I was wondering how many of you had web sites out there? What sort of things do you post to your site? Any ideas for getting more hits, designing a site or updating a site?

Here's mine:

http://www.memoryelixir.com

Here are links to many performer sites:

http://www.knddesign.com/sc/ms-pl.html

The basic design is pretty standard for most performers: who you are and what you do, photos, testimonials, contact information, maybe merchandise. Look at the examples above.

The ideas that I have for getting more hits involve using a web host that gives you web stats, including what search phrases brought people to your site. Decide what phrases you want to score high on and design your pages so that those phrases:

1. appear as page titles,

2. appear as filenames and ALT tags on JPEGs,

3. appear in meta tags and comments,

4. appear in the text on the page,

5. appear as the body of a link that takes you to that page.

A web page doesn't take up much storage space (images do), so you can put many pages at your site in an archive or photo gallery, using each of these pages to lure additional hits.

Do something to get yourself listed on another site with a link back to you. I have written articles, set an official pi memorization record, been in events with other performers who link to me, and so on.

Once your site is up use Google to evaluate how you are doing on your selected search phrases. Check your stats to see how people are finding your site, then modify the pages to make them more attractive to those search phrases.

Using these techniques, I have outscored the organizers of an event for my pages that cover my appearance at these events. For example, search on "fabulous fifties flamingo festival" and see that I outscore the Chamber of Commerce. Same for "Bar Harbor Fourth of July." I come close for the "Blue Hill Fair."

But don't tell anyone else how you do this, or they will do it too and it won't work anymore...oops!

Yours,

Paul

If you are interested in a web page as apposed to a web site, check out http://www.myworkpage.com

They design the page for you for free.

I have mine up, that I do myself in my spare time at school. http://embark.to/ClayrsGlacier

Mine isn't so much about my work and stuff, as it is me.

Coming soon (hopefully this weekend): A feature on graduation (I hope to get a Polaroid to document my college years for both my scrapbook and my site) and pictures from different events.

If you don't have one yet, good luck on making your site.

There are three active websites I have for magic.

http://www.freewebs.com/magicbysander/

http://www.freewebs.com/tradeshowmagic/

and http://www.magician.esmartdesign.com/

Some agency websites will also link you to my websites.

My websites not currently up are

MagicBySander.com and

AmazedWiz.com

Since I started and wrote Dove Hotline for over six years, you can likely run Dove Hotline for links and find me there too. Tony Clark has started doing some of the Dove Hotline this year. I need the time to finish writing two books by the end of summer. One is only about dove magic and the other about the tricks of the trade I have learned in over forty-five years of the entertainment industry.

Many of you will be surprised to find that if you have a profile on The Magic Café, it may be found on some search engines by your username with magic or magician. Try it!

I am no computer whiz, but it makes sense to me to anticipate what a lay person would look under in the yellow pages to find you. Then, make sure that you use that terminology in everything relating to your website.

Good Luck!

Bob
Illusions@magicbysander.com

Mine's still under construction, but whats done is at http://www.amagicalwedding.com

Nice page Daryl,

Do you get a lot of wedding bookings?

I have a website: http://joejoeonline.com

I'm trying to keep it simple and have 3 objectives in posting: (1) info for fans (ie: showtimes), (2) infor for booking info, and (3) info for other magicians.

It's still a somewhat new site, and I hope to in the near future have my magic available for instant download.

As for traffic, trade links - lots of links. If you don't want your pages full of links to other sites (like me), then you can always pay-per-click with some of the search engines. You won't get the extra page rank with google this way, but your site will look a lot "cleaner". And there are "free for all" link pages that don't require a recip link.

Hope some of that helps ...

JoeJoe