NOTE: I love a "two-fer". I write content on two different blogs: The Plannedscape blog on technology and The Bigfellas "Words About Music" blog. This week, I've got a topic that fits into both perfectly, so we'll run it at both. Now that's synergy.


I'm both a software developer and a musician so I think I'm fairly well qualified to write this piece (unlike some of my other posts). We're talking about what you should do for a band or musical artist's website.

Yes, I'll be writing most of this in the 2nd person.


Goals

As with any site, you should 1) Figure out what you want the site to accomplish (sales, awareness, engagement, etc.), and then 2) Determine your audience.

In the case of a music site here are your likely two broad aims:

Attracting New Fans - These are people who haven't been to a show of yours or bought (or even heard) your music. Granted, somebody or something brought them to your site - whether it's word of mouth, a review, your music appearing in a tv show or from a paid online ad to attract them. You need to quickly get them to hear your music or see a video - then perhaps see some testimonials or some credible sources telling them why your band is good. These new people need a permission structure to think "I need to listen to this artist."

Engage With Current Fans - This is a different audience. These are people who already like your music or who have seen you perform. They might want to quickly see where you're performing next, what new music or video you have, or what's new in your world. Fans like this already like you so you want to serve up more of whatever it is that they already like about you.

These two goals are two different audiences. You'll have different pages or sections of your website for these two groups. But that shouldn't be as hard as it seems. You just need to organize your site well and include good menus so everybody gets what they need quickly.


What Goes At The Top (Most Important)

Which of these two visitor types (new ones vs. existing fans) is going to be more patient? The current fans, obviously. So, you need to front-load the top of the site with music or video where it hits them in the face and can't be missed. (That said, don't have any music auto-play when they first get to the site. Everybody hates that.)

How Long Do You Have? - About 5 to 8 seconds is how long you have to win over a casual first-time viewer. Some experts say 5 seconds, others 8. Either way, that's not long. You have time to look like:
- A professional site
- Quick way to play your best music, either by audio or video.

That's really all you have time to do at the top. Everything else after that happens because they like what they heard or they're already a fan. You can put that content elsewhere on the page.

Do you think it's cool to have a cool landing page with your artist friend's amazing graphics or flash video that doesn't have your music? It's not. You just lost 30-40% of your first-time visitors. Which reminds me, have Google Analytics or some other data source to view all kinds of visitor information, especially average duration of stay.


Do You Really Need A Web Page

Can't you just rely on having a great Instagram or Facebook page? I could write 400 words on why you can't but instead I just want to say this: NO!!! Yes, you need good social media too, there are so many things like mailing lists, extra content, more customizable appearance, music players that you're going to want to be doing or you're just making huge unforced errors. You can only do most of those things with a website.

And until it changes, having a dedicated website shows that you're an artist that is serious about what you do, no matter how silly or carefree your music might be. If I'm booking talent, I'm avoiding the band without a website and I'm avoiding the band with an awful website.

Build Vs. Buy - Not everybody is both in software and music like me so it's unfair for me to assume that anybody in a band can build an effective website in HTML or PHP. There are two routes, pay somebody or do it yourself.

Paying Somebody: There are tons of well qualified and affordable web designers in your area; I would guess there are two of them right now in your nearest Starbucks. For $500-1000 you should be doing fine. By the way, just to get your band's website up, don't let somebody take you for a $3000 ride. That's too much for you.

D.I.Y.: There are so many CMS (Content Management System) out there. You want one that are easy enough to manage that you add the latest information yourself, like YouTube URL for new video, upload new songs, enter performance dates, etc. The other deal-breaker criteria is that you want it to be your website domain - e.g. www.yourbandname.com and not www.bandcamp.com/yourbandname.

Wix and Squarespace have band templates and are easy to use. Bandzoogle is focused on bands like the name implies. All good.

Or reach out to us at Plannedscape. We've done several band sites.


What Do We Judge About Bands From Their Sites

You can tell if a band is serious from their website. Here's a few quick ways I know this band is barely more than a garage band or hobby (this amounts to a Don't Do list):
- Terrible website design
- Too many colors. Design experts say you should use black, white, greys and two colors on your website.
- ALL CAPS
- Outdated calendar, blog or schedule
- Pointless bios (about how the guitarist fell in love with music at age 13 and info about his high school band)
- Autoplaying music when site first loads. Bye-bye.
- Landing page or stupid flash video at the top. Bye bye.


We’ll stop here and stop focusing on the negative/cheesy in some websites. Let’s try to get things right in Part 2 begnning May 23, 2024.