Music blogs are available in all sizes and styles. That’s why on this put up, we’re rounding up the very best music blogs from across the net.
We attempt to cowl each base of the music trade whereas specializing in blogs that generate lower than 1 million visits in visitors each month.
We used the next instruments to uncover metrics for every weblog:
- MozBar – Area authority (DA).
- Similarweb – Site visitors.
- Pingdom – Load time.
- Wappalyzer – CMS.
We listed these blogs based mostly on the quantity of visitors they obtain per thirty days. The visitors metric comes from the common of the final three months of visitors.
You’ll additionally discover an evaluation of their strategy to content material, social media, and monetization.
Let’s begin on the prime.
The very best music weblog examples
- Music Enterprise Worldwide – Knowledgeable look into the internal workings of the worldwide music trade.
- Lambgoat – A weblog devoted to publishing critiques and information for the steel trade.
- Guitar Foyer – A improbable supply for guitar gear and shopping for guides.
- EARMILK – A normal on-line music publication that covers every thing from music information and trade information to album and kit critiques.
1. Music Enterprise Worldwide
DA: 73 | Site visitors: 545,500 per thirty days | Load Time: 645ms | CMS: WordPress
Music Enterprise World is without doubt one of 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 Impartial, The Observer and Rolling Stone, the latter of which he wrote 100 columns for.
Tim based the location in 2015, sharing music trade 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 location has even acquired testimonials from Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group, Atlantic Data, Stay Nation, influential expertise administration businesses, together with Adele and Glass Animals’ administration firm September Administration, and extra.
Content material
As a information weblog, Music Enterprise Worldwide publishes fairly a little bit of content material, together with a number of new articles a day.
Even so, their content material is nicely represented by the weblog’s major classes: Information, Interviews and Evaluation.
However keep in mind, Music Enterprise Worldwide’s focus is the worldwide music trade as a complete, so that you gained’t discover articles concerning the newest hits or greatest new artists right here.
The weblog’s editors concentrate on information associated to file labels, administration firms, ticket distributors and venues as an alternative.
Even many of the weblog’s interviews are with music trade professionals relatively than artists.
The Evaluation class has op-eds and heavily-researched articles that dive deep into the music trade’s internal workings., uncovering key statistics and hidden truths.
The articles themselves are sometimes written briefly or medium format.
Many are gentle on photos, though articles within the Evaluation class have fairly just a few infographics depicting statistics.
Revenue streams
Promoting is a vital earnings stream for Music Enterprise Worldwide.
They insert advertisements in fairly just a few locations: on the prime of each article, on both facet of the primary content material space, in the appropriate sidebar and all through the physique part of every put up.
Luckily, the weblog works with advertisers straight, so readers don’t must take care of advertisements that aren’t associated to the music trade.
The web site additionally has a job board by which they promote the most recent jobs from across the international music trade.
The weblog’s promoting charges aren’t obtainable on the web site, however they do encourage firms to contact their Operations Director to promote job vacancies at “inexpensive charges.”
Lastly, the weblog publishes three magazines yearly. These are sometimes collections of the weblog’s greatest content material all year long, solely they’re printed 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 Enterprise Worldwide is lively on Fb, Twitter and LinkedIn, however they solely obtain just a few dozen engagements throughout all platforms commonly.
Outdoors of written content material, the weblog publishes podcast episodes commonly, often for interviews and short-form episodes on the most recent music trade developments.
2. Lambgoat
DA: 51 | Site visitors: 333,000 per thirty 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 technique to publish album critiques to the broader steel neighborhood.
The weblog nonetheless publishes album critiques, however they’ve expanded their content material nicely sufficient to cowl information and new music from the world of steel.
The workforce itself has even expanded to incorporate a number of writers, executives, and in-house builders and video producers.
Content material
Lambgoat publishes content material to classes named Information, Evaluations, Options and Releases.
Information articles are sometimes a couple of particular band or artist, resembling album information, live performance information and private updates.
The location publishes a couple of dozen information articles every single day.
Album critiques are printed extra occasionally, however the website nonetheless manages to pump out a number of critiques each month.
Album critiques have a rating and the author’s opinion of particular person tracks and the album as a complete. That is often depicted in just a few paragraphs.
Articles printed to the Options part are information, critiques and content material, together with interviews and reader feedback, Lambgoat needs to advertise extra prominently.
The location 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 will possibly even have search engine marketing worth for metal-related key phrases.
Lambgoat publishes brief (very brief) articles with little to no photos.
They usually embed official music movies from YouTube to posts.
Revenue streams
Lambgoat inserts advertisements in a number of locations on weblog put up pages.
The obvious advert is the one which stays hooked up to the underside of your browser’s viewport as you scroll.
There are additionally fastened advertisements on the prime of the web page, within the sidebar and within the content material itself.
Lambgoat additionally dabbles in internet affiliate marketing, particularly Amazon affiliate hyperlinks.
In addition they companion with manufacturers and commonly promote these manufacturers’ merchandise on their website.
The weblog additionally has an lively 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 reduce.
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 Fb, Twitter and Instagram.
They obtain most of their engagements on Instagram. They’ve over 9,000 followers, and most posts obtain just a few hundred likes.
The weblog additionally has an lively podcast by which they interview outstanding figures within the steel trade.
3. Guitar Foyer
DA: 32 | Site visitors: 294,400 per thirty days | Load Time: 774ms | CMS: WordPress
Guitar Foyer is a superb supply for the technical facet of the music trade.
That’s, studying easy methods to play an instrument in addition to deciding which gear to purchase.
Guitar Foyer focuses on all matters associated to those two factors, making it among the finest 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 data with the world.
He now works with a workforce of fellow writers and musicians.
Content material
Guitar Foyer publishes new content material just a few instances a month.
Whereas their focus is track tutorials and music gear, they publish content material to an extended record of classes associated to those two matters.
Their major classes are Guitars, Gear, Devices and Music.
The Gear part is residence to baby classes like Amps, Pedals, and Studio and Audio.
The Devices class is crammed with baby classes for non-guitar devices, together with the piano/keyboard, the banjo and the violin.
The Music class is residence to the weblog’s recommendations on studying easy methods to play the guitar.
Guitar Foyer publishes long-form posts with lots of embedded movies.
In addition they are inclined to concentrate on record posts over different forms of content material.
Revenue streams
Guitar Foyer makes use of sticky advertisements: one on the backside of the viewport and one within the sidebar.
There are additionally fastened 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 Foyer just isn’t lively on social media, nor do they participate in different content material ventures.
4. EARMILK
DA: 61 | Site visitors: 66,300 per thirty days | Load Time: 3.04s | CMS: WordPress
EARMILK is a well-respected weblog within the impartial music area. It operates fairly professionally, so nicely, actually, that some contemplate it a correct on-line music journal.
The weblog operates through a workforce of contributors.
Content material
EARMILK publishes new content material a number of instances a day, particularly to their New Music and Business Information classes.
These classes are improbable sources for music discovery, worldwide music information, leisure information and popular culture updates.
The weblog additionally publishes op-eds and music critiques, particularly gear and album critiques.
You’ll additionally discover interviews and options in addition to quite a few common collection. These will be considered being much 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 solely.
Most posts don’t have many photos, both.
They do have embedded movies, although.
Revenue streams
EARMILK is an ad-heavy weblog.
In reality, the posts are so brief 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 Fb, 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 laborious to inform what number of engagements they obtain.
Closing ideas
Beginning a weblog within the music trade is hard.
Each style, from hip hop and indie rock to digital dance music (EDM), already has a number of blogs devoted to it.
Some even have thousands and thousands of visits each month.
Even so, there’s loads of room on this area for learners.
It’s greatest to decide on a style, and keep it up as you develop your weblog. This may let you goal a selected viewers and develop a loyal following from it.
Additionally, should you check out the blogs on this record, you’ll be taught that publishing consistency performs an enormous position in your website’s capacity to seem in engines like google.
Not solely do you have to publish on the similar time of each week, you need to publish content material to the identical classes.
You can even make observe of some developments amongst these blogs and use them to enhance your personal website’s affect.
The primary 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 critiques.
Nevertheless, 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 it’s possible 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. That is content material written in long-form format that targets key phrases naturally but successfully and consists of lots of high-quality photos.
It is a technique virtually no profitable music weblog makes use of.
The second development has to do with social media.
It’s clear that you simply don’t want an lively following on social media with a purpose to drive visitors to your weblog.
Nevertheless, that doesn’t imply that you simply shouldn’t concentrate on one of these content material in a technique or one other.
The blogs on this record aren’t paying a lot consideration to social media. That signifies that, like weblog posts, you may actually make a distinction within the quantity of 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.
Lastly, should you’d wish to uncover insights from profitable blogs in different niches, listed below are another posts from this collection:
