Using ID3 tags to help promote your band website

Digital audio files contain information that helps you identify the Song title, Artist name, Album name, Year, Genre and URL. Arguably, this is just as important as adding email signatures when it comes to driving traffic to your site. This information is called an ID3 tag, and simply means "IDentify an mp3". Once entered into the track, this information will be displayed on your computer or portable device when you play the song.

Some programs like iTunes or Windows Media Player will pull this information from the Internet if not specified, but they are not always accurate, and they usually don’t specify a URL (unless it is a podcast, which would be taken from your RSS feed in iTunes.) Specifying ID3 tags is always a good idea to help direct visitors to your website in any way you can.

This is also important so that your heavy metal genre mp3 doesn’t end up shuffled amongst children’s music, polka, and other incorrectly/untagged files in the listeners music folder. And maybe most importantly, so that anyone who happens to fall upon your mp3 (a well meaning fan who sends your tracks to their well meaning friends; another well meaning fan who sells their iPod to a friend who gets the iPod jacked while on the bus one night coming home from your awesome show... you get the point), can find out where this great track came from, and how to get more of your music. Your Bandzoogle website, of course! Which is where they can also find out about your next show, maybe buy a t-shirt from your store, and while they’re at it, leave a happy guest book post or blog comment about how great you are.

It's easy to add this information to your mp3 files. Here are the steps from your computer (PC):

Open the folder containing your audio files.

Right click the audio file and select Properties:

In the new pop-up window select the “Details” tab. This is where you will enter all your track information or make updates to it, then click OK.

Here are the steps from iTunes:

Open iTunes, right click on a song and select “Get Info”. Click the “Info” tab and fill in the track info. Then click OK.

Now when you play your song in iTunes, other audio players, and portable devices the track information will be available to the listener.

You can also add an image to your songs in iTunes. In iTunes right click on a song, click “Get Info”, then the Artwork tab where you can upload the album artwork. Next time you sync your portable device, the artwork will be added. If you use the Bandzoogle Album feature, an album artwork upload option is available. When a fan purchases the album, the artwork would be zipped into the file and can be added to your iTunes song or album.