I’ve got it.

It’s the secret sauce for SEO or Search Engine Optimization in the 21st century for Broadway shows, Off Broadway shows, and any small business trying to attract an audience.

Countless companies spend more than countless hours and beaucoup de bucks trying to find out the latest black hat or white hat strategy to get their website to the top of the Google rankings for a specific search term.

And it made sense to make that kind of investment.  Just imagine how much money you could make if your show’s site came up first when someone searched for Broadway Show or Off Broadway show or diamond engagement ring.  It’s free money.

And there was a time when that kind of time and energy worked.  Big time.

I know first hand because I used both above and below board tactics to get www.Awesome80sProm.com ranked at the very tippity top of the Google rankings for super valuable terms like “Bachelorette Party” and even better “Bachelorette Party New York.”

That web work I did helped make that site and that show New York City’s #1 Bachelorette Party Destination for years.

But just a few years later, the site is nowhere near the first page of Google.  And, as I wrote about last year, it’s one of the reasons the show reduced its schedule from every week, to just once a month.

Google smartened up.  They got wise to all of the tactics internet marketing companies and folks like me were using.  They changed up their algorithms so we would not only not get rewarded from some of that SEO work, but we’d also get penalized.  Bad news bears.  And now they change up the policy of what gets a top rated Google ranking so often you can’t keep up (I believe what matters most is a site that is news focused instead of brand focused and updates its content frequently).

So what’s my SEO secret?  What do I do to make sure I don’t end up in another situation like I did with Prom?

It’s simple.  And it doesn’t have anything to do with SEO.

Double your email list.

The SEO game is too hard to play nowadays.  So go back to how we started internet marketing.  Build your email list.

I’m so amazed that Broadway shows fail to put a big effort into building a simple permission based marketing system like an email list, that would allow the show to drip market to interested parties over time.  Email works.

This is an especially important strategy for those of you out there that are looking to produce or write more than one show in your lifetime.  Because you can take your list with you (subject to CAN-SPAM laws, of course).

So the secret to SEO is to forget about it and just go back to coming up with ways to double your email list every year.

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