Build Your Own Blues
Search Engine Optimization & Marketing
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Build Your Own Blues was not only a new website, but a new domain name with no previous history. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can be a very complex, confusing, and constantly changing concept to understand. One thing to understand is that the search engines aim to serve up the most relevant information based on what searchers are looking for, which makes sense. One of the cautions they often employ is when it comes to new websites and domain names with no history which may or may not be relevant as it is very early for the search engines to determine this. In many cases, the search engines may not even fully index a website for weeks or months after it is launched, regardless of whether you have submitted your site to them or not.
The Build Your Own Blues website was launched in early August. With the actual event less than four weeks away from when the site was launched, it was critical to optimize the site as much as possible for search engines, but to also remain realistic that there may be little that could be done to actually impact the search results. Typically, placement on the first page of results is critical, and minimally, you want a site to come up within the first two to three pages. Most searchers won't go beyond the second page of results, but will refine their search and search again. And of all the spots to rank, the top three spots on the first page are the most coveted.
The search results below represent some key phrases that searchers would be expected to search for in the three major search engines, Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The results show the position or positions within the ranking for the respective searches on each engine. We've limited the results shown here to just the first two pages, or 20 results. In some cases, the site was competing against millions of other web pages.
Needless to say, gaining these kind of results in less than two weeks of launching a new website was beyond wildest dreams. Gaining these high of results on the three major engines for so many keyword phrases played a critical marketing role.
| Yahoo | MSN | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Term | Comp | Rank | Comp | Rank | Comp | Rank |
| madison byob | 12,400 | 9,10 | 39,100 | 3 | 6,293 | 4,5 |
| build your own blues | 5,230,000 | - | 5,170,000 | 3 | 253,802 | 1,2 |
| build your own blues madison | 344,000 | - | 350,000 | 1 | 62,502 | 1,2 |
| build your own blues festival | 3,340,000 | - | 980,000 | 1 | 183,296 | 1,2 |
| build your own blues 105.5 | 832 | 9,11 | 339,000 | 1 | 1,196 | 1,2 |
| byob triple m | 21,000 | 7,12 | 12,600 | 1,3 | 14,356 | 3,4 |
| blues music madison wi | 656,000 | - | 504,000 | - | 98,765 | - |
| build your own blues triple m | 269,000 | - | 253,000 | 1 | 64,300 | 2,3 |
| entercom blues | 886 | 12,13 | 8,250 | 2,18 | 2,246 | 1,2 |
| entercom byob | 246 | 1,2 | 10 | 1,3 | 9 | 1,2 |
| blues festival madison | 382,000 | - | 1,250,000 | - | 182,633 | - |
| jackie greene byob | 274 | 5,6 | 590 | 1,6 | 324 | 1,2 |
| robert cray band byob | 238 | 12,13 | 634 | 1 | 227 | 1,2 |
| lonnie brooks byob | 151 | 9,11 | 38 | 1,16 | 49 | 1,2 |
| westside andy byob | 642 | 6,7 | 379 | 1 | 338 | 1,2 |
| westside andy mel ford band byob | 114 | 5,6 | 4 | 1,3 | 98 | 1,2 |
Selected Projects
Identity Developments represented our brand and our event flawlessly. They went one step further and proactively gave us ideas that we could utilize not only with the website, but our event as well. Identity Developments was an instrumental part of our success.
Eric Fleming New Business Development
The listeners could easily scroll through and find all the details on times, locations, and bands they needed. The website was informative and creative, and Identity Developments made changes on a day to day basis for us. We could not recommend a more highly qualified web development organization.
Jamie Olsen Promotions Director
