Link to CD Baby and Increase Your Album Sales

By
May 11, 2011{ 31 Comments }

link Link to CD Baby and Increase Your Album Sales

Increase Your Sales in One Quick Minute with CD Baby’s Link Maker

You may have heard the quote, “You can lead a thirsty horse to water but you can’t make him drink.”  Well, we don’t know much about horses per se, but in the world of indie-music marketing it is truly shocking how many artists aren’t even leading their metaphorical horses to the allegorical water.

After all, people won’t buy your music if they don’t know that they CAN buy it. Time and time again, we see artists forgetting to tell their fans how and where to purchase their albums and downloads. Heck, we’ve even noticed that some very well respected, successful artists have been guilty of this oversight.

When you’re managing your own career there are a million little items on your DIY to-do list, so it is easy to let things slip through the cracks. But this one isn’t optional. Linking fans to your CDBaby.com album page is a MUST. The good news is that it’ll only take you a minute and you’ll immediately see traffic to your CD Baby page go up!

Use CD Baby’s Linkmaker

CD Baby makes it simple for you. All you’ve got to do is use our Link Maker to generate a graphic hyperlink that comes customized with your album artwork.

1. Click here: http://members.cdbaby.com/link.
2. Type in your artist or album name and click “submit.”
3. Once you’ve located the appropriate title, click “select.”
4. Choose your favorite design from the selections and copy the HTML code to the right.
5. Paste that code into your website, social networking profiles, emails, or any other place that takes HTML.

Use CD Baby’s Store Widget

1. Click here: http://members.cdbaby.com/link to log in to your account.
2. Click the Widget Store Button on the top left
3. Choose your Widget type and colors
4. Copy the resulting code and paste it into any HTML enabled website.

For more detailed instructions see here.

You can even put it on Facebook! See this tutorial.

Presto! Now your fans wont have any trouble finding your music. Now you just need to convince them to drink it

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Kevin Breuner's Author Bio

  • http://www.loriaecker.com Lori Ecker

    I tried to use the Linkmaker feature on my website, but I must not be doing it right or putting it in the right place. It just comes up as the text for the hyperlink. Is there something I’m missing? I tried it on my products page and home page. Thanks in advance for your assistance.

    Lori Ecker

  • http://www.melissapage.com Melissa

    What about when using a web program like mac’s iWeb which use a simple template system. In the version I have, I am unable to insert html code.

  • Dave

    Same for me. It just lists the HTML. I might as well just post my URL if the HTML doesn’t work. My URL is shorter anyway. Great concept though!

  • http://www.johnpopovich.com John Popovich

    Nice try. How can I do this using iWeb? Love to use it as part of my signature on emails…..how do I do that? Love to attach it to my Facebook and mySpace page…..couldn’t figure that out either. HELP!!!

  • http://www.openupyourheart.net Kristy

    Lori,
    I had the same problem with the Linkmaker. Still haven’t figured it out!

  • http://myspace.com/tdleroy Terence Degnan

    Can you make something easy for Facebook, the social networking site that everyone is using?

    TD

  • Emilia

    I also tried to use the Linkmaker feature on my website and it just comes up as the hyperlink text.
    Any idea how to solve this problem?

  • http://www.jazzgal.com karen

    I can’t insert the button either, just comes up as the Html text, no image. Can you guys just make an image we can copy and drop? I would really like to get this going!
    Thanks,

  • mike

    Very lame, CDBaby. Doesn’t work when pasted into my email. You can do better than this.

  • admin

    Mike – Email does not work like an HTML website. In order to paste the linkmaker (which uses HTML) into an email, you will need to use an email management program.

  • admin

    For those of you using iWeb, the latest version of iWeb uses what the call the HTML Snippet Widget. To see that, click the Show Media button at the bottom of the iWeb edit screen. From there, select the Widget tab. You’ll see the HTML Snippet widget on that page. Just click on that, and a window will open up in which you will paste your HTML code.

    I know this is possible in older version of iWeb, but I think it’s a little more complicated.

  • admin

    IT”S IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER: Just because you can paste text somewhere on a website, does not mean that the website will accept HTML in that window.

    If you’re having trouble using the linkmaker double check the following

    1. The site you are using allows users to use HTML code – Some sites like MySpace have certain windows that accept codes, and others that don’t.
    2. You copied the entire section of code. If you forget on simple character, the linkmaker will not work

  • http://myspace.com/organdonorsbandtucson J.O. Teague

    How about starting with specific instructions on how to use this with a MySpace or Facebook band page?

  • http://www.laurasiersema.com Laura Siersema

    hi–
    could you give specific instructions for getting the link onto facebook? i am not finding where you can do this–
    thanks!
    laura

  • http://www.myspace.com/jencharlton Jen Charlton

    Thank goodness I’m not the only one having problems. Love the look of it – but can’t get it to work on Facebook or anywhere else. Any solutions?
    Jen

  • http://loren@lorendigiorgi.com Loren

    Works great! On iWeb it’s very simple; just drag an html widget to the spot you want it to appear and then paste the code.

    My only complaint is that the link maker is nowhere to be found in our artist account pages at CD Baby. I had to Google it ti find the link for it. CD Baby, prominently put the link for your link maker on our artist accounts!

  • http://www.invisipics.com Richard Morgan

    Hey Guys,

    There’s a great little program for Mac users called Hyperedit by Tumult which enables you to see the HTML code to the left of your screen and the final appearance of the page on the right, so no more fancy footwork going back and forward betwen screens. it only costs $25 so it won’t ruin you. Of course, you need to know what you’re doing with HTML

    And in case you’re wondering, no, I don’t have shares in Tumult ! But come to think of it, it might be a good idea.

    Love

    Richard

  • http:cdbaby.comcdrobbiealan Robbie Alan

    I had a problem with the link maker myself
    but it’s pretty easy to do, you just copy
    and paste. Make sure you have a HTML compatible
    spot to paste it on.

    When you write your comments make sure to
    include your website or page so people can
    check out your music. They can’t buy it if
    they can’t find it.

  • Robbie Alan

    http:\\www.cdbaby.com/cd/robbiealan.
    Time to get a new computer.

  • http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/robbiealan Robbie Alan

    I think I got it. Just one of those days.
    cdbaby will help you with any problem you might have,
    they helped me before.

  • http://www.boardbooksforbabies.net baby won t sleep

    Its ridiculous how many bloggers and people have varying ideas when it comes to this topic. At last a normal reponse!

  • http://www.myspace.com/tamsinsa Tamsin M

    Hi,

    I have been trying, unsuccessfully, along with a few others I see, to use your link tool in Myspace and Facebook.

    Please oh please will someone at Cdbaby help us?? Great service otherwise :)

    Thanks,
    Tamsin M.

    • Chris R. at CD Baby

      Hey Tamsin,

      Our linkmaker tool only works in places that accept HTML. MySpace recently changed their profile system, and I’m not sure if they are HTML-enabled anymore. I just posted an article on our blog at http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2010/12/keeping-pace-with-myspace/ that has links to new MySpace tutorials and such. Check those out and see if you can embed that link in your profile’s code. Also, on Facebook, if you’re trying to put a link in your feed/wall, no need to use our linkmaker. You can simply put the URL in the “What’s on your mind?” box and it’ll create the link for you.

  • http://www.andreawittgens.com Andrea

    Thanks for all the info Chris – So, am I right in assuming that, aside from pasting a link into the news feed or wall, there isn’t a place on FB where I can paste CDbaby’s link so that it just sits there in view all the time (because the news feed and wall comments will get out of date pretty quickly…I’d like to have the buttons immediately accessible to visitors…

    Thanks for your help!

    Andrea

    • Chris R. at CD Baby

      Hey Andrea, you can use the iFrames app to put HTML links (including our CD Baby links) onto your Facebook page. It will be just one tab/section of your page, though. It won’t sit there on the side of all the different sections of your facebook page.

  • Woody

    I just tried to make a Facebook/CD Baby music store and didn’t get very far. After following the instructions to add Static HTML: iFrames Tab it flipped me to my fan pg but didn’t give me a window to add content. I backed up and tried again, but now now fan pg doesn’t populate in the drop down menu, so the app must think it is installed? There are no new buttons on the side. So what do I do now?

    • http://members.cdbaby.com CD Baby Admin

      Did you delete the app and start from scratch?

  • http://members.cdbaby.com CD Baby Admin

    Nicely done.

  • Kevin

    So curiously, is there a way to link to the artist page instead of a particular album? I see in the link maker heading a button that says “buy mp3s” but when I use the link maker, it only lets me choose an album, not my artist page, and the “buy mp3s” button is not an option anywhere?
    Thanks,

    Kevin
    http://www.kevindunlop.com

    • http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/author-chris-robley Christopher Robley

      Hmm. Great question. I don’t think we’ve designed an artist page link yet. BUT… you can see in the code the URL to which the graphic links. If you just switch that URL for your artist page, it should work the way you want. Just a little work-around!

      • http://www.kevindunlop.com/ Kevin

        Thanks Christopher, I actually ended up using one of the logos from the cdbaby.biz area. I’d love to be able to link to my artist page and use my profile picture too.. something hopefully cd baby will integrate soon…

        Thanks again,

        Kevin