We have all heard about the many viral marketing campaigns that Snow Patrol and other unsigned bands used to create buzz using the internet, but what if you are just starting out and want to make a splash in the scene? I took on the project and begin to find some great resources for links and many social networking sites that could be very useful to spread the word about this new site.

The question comes down to what are some major components that need to be a part of an effective band or music site? I would have to think that a bio, contact, and a song page are the most important. After that you could go after pictures or even the video side of the industry. This can be accomplished through Youtube and some other social video sites. After that you can use the integration of a media player to play some songs while protecting them from scrapers.

Once you have the fans it comes down to keeping them. This can be done in variety of ways in today’s web 2.0 world. Mobile updates, Skype, RSS feeds from blog and even the old standby of emailing can be used to update your fans and visitors to your site of upcoming events and gigs.

The number one rule that we found while developing this band website was that the user must come first. That means that the experience and usability is key to developing a loyal fan base for years to come. Make sure you check your website in all the major browsers. This will ensure that the overall experience is the same for all that come to your site. Once the site is ready to go now is the time to spread the word.

This can be done on many of the social sites like Myspace and Facebook, but make sure that your website has a bookmark feature so that people can link to your site which will help in the SEO of the site. Also try and get links on the websites of the bars and clubs that you play. This will help with a better overall link structure. By interacting with your fans through the social sites and building traffic you can then use your analytics to judge if you need to optimize some other pages on the site. This brings us to the last point which is how to monetize your band website.

Traditionally this is done through merchandise sales. Not to worry if you do not have the coin to buy hundreds of t-shirts and merchandise with your logo on it. There is a website that will allow you to offer merchandise while keeping your overhead low. One such site is CafePress.com. There are many more site like them on the net with different deals and such, so spend the time and do the research. Once you have the merchandise next is the shopping cart. Find a reliable and integrated platform with unique landing pages. This will help in the online marketing of your band and products.

After several weeks of learning the ins and outs of the band and music website industry, we are proud to say that our friend’s website is starting to gain some fans and even seeing some sales.

PPC is an approach where a marketer bids on specific keywords that are tied to specific ads. These ads appear when any of the keywords are searched. You do not pay for this type of advertising unless an ad is clicked on. This approach allows businesses to bid against each other and compete for better ad position. SEO is the approach where improvements are actually made to improve the richness of web sites content in relation to specific keywords with the intention to improve its quality score in the eyes of search engine spiders.

So, which approach will best meet the needs of your businesses online marketing efforts?

Cost Effectiveness
Marketing efforts are an expense. That has to be taken into consideration when deciding which of these two strategies will yield the best return on investment. Many industry studies have found that SEO does indeed deliver a greater return on investment then PPC campaigns over long periods of time.

This is true because with SEO the cost is based on the maintenance efforts and not the cost per click biding structure. That is due to SEO being based on organic search listings. Most top search engines want to maintain their integrity and provide searchers with objective non-biased information related to the end users search. In other words the natural search will continue to be the search engines main objective and can only be reached through SEO because this section of real estate is not for sale.

Time Efficentency
In the modern business environment, performance is judged on a short term scale. Quarterly earning reports and projections can have drastic impact on a businesses stock price. When it comes to choosing an internet marketing strategy, PPC is far more time efficient than SEO.

PPC ads start to show on search engines instantly while the effects of SEO are more of a long term process. This allow a marketer to test and isolate what combination of keywords, landing pages, and ads perform best and focus on them while at the same time eliminating what is not working.

No matter if the purpose of the web site is to increase and capture sales or leads the benefits of PPC can be measured in almost real time from when the campaign is launched.

Best Of Both Worlds
The best strategy for an entrepreneur to consider when entering the world of internet marketing is to take advantage of what both PPC and SEO has to offer. By applying both strategies you can be assured that your target market will find you. This approach can also give you the needed upper hand in today’s ultra competitive market place.

Use both to gain more exposure on search engines and take up more valuable advertising real estate. The end result will be more traffic and ultimately more sales.