wound Pickups by Dave Stephens, Stephens Design that, for example, "sound clips" is an important keyphrase that I never would have guessed if I hadn't seen it popping up in his stats. Also, without either of us doing any active link-building, he has accumulated some 1800 inbound links, with many of them coming from discussions of his product on guitar forums. Again, without this direct experience, I wouldn't have guessed the importance of the guitar forums. You probably have similar knowledge and experience that could prove invaluable to music industry clients, just as my experience working on real estate sites makes me especially helpful to Realtors.

By the way, I should mention that I've never actually spent much time, if any, optimizing my husband's site. Since he frequently adds content, it seems to thrive regardless of my neglect.

[datetopia]

You must start with a blog to write your own content but how much can you write? You need to attract other interested users into this project. You can start a community website on your favorite topics - a forum for start with articles and reviews.

[Terry Van Horne]

inertia, I have worked for a music store for many years. We were doing a lot of video and did hook up with a site that supplied online teaching. IMO, explore video for how to record and DJs. Then look for sponsors. Video is the future! Be first and you''ll have a huge giddyup on the competitors.

[bj]

Hey, Inertia, after reading dateopia and Terry Van Horne's answers, I think you might want to peek at this site. It's not been around that long, but it's definitely attracting an audience since it fills a niche and has the right features.

Fiddle Hangout - Welcome to the Fiddle Hangout!

The same folks designed this one also--

Banjo Hangout - free banjo lessons, tabs, discussion forums, links, banjo players directory, banjo reviews

Each of these sites allows members to blog, post videos, post (no copyright problem) sound clips, classified ads with payment on the honor system when the item is sold, product reviews, and there's a fairly active forum. I may have missed a feature or two. So yeah, this might be a way to go, if you can find a music niche that will work and that interests you.

This site is also starting to get some attention:

MusicMoose.org - Home

They use youtube and other video sites to bring people into the site for their pretty good lesson videos. (Jeff Wisor, one of the fiddle teachers, plays with David Bromberg, and Sue Cunningham cleans up at many of the major Fiddle Contests, and that is key to this site doing well. I'm sure that the teachers on other instruments are also notable.)

[RichAtVNS]

Personally, I think if you can't think of the service or business model and quantify it in less then one sentence, you shouldn't do anything.

That being said, figure out the follwoing
1) who is going to pay for your services (exact target clientele)
i.e. Musicians, Advertising Buyer at a record label, Band Manager
Be very specific.

2) do they have deep enough pockets or are there enough small timers that you can really make a go of your service (be very realistic)

3) can you reach them through a single method alone (i.e. website alone) (I sincerely belive for the people you are working with NO WAY IN THE WORLD)

4) how much time and money (which are the same thing) are you going to spend on it,,,,, AGAIN BE CREULLY REALISTIC......

Those are tried and true business model info that has worked for as long as people have been bartering.....

Personally I see you blog alot but most of the time your comments are not grounded in business practices....

[craigmn3]

You Got the Cart , You Got the Horse, but where do you want to go.
I think the first thing you have to get a goal, and then see if it is reachable with your skillset


Are you trying to promote something....or yourself

Are you trying to sell something....or yourself


The first thing that hit my mind was that you could put together a video anothology of hiphop music by collecting youtube and other videos and presenting them in a way showing the evolution of the art form.

But that may not be your goal.....so defining a goal is the very first step.

[kgun]

I agree on blogging. Note the internet is the world largest (social) network, so start using that to your advantage. In addtion to blogging I have these proposals:

1. Sign up with facebook if you are not already a member and join with people with similar interests. There may be more than you are aware of. Use other social networks too, if you find that important.
2. Start a Google Group Google Groups
3. Make your own social media network / forum / community.
4. Virtual reality. Make your own like Second Life or similar.
5. Resources:
   
   Cybertoolbar.com: A collection of popular resources related to the cyberspace.
   
   AVForums Home
   
   Top List of Social Media Sites

[Terry Van Horne]

Kgun agreed on the social networks but... that space is going to get real crowded real fast. I was scouting some work a while back and was trying out a site called guru. I was astounded by the number of people looking to build Social Media and Networking sites. So much so I decided to build a platform myself. Video works well... YouTube seems to be being pigeon holed as a video site but... it also has a nice social platform. I found the social feedback/comments were excellent for fine tuning our product videos and determining what would work best in the conversion process.

[cbosleeds]

Wow,

you are a rare breed - an SEO who isn't out there taking advantage of their own skills for their own benefit.

My advice would be to get a few projects off the ground and go with the ones that work. Keep them as low maintenance as possible and grow your online real estate - once you have that the potential avenues of profit grow nicely.

I took this approach and I think I've got 6 or 7 revenue streams which actually work quite nicely now. Some will inevitably lag behind and do nothing so its always better to spread bet. From my experience, this is often quicker and less costly than doing all the risk anaylsis and planning for one big project, and in today's economic climate its much safer, since if one market goes belly up you still have money coming in.

niche recruitment is a good one to go for. A highly visible website will bring in both customers and CVs and you can make a lot of money without putting in long hours once your running. I have friends who make £50K ($100K) PA on a four hour week doing this - put a full week in and you can do very well.

As you're probably aware the Hip Hop market is very competitive - I researched it for a new customer only last week - maybe 6-9 months to get on the front page of google.co.uk for 'hip hop'. So, I'd work on this while hunting easier prey at the same time.

best of Luck!

[inertia]

Cheers for all the responses guys. Plenty of food for thought. I just want to reply to a few comments.

Originally Posted by cbosleeds

As you're probably aware the Hip Hop market is very competitive - I researched it for a new customer only last week - maybe 6-9 months to get on the front page of google.co.uk for 'hip hop'. So, I'd work on this while hunting easier prey at the same time.

Yep! It is quite competitive. My cash cow site is top 5 for most of my top phrases "uk hip hop", "british hip hop" but "hip hop" on its own has always alluded me (not that ive really pushed it!). Let me know if you wanna link?!

Originally Posted by Terry Van Horne

Kgun agreed on the social networks but... that space is going to get real crowded real fast.

All my social areas (facebook/myspace etc) are well established so the transition into something more business like would be fairly simple. But i agree that these kind of platforms are slowly turning into over crowded money spinners.

Originally Posted by craigmn3

You Got the Cart , You Got the Horse, but where do you want to go.

Exaclty! I know what I've got but dont know what to do with it. Im trying to think of a way to bring seo and music together under the same umbrella. But what im looking to achieve isnt just about setting up a business and making money (i already work for a great company). Its also about educating myself and producing a site which shows off my skills.

Originally Posted by bj

You get my drift, I'm sure. Geez, just doing this sort of thing once a week or so, and then adding features as it gets rolling, and as you know more about what direction it seems to be going based on response, keyphrases used to find you, pages that are linked to, etc . . .

I like that idea. Starting a blog and seeing where it goes, might as well be doing something while i figure out where i wanna go. Cheers for the links also.

Originally Posted by Terry Van Horne

Video is the future!

Completely agree. I watch vid tutorials on Youtube all the time. Plenty of scope for me to do stuff there.

[cbosleeds]

Would be happy to put you in touch with the Hip Hop people if you want the business - not my thing to be honest and you're more than ideally placed if you don't mind doing work for the competition (a kick back would always be nice if it comes off). I do warn you though there are some initial complications with this one - they initially are in desperate need of a re-design for the existing site (looks ok front end but the backend code is spaghetti) - could do it all on link building and avoid the re-design, but they want re-design anyway. They're also looking for some sort of affiliate marketing system but don't seem to have any clear idea where they are going with this. There are about 20,000 cached pages. Initial SEO budget may also be an issue, they want the marketing system in place first.

As a project its an awkward one to be honest, but since you have a foot firmly planted both in SEO and Hip Hop, might be ideal for you.

Let me know if you'd like to have a chat with them and see if there's any potential for you.

[Fitank]

Hi

I may be missing something here, but to me it seems obvious you should be offering your seo skills to help to people in the hip hop business who have websites but don't know how to promote them. In other words offering niche seo work in an industry you understand. You could focus on the 'small guys' who are passionate about what they do and need the traffic but don't know how to optimise their sites. In that way you are killing several birds with one stone - helping people you like and respect, using your seo skills and working in an industry you are passionate about.

Best wishes
Fiona

[Azher Memon]

well thats really good idea. It will be help full for those people who is in Music industries and want to optimize their website.

But still you need to do lots of hard work for dual responsibility. You should be Good in SEO , At the same time you should have up to date knowledge of Music.

Try it with your own site and create mile stone that will make other people trust in you.

[inertia]

There we go then! I am the SEO industries newest music specialist! Now all I need to do is become a leading authority on music and SEO and the world is my oyster!

Thanks for all the comments guys! Much appreciated.

Watch this space....

[Fitank]

Go for it! Keep us posted on how it goes.

Best wishes
Fiona