As an independent best spiritual movies all-time I have recently changed my entire belief system on how to market movies. It has been a radical shakeup from how I used to think. In the past I would hire a web designer to create a movie site that had a synopsis, movie poster, key cast and crew bios with photos, and trailer. Until recently I had no idea how to get traffic to the site to attract viewers and increase online movie sales. I had a site out there and was hoping visitors would stumble upon it. Not the best online marketing strategy to follow, but at that point in time I did not know any better.
There was no way an indie film marketing budget could afford to pay for a public relations firm to ignite a buzz, radio ads, or run a trailer on television spots. The studio method to marketing big budget movies does not work for independently produced movies. Friend Tim Beachum aka The SEO Bully has been online marketing for 10 years strong. He looked at what I was doing with my site and asked if I wanted to learn how to market movies online using search engine optimization, specifically SEO tactics and online tools to enhance a movie site.
The crash course I received from The SEO Bully on how to market movies online was awesome and changed how I thought as a producer. The most powerful thing I learned was that a website without aggressive SEO marketing will go undiscovered by online viewers. The biggest mistake I was making was focusing on only the visual design of a creating a site. No matter how great a site looks it still needs to be marketed online. Here are a few useful tips I learned during my crash course on learning how to market movies online:
• Keep your movie site domain name short, simple, and easy to type into a search engine browser.
• Do keyword research on what words or phrases people are typing into search engines to find certain types of movies like yours.
• Use meta tags, targeted keywords, and short descriptions for each page on your movie site to increase search engine visibility.
• Provide visitors with an opt-in list to build a movie fanbase.
• Build quality backlinks to your movie site to increase search engine ranking.
I will never market any future Slice Of Americana Films titles like I have in the past. I love the creative side of writing, producing, and directing movies, but now realize the only way to attract viewers across the globe is by using SEO methods. When SEO marketers talk about products and customers I mentally flip the switch to movies and viewers. The same Internet marketing strategies apply and work. This is indie filmmaker Sid Kali typing FADE OUT: