Exposure in the independent artist industry, or any industry is the number one way to get discovered. “Beeing found” and spreading the word about who you are and the kinds of services you offer is most effectively done on the internet by making the most of search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. Gighive.com offers this service to the indie music industry.

SEO? What exactly does it do for indie artists?

Well consider these questions: How profitable would you be if your would-be customers or fans found your Web site near the top of search results for the keywords used in your particular craft or service? How much of that keyword traffic is currently going to your peers sites instead of yours?

When you consider the above, you can get a better understanding why companies big and small invest so much time, energy and resources securing SEO services. And yes, it can be very expensive, but when completed effectively, it is usually worth the investment.

It is a simple fact of life for the average indie artist. When promoting yourself on today’s competitive web environment, where many of your indie peers are clamoring for position, you need to have an established presence on the Web. Simply having a MySpace page, or even a dedicated website is not always enough. You need to know how to effectively promote yourself online, learn how to drive traffic to your site and “bee” willing to learn new tasks and find creative ways to “bee found.”

Although Web site marketing can be rewarding, it is also time consuming. It’s an on going process that needs to be developed over time. Just like your art or music.

If you do decide to take on the task yourself , but be prepared to spend hours and months of your time plugging away, to get good results. As an indie artist, (being one myself) who has the time, let alone the money or resources to put that kind of serious effort into it.

I also know for a fact that many indie artists get overwhelmed on a daily basis trying to do just that. Furthermore, most of us hold down full time jobs just to pay the bills. So SEO is unfortunately off the table.

So what do you do when you just do not have time or energy? Well for starters, you can comb the internet for helpful resources, or you can check us out at gighive.com where we want to at least meet you halfway. First of all, we are a new free service and artist directory catered towards all independent artists.

Second. Our main goal is to help you build your social media presence on the Web. By utilizing our artist profile, we are bringing the tools and resources online for you to do just that. We are doing the leg-work to get you started and on your way. Do you want to know what the real kicker is? By helping you grow and build a presence, helps us as grow as well, which means we can offer you more specialized services. Nice!

So if you are looking for shiny buttons and cool gadgets I can state for a fact that search engines do not care about pretty pictures, widgets, flash and cool applications. They are looking for unique content, links, tags and keywords. So first, let us worry about optimizing your web presence, and then you can get all dressed up with flash buttons as well as gadgets later when you secure your audience.