Random Tracks! This site has been built by one of my mentoring colleagues here at Clickincome, John Newman. He and I are both quite passionate about music, and it shows here in John’s site. It’s focus is clear. It’s all about promoting and reviewing independent music. It’s been monetized with affiliates from emusic, which is sort of an “iTunes” (downloadable music site) for indie artists.
On Google, he’s currently at the top of page 2 for “Independent Music News”. Quite a good ranking for such an open and broad search term. Kudos to him. I’m sure that having over 80 inbound links (according to Yahoo) helps him achieve that.
The main page is done in a sort of a “portal” style. It’s got teasers and ads all the way down, drawing people in to the content available at the site, and promoting the emusic signups. Right at the top, there’s the setup for his “Swiki”, which is a community-driven, focused search engine. This is also a good way to set up to monetize the site, as the more people use the search engine and click on the Google ads inside, the more money he makes.
As he continues down, he’s got “teaser” blocks. The first CD review is a great example. There’s a copy of the CD cover, and to the right is the first paragraph or two of the review. Finally, there’s a “read the whole review” link. You engage the visitor’s interest with the first paragraph, and hopefully, that drives them to click in deeper to read the link. Suddenly your site is “Sticky” and it’s working to keep people at your site.
He does the same with his on-site blog. Read the first paragraph, click in deeper to read the whole thing. Scroll down farther, and there’s more reviews and blog links.
There’s a lot of content here at the site. Let’s take a look at some of the subpages.
The “Artist Interview” page is a cool one. There’s a short intro, and links to three interviews of independent musicians. John has a deep, inquisitive interviewing style that brings out more than just superficial answers from the artists. It makes for great reading!
The “CD Review” and “Concert Review” pages are also wonderful ways to discover some particular bits of indie fare. John is reviewing a pretty wide spectrum of musical styles, from bluegrass and folk to contemporary classical and orchestral. In both of these pages, John tackles these reviews with a thought-provoking look at the music, not just a hype-filled promotional article.
I also enjoy reading his thoughts and comments in his blog page. And, of course, there’s the Clickincome page, specifically targeted to the needs of the indie musician.
Overall, a great site! My hat’s off to him and hope he continues to find success!
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