Music blogs are available in all styles and sizes. That’s why on this submit, we’re rounding up one of the best music blogs from across the internet.
We attempt to cowl each base of the music business whereas specializing in blogs that generate lower than 1 million visits in site visitors each month.
We used the next instruments to uncover metrics for every weblog:
- MozBar – Domain authority (DA).
- Similarweb – Traffic.
- Pingdom – Load time.
- Wappalyzer – CMS.
We listed these blogs based mostly on the quantity of site visitors they obtain per 30 days. The site visitors metric comes from the common of the final three months of site visitors.
You’ll additionally discover an evaluation of their method to content material, social media, and monetization.
Let’s begin on the high.
The finest music weblog examples
- Music Business Worldwide – An expert look into the internal workings of the worldwide music business.
- Lambgoat – A weblog devoted to publishing evaluations and information for the steel business.
- Guitar Lobby – A unbelievable supply for guitar gear and shopping for guides.
- EARMILK – A common on-line music publication that covers every little thing from music information and business information to album and kit evaluations.
1. Music Business Worldwide
DA: 73 | Traffic: 545,500 per 30 days | Load Time: 645ms | CMS: WordPress
Music Business World is among the most influential and professionally-operated music blogs to launch in recent times.
It was based by London-based music journalist Tim Ingham, who’s written for NME, The Guardian, The Independent, The Observer and Rolling Stone, the latter of which he wrote 100 columns for.
Tim based the location in 2015, sharing music business information and knowledge from all over the world.
He now works with a number of editors and reporters in addition to administrators and consultants.
The website has even obtained testimonials from Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group, Atlantic Records, Live Nation, influential expertise administration businesses, together with Adele and Glass Animals’ administration firm September Management, and extra.
Content
As a information weblog, Music Business Worldwide publishes fairly a little bit of content material, together with a number of new articles a day.
Even so, their content material is properly represented by the weblog’s major classes: News, Interviews and Analysis.
But bear in mind, Music Business Worldwide’s focus is the worldwide music business as a complete, so that you received’t discover articles concerning the newest hits or finest new artists right here.
The weblog’s editors deal with information associated to report labels, administration corporations, ticket distributors and venues as an alternative.
Even many of the weblog’s interviews are with music business professionals reasonably than artists.
The Analysis class has op-eds and heavily-researched articles that dive deep into the music business’s internal workings., uncovering key statistics and hidden truths.
The articles themselves are sometimes written in brief or medium format.
Many are gentle on photographs, though articles within the Analysis class have fairly just a few infographics depicting statistics.
Income streams
Advertising is a crucial revenue stream for Music Business Worldwide.
They insert advertisements in fairly just a few locations: on the high of each article, on both aspect of the principle content material space, in the best sidebar and all through the physique part of every submit.
Fortunately, the weblog works with advertisers straight, so readers don’t must take care of advertisements that aren’t associated to the music business.
The web site additionally has a job board by which they promote the most recent jobs from across the international music business.
The weblog’s promoting charges aren’t out there on the web site, however they do encourage corporations to contact their Operations Director to promote job vacancies at “affordable rates.”
Finally, the weblog publishes three magazines yearly. These are sometimes collections of the weblog’s finest content material all year long, solely they’re revealed in a a lot nicer format (in print).
Readers can subscribe to all three magazines for $92.03/month.
Social media exercise + different content material ventures
Music Business Worldwide is energetic on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, however they solely obtain just a few dozen engagements throughout all platforms commonly.
Outside of written content material, the weblog publishes podcast episodes commonly, often for interviews and short-form episodes on the most recent music business developments.
2. Lambgoat
DA: 51 | Traffic: 333,000 per 30 days | Load Time: 2.21s | CMS: N/A
Lambgoat is a web-based music publication that focuses on information from across the steel style of music.
It was based by Alex Arnold in 1999, who launched the location as a option to publish album evaluations to the broader steel neighborhood.
The weblog nonetheless publishes album evaluations, however they’ve expanded their content material properly sufficient to cowl information and new music from the world of steel.
The crew itself has even expanded to incorporate a number of writers, executives, and in-house builders and video producers.
Content
Lambgoat publishes content material to classes named News, Reviews, Features and Releases.
News articles are sometimes a few particular band or artist, akin to album information, live performance information and private updates.
The website publishes a few dozen information articles on daily basis.
Album evaluations are revealed extra sometimes, however the website nonetheless manages to pump out a number of evaluations each month.
Album evaluations have a rating and the author’s opinion of particular person tracks and the album as a complete. This is often depicted in just a few paragraphs.
Articles revealed to the Features part are information, evaluations and content material, together with interviews and reader feedback, Lambgoat needs to advertise extra prominently.
The website additionally has a web-based discussion board readers can use to debate Lambgoat content material, music information, music suggestions and extra.
It’s an effective way to get readers to interact with a website, and it may possibly even have search engine optimization worth for metal-related key phrases.
Lambgoat publishes quick (very quick) articles with little to no photographs.
They typically embed official music movies from YouTube to posts.
Income streams
Lambgoat inserts advertisements in a number of locations on weblog submit pages.
The most evident advert is the one which stays connected to the underside of your browser’s viewport as you scroll.
There are additionally mounted advertisements on the high of the web page, within the sidebar and within the content material itself.
Lambgoat additionally dabbles in affiliate marketing online, particularly Amazon affiliate hyperlinks.
They additionally companion with manufacturers and commonly promote these manufacturers’ merchandise on their website.
The weblog additionally has an energetic Patreon account, however they solely have 10 patrons on the time this text was written.
Even at their highest tier of $10/month, that’s solely $100/month earlier than Patreon takes their lower.
Lastly, Lambgoat has a small on-line store by which they promote CDs, cassettes, vinyls and merch.
Social media exercise + different content material ventures
Lambgoat commonly posts new content material to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
They obtain most of their engagements on Instagram. They have over 9,000 followers, and most posts obtain just a few hundred likes.
The weblog additionally has an energetic podcast by which they interview distinguished figures within the steel business.
3. Guitar Lobby
DA: 32 | Traffic: 294,400 per 30 days | Load Time: 774ms | CMS: WordPress
Guitar Lobby is a good supply for the technical aspect of the music business.
That is, studying the best way to play an instrument in addition to deciding which gear to purchase.
Guitar Lobby focuses on all subjects associated to those two factors, making it probably the greatest music blogs for musicians and audiophiles.
It was based by long-time guitarist Chris Schiebel, who has a bachelor’s diploma in electrical engineering. This has allowed him to develop his personal guitar amplifiers and results in addition to share his information with the world.
He now works with a crew of fellow writers and musicians.
Content
Guitar Lobby publishes new content material just a few occasions a month.
While their focus is music tutorials and music gear, they publish content material to a protracted record of classes associated to those two subjects.
Their major classes are Guitars, Gear, Instruments and Music.
The Gear part is house to youngster classes like Amps, Pedals, and Studio and Audio.
The Instruments class is stuffed with youngster classes for non-guitar devices, together with the piano/keyboard, the banjo and the violin.
The Music class is house to the weblog’s recommendations on studying the best way to play the guitar.
Guitar Lobby publishes long-form posts with quite a lot of embedded movies.
They additionally are likely to deal with record posts over different forms of content material.
Income streams
Guitar Lobby makes use of sticky advertisements: one on the backside of the viewport and one within the sidebar.
There are additionally mounted advertisements within the sidebar.
The model additionally makes use of affiliate hyperlinks from Amazon and Sweetwater, particularly of their gear roundups.
Social media exercise + different content material ventures
Guitar Lobby will not be energetic on social media, nor do they participate in different content material ventures.
4. EARMILK
DA: 61 | Traffic: 66,300 per 30 days | Load Time: 3.04s | CMS: WordPress
EARMILK is a well-respected weblog within the impartial music area. It operates fairly professionally, so properly, in truth, that some think about it a correct on-line music journal.
The weblog operates through a crew of contributors.
Content
EARMILK publishes new content material a number of occasions a day, particularly to their New Music and Industry News classes.
These classes are unbelievable sources for music discovery, worldwide music information, leisure information and popular culture updates.
The weblog additionally publishes op-eds and music evaluations, particularly gear and album evaluations.
You’ll additionally discover interviews and options in addition to quite a few common collection. These might be regarded as being just like columns in newspapers and print magazines.
Like most blogs on this record, EARMILK’s secret to publishing a lot content material is publishing short-form posts completely.
Most posts don’t have many photographs, both.
They do have embedded movies, although.
Income streams
EARMILK is an ad-heavy weblog.
In truth, the posts are so quick that a few of them have extra advertisements than content material.
Sticky and floating advertisements seem on the backside of the viewport, within the sidebar and to the underside, right-hand nook of the web page.
They’re additionally situated beneath the location’s menu and between paragraphs within the content material part of the posts themselves.
Social media exercise
EARMILK has profiles for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, however they don’t use these social channels that a lot.
Plus, their Instagram profile has hidden like counts, so it’s onerous to inform what number of engagements they obtain.
Final ideas
Starting a weblog within the music business is hard.
Every style, from hip hop and indie rock to digital dance music (EDM), already has a number of blogs devoted to it.
Some even have tens of millions of visits each month.
Even so, there’s loads of room on this area for newcomers.
It’s finest to decide on a style, and keep it up as you develop your weblog. This will will let you goal a particular viewers and develop a loyal following from it.
Also, when you check out the blogs on this record, you’ll be taught that publishing consistency performs an enormous function in your website’s capacity to seem in search engines like google and yahoo.
Not solely must you publish on the similar time of each week, it’s best to publish content material to the identical classes.
You can even make word of some developments amongst these blogs and use them to enhance your personal website’s affect.
The first is the format most of those blogs write in.
Most profitable music web sites appear to publish short-form content material, even for issues like album evaluations.
However, a few of these websites have the luxurious of getting many years to develop their followings whereas others had connections previous to launching.
You don’t have that first luxurious, and chances are you’ll not have connections that may take your weblog to the following stage as quickly as you launch.
What you can do, nevertheless, is publish authoritative content material from the get go. This is content material written in long-form format that targets key phrases naturally but successfully and contains quite a lot of high-quality photographs.
This is a method virtually no profitable music weblog makes use of.
The second pattern has to do with social media.
It’s clear that you just don’t want an energetic following on social media as a way to drive site visitors to your weblog.
However, that doesn’t imply that you just shouldn’t deal with any such content material in a method or one other.
The blogs on this record aren’t paying a lot consideration to social media. That implies that, like weblog posts, you’ll be able to actually make a distinction within the quantity of site visitors you obtain early on by specializing in social media as quickly as you launch, and even earlier than you launch.
With all that stated, we want you luck in your journey as a music blogger.
Finally, when you’d wish to uncover insights from profitable blogs in different niches, listed below are another posts from this collection:
