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To do this you will need a website and a YouTube promo video. For the sake of this article I will assume you have both, but if you don’t then you need to make them your number one priority.

Of all the ways of selling your act online this is the most effective and most efficient. Every time Google provides search results it shows ten (ish)“organic” rankings. These are the main body of the search results (not the paid ads) and get most of the clicks. The number one organic ranking gets the majority of the traffic so long term this is your ultimate goal!

If we take a made up example to show how this can work – John is a stage hypnotist based in New York but working throughout the state and country if required. John could optimize his website for search terms such as:

• Stage hypnotists in NYC
• Stage hypnotists in New York
• Stage hypnotists in New York State
• Stage hypnotists for hire
• Stage hypnotists

These are all fairly obvious terms to target but some other good ones to rank for would be:

• Unique event entertainment ideas in NYC.
• Corporate entertainers and entertainment ideas.

You can rest assured if John got his website performing well in Google for any of these search terms, he would get a lot of extra traffic coming to his site. If his site looks good and he has good photos and videos the chances are John will get a lot more work from this.

If you think of your own website ranking for similar terms (obviously more suited to your own act and area of performance), I'm sure you will see the huge potential for more bookings and increased fees.

As well as increasing your earning potential, SEO can also (as seen above) be used to help you pick and choose the areas you work in and the type of events you work at.

It’s worth noting that my example is a fairly high traffic search term (a lot of people live in the New York area). The same will work in much less populated areas. There will be less traffic but there will also be less competition for the top rankings. In nearly all cases the lower the traffic, the less competition for rankings.

So now the big question is how do you get your site to rank in Google for your chosen search terms? It’s a big question (I’ve put links at the bottom of this page that will help you with this), but in a nutshell:

1. Decide what keywords you want to rank for (known as keyword research).
2. Make sure these terms appear in the text on your website (known as on-site SEO).
3. Get links to your site from other websites. Google sees these as recommendations and this pushes your site up the rankings.
4.  Promote your site on social media sites, Google see this as a good thing.

This process takes a while to do but believe me it’s worth it. Having your site at the top of Google for a decent search term is phenomenally powerful and effective way of generating work. My advice is not to hesitate but to start on this immediately after reading this article. You wont regret it!

PPC advertising on Google is a little more tricky and it costs money BUT it’s instant, very controllable and can be turned on or off as required. You can use PPC on it’s own, you can use it until your SEO campaigns start to take hold, or alongside your SEO for maximum chances of getting more work.

How is it done? I won’t go into detail as Google provides excellent help on this but in basic steps:

1. Create a Google Adwords account.
2. Decide what keywords you want to target.
3. Create ads and campaigns for each keyword.
4. Set your maximum daily spend.
5. Start the campaigns running.
6. Watch the results using the data Google provides.
7. Test, tweak and refine your campaigns over time to improve their effectiveness.

Ok, I know for some of you this all might sound a bit to much, but trust me, its not that difficult. Once you figure it out you have a cost effective, ready-made resource that you can turn on or off that will generate highly targeted work enquiries, what could be better than that?

YouTube is the least powerful of the three techniques. But it’s free, very easy to do and definitely has the potential to get you work so it’s well worth doing. Optimizing your YouTube videos means two things:

1. They will appear for your targeted keywords in the YouTube search engine (one of the most searched places on the web).
2. They can also appear in the main Google results as video results alongside the ten organic website results.

Clearly if you put the time into getting this right it has great potential to get you more exposure and work. At the bottom of this page is a link to a blog post I wrote specifically on this subject but the basics are:

1. Decide what terms you want to rank for.
2. Put these terms in the title, description and tags of your video.Get as many views as possible. Do this by sharing your video on Facebook, tweeting it, emailing it to friends etc. The best way to do this is by having an awesome video and then it will naturally get shared and viewed a lot.
3. Get links to the video from blogs, websites, social bookmarking sites and anywhere else you can think of.

The big trick with this is to get as many views, tweets, likes and links as you possibly can. Once the video starts to rank you will start getting views automatically and this will help it rank even higher!

For more information on how to sell your act using Google and lots of other powerful methods make sure you check out my eBook on this link and my YouTube Video Optimization blog post here…

That it for today..Have a good one!

Tim

PS - Don't forget people always read the PS.
PPS - Feel free to comment below, ask questions, etc.

Over the past five years the significance of internet marketing as a way for performers to generate work has grown immensely. Cheap/free website platforms such as WordPress, plus amazing resources like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have all created massive opportunities for solo performers or troupes to sell their acts direct to clients on a scale never possible before.

Whilst this is great news, it is vital that you don’t get left behind. If you don’t have a well designed website promoted in Google and on social media sites (Facebook, etc) the chances are you will get over taken and potentially completely overwhelmed by your competition.

This might sound a bit over the top but if you read on I think you’ll agree that the internet is fast becoming the most essential platform for selling any act.

Where do you buy stuff?

I don’t know about you but when I want to buy something the first place I go to is Google. I search around until I find a few sites I like and then I start comparing prices, customer service, product quality, etc.

For the sake of this article let’s say you run a burlesque company and want to sell your acts to corporate and private clients. If your site isn’t performing well in Google for the right search terms then it should be! (These examples work just as well for any sort of act that is booked on a freelance basis).

Imagine if your website was at the top of page one for a search term like “Burlesque performers for hire” or “Burlesque performers in New York” (or wherever it is you want to work). Your phone wouldn’t stop ringing and the diary would be full. Here’s that bad news, if your site isn’t doing well in Google, guess what? All that work is going to your competition.

More competitive pricing.

One of the awesome things about the internet is that creates a level playing field. Anyone can, with a bit of work and investment get potential buyers to their website. So you as a freelance performer can generate bookings direct from your customer, cutting out one or maybe even two middlemen and their fees! This of course means you can either charge more for your services or price your act competitively the competition and get lots more bookings.

The ease of distributing publicity material.

Promoting your act using YouTube, Facebook, Google and other sites has never been as easy. Long gone are the days of sending out publicity packs in the post! Your customers can see the quality of your act in an instant, as long as your publicity material is up to scratch this is a very good thing.

Google has a monopoly and you need to grab your share of it.

Approximately 70-80% of web searches go through Google. This is an insane amount of traffic and if you want to move with times and get a steady stream of work for the foreseeable future it is essential you get your fair share.

To make the most of Google you need a well designed, fully functioning website, you then need to promote it either using paid ads or by getting it to perform in the organic search rankings (the ten main results on each page).

Highly targeted and very powerful.

One of the great things about internet marketing is how specific you can be. You can target certain times of the year, certain geographical locations or certain types of client/event. The beauty of it is the more specific you are the easy it is to do. For example ranking for “Burlesque performers for hire in Washington DC” would be much, much easier and/or cheaper than “Burlesque performers”.

Don’t underestimate the significance and power of this. Never before have smaller companies had so much immense potential marketing power on their side!

Interact with your audiences like never before.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube allow you to talk directly to your audience. In the bad old days before social media the people who watched your shows would have no direct communication with you before or after the show.

But now, if you box clever, you can keep in touch using social media. This means they always know where to find you and the chances of you getting more bookings from a gig goes up dramatically. The best way to think of social media is like good old-fashioned word of mouth marketing. Do a good show, connect with your audiences and let them do the rest!

Your competition is already doing it!

Whatever your act and whatever area you work in, you can bet your bottom dollar if you do some searching on Google you will find your competition is ranking for keywords that could and should be getting you work instead. It’s your call, do you miss out on all that extra work, or do you grab the bull by the horns and aim to dominate your niche in Google?

Where would you build a coffee shop?

If you were going to build a coffee shop you would put it in a place with lots of footfall and where there was a demand for coffee! If you build a website and get it to perform well in Google for search terms in your niche its just like the coffee shop placed in a busy street. People will come by looking to book an act like yours!

This means that as long as you maintain your rankings you will have a constant stream of people visiting your website, making enquiries and booking your act. Best of all once you get to the top of the organic rankings, its 100% free!

Its only going to keep growing.

If the internet plays a significant role in the booking of acts today, one thing is for sure, this is only going to increase. Millions more web-users go online each day. International clients are now online more and more looking for high quality acts at the best possible prices. With smart phones and iPads growing in popularity, this trend is set to continue for the foreseeable future.

If you are already doing some internet marketing for your act, the chances are you need to do some more. If you aren’t doing much at all I really hope this article has convinced you to do so.

If you are a beginner at all this don’t worry, you can take it step by step and its not as hard as it sounds.  If you already have some internet experience great, the next level of success awaits.

To find out more on how to use the internet and Google to generate lots more well paid work for as little effort and investment possible, sign-up for my free newsletter, read my blog and have a look at my eBook.You can find out more about it by watching the video. Check it out here...

Please feel free to comment with questions below.

In my next post I'm going to share some tips on how to get gigs from Google in much more detail.

Have a good one!

Tim

PS Don't forget to like my page on Facebook to keep up to date with the blog.