Blogging can be an excellent way for bands and artists to gather more traffic to their personal websites by building up their SEO, but creating new and interesting content out of thin air can be a challenge, particularly if they’re already investing creative energy in music.
__________________________
Guest post by Eric Brantner
Blogging is a great way for musicians to increase their SEO, bring more traffic to their websites, and gain more fans. But thinking of new blog post ideas can be difficult when you already spend so much creative energy on your music.
If you’re a musician who wants to blog, or if you already blog but the pipeline is empty, consider these 11 ideas for blog posts:
- Announce your new tour dates
This can be a simple blog post in which you just give your fans all the information they need to know about your upcoming tour. These types of blog posts are helpful for SEO, in case any of your fans do a Google search for “[name or your band] tour dates.”
- Preview or introduce your new album
If you have a new album coming out soon, you might want to write a blog post to get your fans hyped up about the release. You can talk about the inspiration for the album, how long you’ve been working on it, and perhaps even post some song lyrics as a teaser.
Alternatively, you could publish a blog post at the same time your album comes out.
-
Talk about your songwriting process
There are many different ways you could do this. You could, for instance, write a blog post about your daily routine and what rituals you perform to keep your creative juices flowing. You could also blog about the technical process of taking a song from an idea to a full recording. Or, you could blog about your sources of inspiration, whether those be life experiences, other music, or other forms of art.
Blogging about your songwriting process will bring you closer to your fans, especially the ones who are also artists.
- Go behind the scenes
Another great way to get closer to your fans is to take them behind the scenes at a practice session or in the recording studio. Put together a short behind-the-scenes video and incorporate that into a blog post about how your rehearsals or your recording session usually work.
- Tell tour stories
People love to hear about life on the road—that’s why travel blogs are so popular. If you’re on a tour, try to write a new blog post for every city you go to, discussing something unique about the city and what you did there, both on and off the stage.
- Talk about your career
Blog about your successes and your failures throughout your music career. Are there any big lessons that you’ve learned along the way? Anything that you would have done differently? Or do you have no regrets? All of these things make great blog topics.
Blogging about your career ups and downs gives you the opportunity to attract even more visitors to your website—visitors who may not necessarily be looking for music, but who want advice on how to succeed.
-
Answer questions from fans
Here’s a super easy way to create blog content. Announce on your social media pages that you are taking questions from fans. Pick the most frequently asked or most interesting questions and answer them all in a blog post.
- Discuss an interesting article or YouTube video
If there’s nothing interesting currently happening in your life or in your career, look for inspiration elsewhere. Find an article or a YouTube video about your genre of music or about another band or album you like. Write a blog post discussing the article or video and ask your fans what they think. You may want to subscribe to these blogs to find good discussion fodder.
- Highlight your friends’ bands
This could be a great opportunity to do a promotional swap. You can write a blog post about your friend’s band, and your friend can write one about your band. It’s a win-win: You get more content to put on your blog, and both of you get to tap into a new audience that you might not otherwise have access to.
- Write about a social issue that’s important to you
Your blog doesn’t necessarily have to be all about music. You could talk about a political or social issue you think is important. These types of blog posts may attract new fans who first come to your website because they care about the same issues you care about.
- Share what you’re doing
Fans want to connect to you. So anything you can share to make you seem more real is good for that relationship. So get personal. Maybe share your favorite restaurants. Or perhaps what you’re currently watching on Netflix (after all, nearly half of people watch Netflix every single day). Just make sure to draw a line so you don’t let people too deeply into your personal life.
Blogging can be difficult because in order to be successful at it, you have to do it regularly. But if you are always looking for sources of inspiration, the ideas will come. For more blogging ideas and advice, check out the blogs of these successful musicians: Amanda Palmer, Mark Herman, Praverb, and Ari Herstand.