10 Local SEO Tips for Magicians to Improve Search Rankings

SEO for Magicians is not a magic trick instead it is an important marketing strategy for every magician looking to rank higher in the local and national search engine rankings.

SEO is very much like the modern day Magic Circle whose purpose was to promote the art of magic. The concept is simple if you rank higher in the search results it makes it easier for your clients to find your services and increases your chances of getting hired.

In this SEO guide, I will showcase the key elements you need to adopt in order to improve your current rankings. We will be optimizing your website and then we will look into the off page SEO factors to grow your reputation and brand awareness.

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Online searches for finding a magician has increased by 486 percent between 2007 and 2017. This makes SEO to be the right marketing strategy for every magician in order to grow their business.

The key to growing your website’s traffic and grab new clients with SEO for magician starts with targetting local search keywords.

Jobin John, an SEO professional & author advice for this niche is to create quality content and optimize the website for the audience.

Here are 10 local SEO tips for magicians to improve search rankings and get more clients.

1. Optimize Your Website

All pages on the website need to be optimized for visitors and also for search engines by doing so the website will be able to portray its relevance and importance which would help it to rank higher.

I recently did an SEO audit for a Magician in which I managed pinpoint things that were incorrect on the website from the SEO point of view and then created a road-map involving things that need to be done for the website to improve its rankings, you can watch the entire audit below.

The video showcases how to input the on-page SEO elements on the website and pass on the right signals to search engine crawlers. I also managed to check on the local map listing and found that the website did not have enough citations built for it, you can do a quick check of your sites citation score using the free Yext Power Listing Scan or even the Moz Local Citation Checker.

When optimizing your website pay attention to these on-page SEO elements:

1. Website Structure: Robots.txt, 301 Redirects, sitemaps
2. Page Structure: URL’s, Alt Text, Meta tags, Meta Description, Page title
3. Unique Content: Add content that provides value to your visitors. You can also add video content.
4. Internal & External Links: Add relevant links to your website both third party links and also internal links from your own website to pages.
5. SSL Certificate: Make URL an HTTPS:// as Google has officially made this a ranking factor.
6. User Experience: Make your site mobile friendly.
7. Schema Markup: Add right schema markup to every page to tell search engines what the page is about.
8. OG Data: Add Open Graph Data to each page.
9. Website Speed: Make your website load under 3 seconds.
10. Keywords: Use relevant keywords within your content body and add LSI keywords.

This may not be easy to understand if you are not familiar with SEO thus I recommend hiring an SEO expert to get this done for you. However, if you are an SEO professional then these factors would be easier to accomplish.

2. Register Your Business on Google

When you search on Google for a local service or product you would see a local map listing with 3 businesses listed on it. This is called the local map pack and sometimes referred as Google map pack.

In order to get listed on Google, you first need to register your business on Google and then optimize your business listing for better local map pack ranking.

If you optimize your listing the right way and showcase your website and services as a dominant one you will surely get into the local map pack.

Once, you have successfully registered your business the next step is to add images, content and business information to your listing. Furthermore, you would then collect genuine reviews for your business in order to get highlighted as an expert in the industry.

Here are few tips to guide you through the process:

1. Add images to your business listing, this involves adding internal images, external images, team images and more. I would recommend adding around 10 images per category.
2. Check your business information, you need to ensure that your listing has the right information such as your address, phone number, and the website. Furthermore, add the right business timings along with appointment URL. Normally Google does send out a postcard to your address to verify the location thus ensure that you enter the right format.
3. Create a Google Website inside your business listing, when you sign up for Google my business you will have a feature called website which allows you to create a website within your dashboard and you can easily add relevant information on there.
4. Add posts to your business profile from time to time. This is a new feature that came out this year in which you can add posts to your listing, this way you will get relevant exposure and your content can directly reach the right people looking for it.

Registering your business on Google is really important in order to get hired locally, as most of the people search for local magicians that are located nearby. This gives customers an assurance that the performer will be available and can be easily reached.

3. Get Your Business into Directories

As a Magician you need to gain more exposure, it is good to register your business on relevant directories and listings, here are the guidelines to get it done the right way:

1. Search online with keywords like “Magician Directory”, “List of Local Magicians”, “[City]+Magician”, “Magician Listings”, “Business Directory”, “[city]+Directory”, “[city]+register business”. Now you will see many directories and listings around your business. Make a list of these sites on an excel file.
2. Compile your business information in the same format as on your Google business listing. The key here is to ensure that when you register on these directories you need to use the exact information and format that you used when registering for the GMB listing. Your business name, address, phone number, and website URL format should be exactly the same.
3. Add images & logos on every profile that you create. You need to create a professional and an expert portfolio of your business online. In order to accomplish this, you need to showcase your performances with the help of images & videos. The logo acts as a branding factor on these business directories & listings.

Here are some directories for magicians that you may consider registering on:

1. magician-directory.com
2. magicshow.com
3. everymagician.com
4. magiciansandmagic.com/magicians-directory
5. magictalent.com
6. gigmasters.com
7. Yelp
8. Whitepages
9. Local.com
10. MagicYellow
11. Craigslist
12. Superpages
13. Better Business Bureau
14. Thumbtack
15. Yellow Pages

There two benefits of registering on these directories & listings, one is that you increase your chances of been seen by potential customers and two this method will also help you boost your ranking on the local map pack.

4. Start a Blog

A website blog is a great way to share your knowledge, skills & experience in the industry. You can connect with your audience and build trust with your blog content.

There are many ways to make your blog effective and relevant and here are a few strategies to make your blog stand out from the crowd:

1. Provide value with your content. When writing a blog post you need to analyze your readers and find out who will read that particular post and how can they benefit from it. As a professional magician, you can write about some common magic tricks and teach simple tricks to your audience this would definitely bring more traffic to your website and build your reputation online. This is one of the examples you can use however let your imagination run wild and find more ways you can provide helpful content through your blog.
2. Add videos to your blog. Videos are a great way to connect with potential customers, you can showcase your talent. You can start a channel on sites like YouTube and do weekly magic tricks on there and share it on your blog. When posting videos on your blog you also need to add text content to it in order to get better exposure in search results. A good example would be to create a video with the subject top 7 card tricks, now you can create a video around this topic and also write a nice article around the subject and publish it on your blog.
3. Share your blog posts on social media. Writing good content is definitely the key however you also need to ensure that you share your blog posts on social media. Many people spend a lot of time on social media channels and browse through fresh and entertaining content, therefore, sharing your posts on these channels would definitely provide a boost to your blog.

When writing a blog post you also need to focus on entering relevant keywords inside the content body of your article.

This way search engines would rank you higher for those particular keywords. Also, ensure you write at least one blog post every week this way you have loyal visitors to your site who are looking for fresh and unique content.

5. Generate Video Content

Videos are the new marketing trend and can help you reach a huge number of people interested in hiring magicians.

Due to its importance, you need to:

1. Register your YouTube channel using your brand name.
2. Create videos regularly for your channel.
3. Focus on live streaming videos rather than uploading pre-recorded videos.
4. Add tags to your videos.
5. Add a detailed description to every video you upload or live stream.
6. Share your video on social media channels.
7. Add an interesting title to your video which grabs attention.

There different types of videos you can add to your channel such as:

1. Stage performance
2. Interviews with other magicians
3. Street performance
4. Question & answering rounds
5. List videos (e.g., “7 top card magic tricks”)

Just like search engine rankings, video rankings are also important therefore optimizing your videos play a vital role in the marketing process.

The most important factors being adding keywords you want to rank for in the title of your video, adding a lengthy description to your video explaining the video content and also adding relevant tags to your video.

6. Build Social Engagement

Social media strength is a ranking factor, this is not directly connected to boost rankings but is vital as it helps you:

1. Build your reputation & authority.
2. Reach your potential customers.
3. Grow your website traffic.
4. Brand your business.
5. Get more exposure.

There are tons of social media sites out there for you to promote your website on and grab new clients. Facebook, Google+ & Twitter can be used to share relevant blog posts, video links. You can join various groups & communities related to your niche and share your content even further.

Just like YouTube, you can also share your video content on Facebook and show your skills to a greater audience.

You can also use Instagram & Pinterest to share some interesting images and grab some attention.

When posting on social media ensure that you enter proper hashtags to your posts and tag relevant people to your social media shares.

I would recommend to manually post all your content to social media sites rather than using automated services like Buffer or Hootsuite.

You would get more exposure if you add a unique description to each of your posts.

7. Make Your Site Mobile Friendly

A new mobile model is being manufactured right now as you read this article. Billions of your potential customers search the web looking for a magician to hire on their mobile phones and when they stumble on your site you need to ensure that it is optimized for their devices and makes it easier for them to make inquiries and bookings.

Mobile searches have evolved from the traditional search to voice-enabled searches which means this is definitely the time when business owners should optimize their websites for mobile phones.

When optimizing your website for mobile devices keep these factors in mind:

1. Responsive web design
2. Mobile site’s speed
3. Homepage design
4. Friendly navigation
5. Booking & contact forms
6. Easier search feature
7. Call-To-Action

Just like the desktop version of your magician website mobile version needs to be optimized as well. Optimize images that appear in the mobile view by compressing them as this would make the site load faster on mobile devices.

You need to make it easier for customers to make a booking or to contact you using their mobile devices in order to do this add a call-to-action feature to the mobile version of your site.

You can also make phone numbers clickable on mobile devices so that customers call you in just one click.

I would recommend following all the parameters in step 1 when optimizing your website for mobile devices.

8. Add Schema Markup

Search engines crawl your website and try to figure out what your website and the pages are all about, in order to make things easier for them you can add schema markup code to your website pages. This avoids search engines to get confused between any closely related pages and ranks relevant pages for the targeted keywords.

As a Magician, you can add the following Schema markups to your pages:

1. EntertainmentBusiness
2. PerformAction
3. ProfessionalService
4. LocalBusiness
5. BlogPosting
6. AggregateRating
7. Event
8. VideoObject

You can visit schema.org to get an insight into adding schema markup to your website and once you are done adding it, I recommend visiting Google structured data testing tool to test your website’s schema for any errors or warnings.

In order to add the right markup to your web page, you need to understand every markup carefully and then go ahead with it.

9. Perform Keyword Research

When it comes to SEO it’s all about keywords, as a magician, you would want to rank for keywords like:

1. hire a magician
2. party magician
3. local magician
4. Best magician in [city name]
5. wedding magician
6. local magicians near me

You can use these keywords on the specific pages that you created on your website however you cannot really over flood the page with the same keyword, therefore, we need to perform keyword research to find relevant keywords that can be used inside the content of your website.

You need to mix your main keyword with long tail keywords in your web pages and in order to do so you need to:

1. Visit UberSuggest and enter your main keyword and hit search. This would give you a list of keywords closely related to your main keyword, you may have to filter out the keywords first.
2. Copy and paste all the keywords into an excel file and then add them to Google Keyword Planner. This would tell you the number of people searching for this particular keyword online.
3. Rearrange the keywords based on the search volume.
4. Now, when you start writing content for your website add the most searched keywords between the first 100 words. Ensure you enter it naturally and not stuff it in.
5. Use the other keywords in the lower section of the web page, however, ensure you add each and every keyword in the form of natural sentences.

You can also use tools KWFinder to find more keywords related to your topic that you want to rank for. If you need some ideas on how to use these keywords then visit BuzzSumo and type in your keyword in the search bar and then it would show you a list of articles recently written around that keyword and shared by people online.

10. Grab Media Attention

When you start getting featured on media sites and press releases that’s when you can really say that you have made it. The importance of media sources writing about you as a magician has enormous benefits and high branding value.

It would be wrong to say that a magician cannot get a press release until they have done something unique or extraordinary. There are a few ways you can get a press release even earlier in your magician’s career like:

1. Talk to your local media house. Local media houses are looking for interesting things to write about all the time, therefore, the chances of them posting an article about you as a magician are surely possible. To make things easier you can write an amazing article yourself about your career in the local area and how you are making a difference.
2. Visit HARO. It stands for Helping a Reporter Out and is an awesome platform to collaborate with reporters. Visit HARO’s website and create an account as a resource and then find reporters looking for news on magic or magicians, then submit an awesome article answering their question. It is likely that
3. Throw a free show for local reporters. If you have the time and can spend a few bucks then this one is definitely for you. First, target a media house or local magazine or even a local news agency that is really famous in your area. Now, find out the list of reporters that write about entertainment or events or exiting stuff for that particular agency. Now, send out an email or a physical invitation card offering them a free lunch and a magic show. This would invite a lot of local reporters with whom you can socialize and connect. Eventually, you will get a sweet spot in their articles.
4. Get paid inclusions. A lot of magazines and press sites do offer paid article postings and media coverage. If your local media or news agency does the same which is most likely for them to do, then simply pay some money and get yourself featured in their next issue.

Many magicians in the past and even now have benefitted from this method and it still works like a charm. Many people prefer local news ahead of national news thus getting yourself into these channels would definitely build your reputation and brand you as a professional.

Conclusion,

By using these SEO for magician tips to grow your website traffic and gain new clients. You will also be able to rank higher in search results by using these strategies.

The competition is definitely fierce however be rest assured if you work hard and are loyal to your profession then there is no stopping you regardless of how big the competition is.

If you optimize your website and use apply SEO the right way then you can beat the big names in the industry without much effort.

Some of the strategies mentioned here do require deep SEO skillset, therefore, do contact an SEO professional before you start search engine optimization for your website. As in this industry, mistakes can really cost you a lot and a good SEO expert will ensure you don’t make any errors and move in the right direction.