This is a story about why you need to google yourself.
I use my middle initial for a reason.
Several years ago, another Caleb Murphy started taking over the Google search results.
He was a high school athlete phenom.
So when you googled my name, you wouldn’t see my songs. You’d see videos of this kid who was crushing the competition in basketball and football.
The entire first page of Google was just this kid. I was nowhere in sight.
And I couldn’t have that.
But the solution was simple: start using my middle initial as part of my artist name.
Now, when you search “Caleb J Murphy,” it’s all me.
And to think…
I wouldn’t have known this unless I googled myself.
So in this post, I want to talk about why you need to google yourself as a musician and how to clean up your search results…
- Why You Need To Google Yourself As A Musician
- How Often Should You Google Yourself?
- How To Google Yourself (Things You Didn’t Think Of)
- How To Clean Up Your Google Search Results
Take control of your music career. Download this FREE worksheet.
Why You Need To Google Yourself As A Musician
I took a Public Relations class in college, and one thing the professor taught was to google yourself.
Yes, really. I paid money for someone to tell me that. But I’m glad I did.
It seems vain on the surface, but it’s actually smart.
Think of who might be searching for you. Fans? Music industry people? Potential clients?
What links do you want them to see first?
When someone searches your name, you want the top listing to be your official music website. And if you don’t have one, you need one. Bandzoogle is a great place to start.
If you’re on social media, Google will probably show those profiles next.
And then the next batch of links will probably be your music on different streaming platforms.
Those are the links you want people to find. If anything else pulls up, especially on the first page of Google, it could hurt your chances of a fan finding your music or an industry professional working with you.
Take these stats for example…
Other people with the same name as you influence 33% of Google search results. And 20% of googlers find old or incorrect info.
That means 1 out of ever 5 fans who google you will find outdated or wrong info about you.
And if there’s another artist out there with the same name, they’re going to have an affect on what searchers find.
Sadly, Google kind of controls the first impression some people will have of you.
But fortunately, you can do things to control what people see on Google (more on that in the last section).
How Often Should You Google Yourself?
You don’t want to be googling yourself every day. That’s probably not healthy.
But searching your name once a year probably isn’t enough. You want to stay on top of what people find.
So google yourself about once a month. This is the recommendation of Patrick Leber, communications director of BrandYourself.
It’s not an obsessive amount, but it’s enough to catch anything that shouldn’t be there.
How To Google Yourself (Things You Didn’t Think Of)
Googling yourself isn’t just as simple as searching your name.
To do it right, you need to take some special steps.
Step 1: realize it’s okay
First of all, get it out of your brain that googling yourself is vain.
What makes an action “vain” is your intention behind it. In this case, you’re googling yourself for the good of your music career.
Step 2: go incognito
When you search your name, use an incognito window.
This allows you to search in a window that doesn’t have your browsing or search history and that you’re not signed into.
It emulates what someone else would find if they search your name.
Step 3: look at the first page
Next, google your artist name. Pay the most attention to the first page of Google. Most people trust what’s on the first page.
In fact, the first page of Google gets 71% of traffic clicks. And second-page results? Yeah, they get less than 6% of the clicks.
Honestly, how many times have you actually gone to the second or third pages of Google?
However, when you search your name, look at the first three pages. You know, just in case.
Step 4: don’t click on negative stuff
As you review the search results, don’t get stuck on any negative articles you see or pages you don’t want to appear.
At most, click on them just once. If you visit unwanted URLs more than that, it can tell Google to rank them higher.
Jot down the title of any URLs you don’t want. You can take care of those later.
Step 5: check Google Images
Inaccurate or unwanted photos can be just as hurtful to your music career as websites or articles.
Step 6: google variations
Next, you’ll want to google variations of your artist name — search terms people may actually enter.
Here are some variations you should try:
- Your artist name + “music”
- Your artist name + title of your biggest song
- Your artist name + “Facebook” / “Instagram” / “Twitter” / etc.
- Common misspellings of your artist name
When you do this, follow the above steps for each variation.
Once you find the stuff you don’t want, you can try to clean them up…
How To Clean Up Your Google Search Results
Now let’s cover two things: quality control and brand management.
For quality control, you can do two things:
- Set up a Google alert so you know every time your name appears online
- Remove certain info about you from Google by following these steps
Those steps are pretty straightforward.
Brand management is a little more involved. But it’s totally worth it.
So, if a Google search is not showing the info you want, here are some things you can do…
Make sure your artist name is unique
If your band name is Guitars, people will never find your music by googling you.
You need a unique name. You want people to find you easily.
In the same way I had to tweak my artist name, you may have to do the same. It’s possible you’ll have to change your name entirely.
I know firsthand it’s annoying.
But it’s smarter to own the entire first page of Google than to be fighting over it. The main goal is for people to find your music.
If you already have music distributed under the artist name you want to change, you will have to take that music down and re-distribute it under your new name.
That’s what I had to do. Frustrating, but worth it.
Optimize your music website for search engines
Google looks for certain aspects of a website to determine if it should rank higher. This is known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Your official music website needs to be SEO-friendly.
Here are some tips to improve your site’s SEO:
- Link your pages to each other (Google likes these internal links)
- Get other sites with a higher authority to link to your site (eg. you do a guest blog post, get featured on a blog, post on Music Think Tank)
- Start blogging regularly on your site, at least once a week
- Keep your site updated — this will naturally happen if you’re putting out music regularly
- Register your website with Google Search Console
I use Bandzoogle as my website builder and they do a lot of SEO work for you. Every page you create is automatically set up for SEO.
Distribute your music to all the platforms
Websites like Spotify, Amazon, and YouTube have the best SEO rankings around. And Google owns YouTube.
So when you google your name, Google will show your music on these websites first.
And honestly, that’s the whole point, right? To direct your fans or music industry people to your music.
But if you haven’t given your music to these sites, you’re out of luck.
That’s why you need to distribute your music everywhere.
I hope you can see now why you need to google yourself. It’s not vanity. It’s all about making sure people find your music.
Find direction for your music career
This FREE worksheet helped me. It can help you too.