We haven't talked about the website for a while, but this morning Briana IMed and asked "How did you get your website so high up on Google?"
This reminded us to talk about the website a little bit more.
"The website" is JosephaHaden.com.
This is sort of an experimental website, intended to do a little marketing for Josepha. We said we'd share what we learned.
First off, we learned that having a website is worthwhile. Josepha has had a couple of job offers from it, and it gives her more of an air of authority, sitting there on her business cards as it does.
We also learned that you have to keep up with it. For example, one of the job offers arrived when Josepha was on tour in Italy, and it was too late by the time she saw it. For another example, she hired someone to do a linking campaign, got happy with the 300 or so links from that, and never did anything else.
So it was good news when we heard that the site's PageRank went up this month, but she still doesn't have as much traffic as she wants.
So the main thing we've learned here is that it's great to have a website, but it won't really just take care of itself.
How do you get  it up on Google?
* Start with a good design, good content, and good programming. Google cares about that stuff.
* Get some links. This has to be an ongoing effort.
* Flash it around a little IRL. Put it on your business cards. Put it in the signature of your emails. Add it to your resume. Google won't know that you've done this, but traffic helps you get links, and it also helps you get jobs.
And that's really the whole point, isn't it?

Josepha had an email from someone who had visited her site and heard her sing, asking her to sing at a wedding. Unfortunately, Josepha was on tour in Italy!

Well, that wasn't unfortunate. The unfortunate part was that, two weeks later when she returned and responded to the email, it was too late.

I guess the moral is: you have to keep up with your web site.

Aside from that, Josepha has just had friends admiring her website. The designer, however, has gotten some business from it.

We'll keep you posted on the continuing results.

Once you and your web designer have created a terrific website for you, you may think you can just sit back and wait for clients to call

No such luck.

Go type your name into Google. We'll wait.

Did your website show up? Probably not. The website will be invisible until you submit it to the directories. Google, Yahoo, and MSN are the big ones. DMOZ is another useful one. Click on the links below to submit your site. Be sure to read all the directions carefully.

Yahoo!: http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html
Google: http://www.google.com/addurl/
MSN: http://search.msn.com.sg/docs/submit.aspx
DMOZ: http://www.dmoz.org/

Once you've done the major directories, choose the smaller, more specific directories that your clients will be looking in. These would include directories for your specific area of instruction, and also your geographical area. Josepha went to directories for singers, singing teachers, and for musicians in the Kansas City area, since that's where she is.

How do you find these directories? You probably use some of them yourself already. You can find more by going to your favorite search engine and typing in "music directory add site" or "singing teacher suggest site" or similar phrases.

Josepha had an SEO professional do this for her, and was #1 on Google within a day and a half. Your results will depend on how good you are and how well your page is designed. Here's where it can be worth paying for some services up front. On the other hand, you can definitely do these things yourself if you have more time than money.

Here's that website.

It's a thing of beauty, isn't it?

The first decision about your website -- once you've decided to have a website --is what web designer to use.

You may be thinking that you need to find a spot on the internet first, but often that decision follows the question of who should design your site.

Lots of web designers will host your site for you once they've designed it, and most companies that host websites will design your site if you host it with them. Not all, though. There are web designers who just do the graphic design part of the job and then you have to go find your own host. You can also design your own site, either by hand with your HTML cheat sheet on the desk beside you, or by using templates, and use a free or low-cost web hosting service.

The website you're reading right now is free. It's a place for the authors to sound off and share, not a marketing tool. Maybe a free website could be used as a marketing tool, but maybe your art deserves an artist, too.

Designing your own, or hiring someone just to design the page and then finding your own host, also usually means that you have to keep up with the site yourself. We'd say, don't commit yourself to that unless you're sure you can do it.

Josepha's site was built by a web designer with a template that he designed himself, much as we designed this website with a template from the Weebly people. Well, okay, his work is art and ours is just a recipe, or maybe a frozen dinner that we heat up, but the point is this: Josepha's website isn't 100% custom work, so the cost is less than it otherwise would be. If you want to step up from making your own with free templates to having something designed for you, a service like this one can be a good option.

The big question in choosing a web designer and then in choosing among the services the designer offers has got to be this: what kind of investment are you prepared to make, and will it pay off?

We'll let you know how Josepha's experiment works out.

Most of the music teachers we know are as busy as they want to be and turning away students, too. They fit in performances when they can, or perhaps they've given up performing.

Where do they get their students? Mostly word of mouth. Mark and Mary Ann both started at a music school, and their highly successful students are the best advertising they could ever want. Debbie's private students come from the congregation of the church where she directs, or the classrooms of the school where she teaches. When Stacy left the stage for the studio, she had fans lining up to study with her.

That's fine for established musicians. What about the newcomers? Josepha's been out of school for just about two years, and has had her first conducting job for one year. She still relies on her day job. She can't rely on word of mouth for all her students.

So she is trying out a website for marketing. Josepha's site was designed by a company called SharpHue. We'll be following the progress of the site -- and her career -- in these pages.