A guide to affordable and effective websites for musicians

Following on from the previous post which highlighted how many artists don't have their own band website, is this great post from Ariel Hyatt.

Astonished by the number of artists that she met on a trip to Australia who had no web presence of their own, she put together this great guide on how to get a Wordpress based site up and working in no time and at very little cost.

It's well worth checking out the older post on Music Think Tank that she links to in the first few lines as well - it proves the need for multiple online presences.

I got a slap in the face in Perth, Australia two weeks ago.  I went there to talk about Apps, Foursquare, and advanced web marketing strategies.

I had many one-on-one sessions with artists and a vast majority had a big problem:

They didn’t have web sites.

When I say they don’t have web sites, I mean they’re only using MySpace and Facebook.  Which is a critical mistake. See here why: http://bit.ly/musicadiumpaper

I’m not saying this to make anyone wrong or to be righteous.   Websites, as I soon found out in Australia, are very expensive to build with local web designers. A few artists showed me quotes of $5,000 for a website. It’s not 1997 anymore and those quotes are not OK.

An effective website can be created $20 or less a month with no upfront costs

Read the whole post here.

And, if you do go the Wordpress route (which we think you should) it might well be worth your while investing $47 in this great Wordpress Theme that makes building your band website very easy. Specifically designed for musicians, it is very easy to use.

Learn more about it here.

Band websites - the basics!

Image by Alex E.Proimos

I just got off the phone with an old friend who didn't know what we had been doing with Make It In Music.

I had released a great record for her maybe 10 years ago - she's talented and definitely not stupid, but she is rubbish with technology! I'm not going to embarass her though and point you in her direction.

Why? Two reasons. First, she doesn't have a website for her music for me to point you to!!!!! Second, I'm not taking the piss out of anyone - we all have lots to learn.

The thing is, she is totally capable of doing what she needs to do with technology - everyone is - she just needs to believe it and give it a go.

She has a new album about to be self-released and was calling me up for some of the cuff advice on how to promote it - when it transpired that she had no website and that her email list was in her email client and she emailed them all by using 'BCC', we didn't get to any promotion advice!

I told her to drop everything, build a website that gave away music in exchange for email addresses and then worry about promotion!

Here's the email I just sent her after we spoke:

Buy your domain name here - Namecheap

You'll need to point the domain name to the hosting you buy - this is called Nameservers. Search their support FAQ or Google.

Buy hosting here - Hostgator

It is relatively easy to install wordpress on the hosting and make that your site - you're looking for 'Fantastico Deluxe' icon in the hosting control panel. Again - look at their FAQ and talk to support - they are ace.

In your position - look at Nimbit. Maybe use their instant website - Nimbit

This has it all - digital and physical sales, exchanging an email address for songs for free, website theme. And it will grow with you.

You must put your email addresses in a system - if you don't go with Nimbit, for you I like FanBridge.

I normally recommend Aweber -  but knowing your fear of technology I think you'll worry about having emails in one place and site stuff in another - although, again their support is ace and it is actually easy to use.

Then on your Facebook page use DamntheRadio - which links with FanBridge or RootMusic's BandPage - which doesn't, but I'd use that if you've gone Nimbit. Nimbit also has stuff that works in Facebook.

The key is - band website, email system collecting names - interact with the fans as you do already. Give free music and get them involved.

Come back to me when that's in place and we'll talk about promotion!

So, I hope she's doing that right now.

I forget that there are people who should know better who aren't even doing this basic step. And many are super talented.

Please send them to read this post!

 

Nimbit's Instant Band Website

We mentioned this before.

But, if you're a DIY musician, you HAVE to have a solution that sells your music.

Nimbit is a great option as it integrates selling direct-to-fan from your own site with an email list builder and all sorts of cool stuff.

They now have what they call 'Instant band Website' which is a Wordpress plug-in that drags info from your Nimbit dashboard to automatically build a website.

As we were talking about the need for a band website the other day I thought that this, as one of the obvious solutions, deserved a walk through. Luckily enough the person who built the plugin has done just that.

Watch to see how easy it is to get it all to work together and to get your band website live. Nimbit has a free option that includes the site but you will need to pay for your domain and hosting.

Check Nimbit out.

Have you got your domain?

I was banging on about band website seo the other day and was shocked by mail that I got telling me that many artists didn't have the skills to buy a domain and build a very basic site.

We'll be looking at that issue further in the future.

For now, go and read this post on buying your domain name from the Good Lizard Media blog - Have you got your domain?

BTW, I buy all my domains from Namecheap. They are and it's all you need!

Remember, domain from one company and hosting from another (Hostgator) to avoid nightmares if you get a problem with one or the other.

Hostgator extend 50% off offer for Cyber Monday

Just a heads up - we mentioned this hosting offer on Friday.

Look at my post again and read the comment that I added yesterday - I was shocked by some of the questions people had about building their artists website.

50% off Hostgator hosting here.