People search harder for the obscure
On CD Baby, there was a great musician who made an amazing progressive heavy metal album.
When we had a “search keywords” section, asking for three artists he sounds like, he just wrote the biggest-selling pop acts of that time (“Britney Spears, Ricky Martin, Backstreet Boys”).
What the hell was he thinking? He just wanted to turn up in people’s search engines, at any cost. But for what? And who?
Did he really want a Britney Spears fan to get tricked into finding his dark progressive metal album? Would that pre-teen actually spend the time to listen to his ten-minute epic called “Confusing Mysteries of Hell”?
I suggested he instead have the confidence to target the real fans of his music.
So he put three obscure progressive metal artists into his search engine description. (“Fates Warning, Shadow Gallery, Angra”)
And guess what? He sold more music than ever! People searching for these obscure artists found only him. He found his true fans.
Fans of the obscure niches search harder for it. Make sure they can find you. You want the passionate fans of your niche, not the casual fans of mainstream.
This is actually good advice. Having something totally irrelevant show up in a search just makes people mad.
Perhaps that's silly to ask now, but how could I find this artist? I'd like to check out his music very much.
Sorry, I regret that I can't remember. It was back in 1998 and I've lost touch with whoever it was. — Derek
To me that story is both beautiful and sad.
I am struck by the cliche of the nerd sadly surrounded by regular folks in high school, who has to go to university to happily discover fellow intellectuals.
May every nerd and musician find their peers.