There are many things you can do to optimize the free listing you have on GigRoster.com so that you can get offers to work for paying clients. After all, that’s the bottom line. If nobody sees your listing along with everything you have to offer you won’t get gigs. And that is, after all, why we created GigRoster.com for you instead of just Roster.com!

1. Make sure you take full advantage of the opportunity to include almost unlimited media. Is there another online talent booking service that gives you the ability to load virtually unlimited media at no cost? Not that we are aware of! Take advantage: Get your listing supercharged with pictures, videos and sound clips where appropriate. If you don’t have great media on your GigRoster listing, how many offers should you expect to get (answer: expect zero). We have no idea why people even bother to create a listing on the platform with the very minimum of information on the site. Wouldn’t it save time to just not make a listing if there is nothing to look at? Nobody will EVER consider your act if they don’t have even the most basic promo to get them excited about what you do. Sell the sizzle. It costs you nothing.

2. Be sure to make use of the GigRoster reciprocal link. You can and should place it on your own page as well as putting it on facebook or any other site leading people directly to your page. This has an effect on the strength of your Google presence. Inbound links to your listing is one way Google rates how legitimate or popular your page is. The code for that link can be found on “more” tab when you are editing any listing. The more inbound links you have, the more the cumulative effect, not just from those links but in optimizing your page for search engines.

3. Utilize the style fields to list all the major styles your clients will search for. On the GigRoster site, Google knows where your act is located and what you are near. You don’t need to be actually located in the major city to get search results in the major city and surrounding metro area. For instance if you are based in Salem, Massachusetts, you’ll still come up in any search where a client is searching in Boston. HOWEVER, if you don’t have the major styles of entertainment you provide in the style section, there is a good chance you will not be found in the way a client searches. For example: If you play all styles of jazz and you only put one style, jazz, in the style search, you may well not come up when someone searches for a "hire a swing band in Boston".

4. Make an seperate listing for each individual act you have. Some artists just have a single act, but many have multiple, distinct acts that should be marketed on their own. On GigRoster you can have multiple individual listings within your single sign on account. Don't worry, that's free too. If you provide a German band, a French band, a jazz band and a rock band, don’t even think of making a single listing for “The John Smith German, French, Jazz & Rock Band” Google won’t like it, and neither will any client. If they want a German band they don’t want to think you are going to play rock and jazz too. Sure, we know you don’t have to but does the client? Does Google? Make a separate special page for each act. That’s the reason you branched out in the first place. Don’t torpedo your chances by throwing everything into one big confusing pot!

5. Your description needs to help people find you. The long description does much more than just give basic information about your act. Don’t simply put in one or two sentences. Give your clients all the detailed information they need and at the same time let Google crawl the description to see what you offer. Google and GigRoster BOTH use a pretty advanced algorithm to match what clients are searching for. Make sure you are incorporating phrases that people may search for. Think about how an average person would search, not how people in our entertainment business would search for you. If you are a wedding band, consider instead of saying “We do receptions, parties and events” try: “We are a fun wedding band playing dance music for parties and affordable reception music” Why? Then Google can easily tag you into search for “Wedding Band”, “Dance Music For Parties”, “Affordable Reception Music” as well as any number of variations on those. Your paragraphs need to be well written and easy to read. Don't make them read like a keyword search. that will not serve you well when a client is on your page. The description is not a list of keywords, but a well written description does include plenty of key search phrases. The sort of thing the average Google searcher would be putting in the search engine when they want to find an act like yours.

Pro-Tip: Give your pictures descriptive names before you load them onto your listing. A Google search can find those pictures and lead people to your page!

6. Google your act name and see where it shows up in various kinds of Google searches. Find out what terms, besides just the actual name of your act will come up in a search. Try different things and adjust your GigRoster listing accordingly. What pages DO come up if not yours? What's on those pages that makes a search engine find the? See how you do, adjust where needed, then try it again in a month and see if your results are better. It is not instant. Google crawls the site frequently and notes changes, so later when you search again, your results will improve! By the way, yes, we know there are other search engines out there besides Google, but in the real world, the call it googling for a reason. According to Business insider (https://www.businessinsider.com/how-google-retains-more-than-90-of-market-share-2018-4) More than 90% of all internet searches are taking place through Google and the company subsidiary Youtube. Google is the one that matters. Optimize for Google and the others will find you too.

7. The Title and URL of your act is in the title of your page and this is very important. Google does look at page title AND the URL when considering what will best match someone’s search. It considers it rather strongly in fact. It should not, however, be too long. We suggest you keep it simple so anyone searching for your act, will easily find it. You can also put a very brief description in the title and URL along with the name of the act. For example instead of The Bearcats, how about “The Bearcats Rock Band”. A couple of things to keep in mind. You can keep your Gigrosting listing URL simple by adjusting that in the edit function. It will inherit the full title of the act unless you manually shorten it. For example, make the title of the act “The Austrian Boys German Band”, It is grammatically correct and reads well. You can make the URL of the page just "Austrian Boys German Band" so the URL is: https://www.gigroster.com/listings/austrian-boys-german-band instead of .../the-austrian-boys-german-band. No reason to waste valuable URL data on "the" which Google will ignore anyway! Finally, make sure no matter what the title of your page/act is under 100 Characters, including spaces, or less. Yes, you can get away with a longer one but it won't help. it will be truncated on the tab, and more to the point, Google will give less and less weight to words that are further down the URL string. 100 max is usually considered ideal.

8. Consider the big picture on GigRoster. People searching on the GigRoster, Google or any other site are going to get results based on: Title, style, location and description. Make sure all 4 do their own individual tasks of helping people find you whether it is through a GigRoster Search, or a broad internet search. When people want the kind of entertainment you provide you want to make sure they find your listing, and when they click on it, they are rewarded with all the tools to make that buying decision.

They can’t hire you if they don’t know you exist. Nothing is more disappointing than knowing that a client booked a different act when you know you really would have been perfect for the event. All because they never found you, and could not consider hiring you. Update your listings as often as you’d like as you learn what works best, whether it is a client searching our site, an internet search, or one of our talent buyers who would like to present you to a client.