FEATURES

CRAWLING THE WEB

with Kelly J. Calton

   As a way of saying thank you, this month all columns in the BEAT are
supposed to be geared towards helping local talent in their quest for
greatness. I would like to take this a step further, and do more then just
say thank you...

    As most of you know, I own the company Outta Site Web Design. We
specialize in the entertainment industry, and offer many services. One of the
most important services we offer is search engine registration.

   Registering your site with search engines is so important because you can
have a potential to draw literally thousands of new people a day to your
site. It has been a pet project of mine on the BEAT site for months.
Preparing keywords, meta tags, and submitting it to all the different engines
will hopefully make our site "be all it can be."

    So far, it has been very successful. Our search engine results are higher
now, and we have gotten over 600 new hits from search engines in the last
week. These are people from all over the world, not just the Chicagoland
area. Which means we are exposing all the local artists to the WORLD.

    I use a program that submits sites directly to over 2,000 search engines.
I have been using it for about a month, and it has made my life much easier.
As my way of saying "thank you" to all the local music artists out there, I
will submit your site to 2,000 search engines for FREE. Here's the rules
though... You MUST be a local musician or band and you MUST give me your
information by November 15 to take advantage of my offer.

    Now here is what you will need to do. First you need to insert the proper
meta tags into your website. Below is an example of how these tags should
look. Simply change the information in the quotation marks to information
that fits your site.

<meta name="keywords" content="Music Magazine, Midwest, Entertainment, Local
Bands, Local Indiana Bands, Local Chicago Bands, Music E-zine, Music,
Musicians">
<meta name="description" content="Chicagoland's #1 Magazine for Local
Musicians. We also have a great on line E-zine dedicated to the entertainment
industry.">

    The "keywords" tag will list the different things people may type into a
search engine to find your page. Say you are a rapper. Some of your keywords
may be "rapper" and "chicago area rapper." You do not want to repeat a word
more then three times, and no more then 21 phrases should be used. Be
creative here. Think of different things you have typed into search engines
while you are making your keyword list.

    The "description" tag is what will appear in the results page of a search
engine. Make sure it is a sentence that will grab the viewers attention, and
make them want to visit your page. Once you have these tags in place on your
website, email them to me, and I will submit them to all the major (and not
so major) search engines. You also need to send me your website address, so I
can make sure you placed the tags on your page, and make sure you are a local
artist.

    After I have submitted the website to the engines, they will then
"spider" your site. This will also add to you keywords, because the spiders
look for phrases within the text of your site. With over a year of magazines
on the BEAT site, we have gotten incredible results with the search engines.
Many of our hits from search engines are people looking for specific local
bands, and even national acts.

    So there you have it. My way of saying thank you to all of you that work
so hard to entertain us in a many times thankless career. You sacrifice time
spent with your family and friends, give up your weekends, and practice for
hours and hours in the hopes of catching that brass ring. In my eyes, you are
all worth your weight in gold!

MIDWESTBEAT.COM

    I have added a new feature to midwestbeat.com. It is called "Pass It On."
You will find the button near the bottom of the site by the newsletter list.
This is a way for YOU to say "thank you" to the staff of the Midwest BEAT
Magazine!

    This button allows you to recommend people to our humble website. Anyone
you know who enjoys music, movies, or anything in the entertainment industry
and has an email address would be great person to recommend to our site!

     This is a free service provided by Guestworld, and you can get your very
own "Pass It On" button for your website by clicking the "Get Gear" link I
provide underneath the button on our site!

   Coming soon to our site will be a band bulletin board area. I've noticed
that many or you are using our "guest book" to promote your CDs and events.

    Because the "guest book" is really intended for giving feedback on our
site, we will designate a special "Bulletin Board" area just so you can do
that kind of free posting.

   You will be able to use it to post "looking for musicians," selling gear,
promoting gigs and product and just telling people about your band and
yourself.

Well, that's it for this month. Happy Thanksgiving! Please don't eat too
much!