A website is one of the most important tools in the musician’s marketing arsenal. A website will make you appear more professional, it serves as a single, unifying platform for all your web presences, and it is a great tool to run promotions to engage your current fans and make new ones.
Basically, your website needs to accomplish two things:
1. Help you engage with fans and make new ones.
2. Make you money.
Creating a great website can be a daunting task for someone that doesn’t know anything about web design. But it doesn’t have to be! There are some great tools out there that enable you to make a great looking, affordable website for as little as $20 or less per month. You don’t need to shell out thousands of your hard-earned money to higher a web developer. Here’s how:
Step 1: You must have a domain name.
To register a domain name go to godaddy.com (USA) crazydomains.com.au (AUS)
Register the domain that you would like to use. I highly suggest a dot com (.com) with no slashes and underscores if possible.
TIP: You should also make sure that the YouTube, Twitter and Facebook page names match the URL that you purchased.
Step 2: Choose which payment option you would like.
Pay As You Go
A pay-as-you-go option with a web site builder can get you up and running very quickly and you won’t need a designer to build the site for you.
Here are my favorite 4 in alphabetical order. All 4 have excellent call-in customer service to help ease the confusion.
Bandzoogle – http://bandzoogle.com/
Their lite version starts at $9.95 per month easy to use and the first month is free!
Hostbaby – http://www.hostbaby.com/
Owned by CD Baby, you can store unlimited emails and send newsletters through your custom site. It costs $20 per month or $199 per year.
Reverbnation – http://www.reverbnation.com/band-promotion/sitebuilder
Reverbnation continues to te the one-stop shop for digital music marketing tools. Reverbnation’s Site Builder allows you to create a custom website that can utilize their full suite of tools, including Reverbnation’s Fan Reach (newsletter platform).
Spacecraft – http://gospacecraft.com
Spacecraft allows you to build a simple, highly customizable website with a responsive design that makes mobile browsing easy for your fans.
Working with a Web designer
I suggest crowdspring.com or LinkedIn for finding affordable WordPress designers. Make sure you read the designer’s reviews and see examples of his/her work before you hire him/her so you don’t get any unpleasant surprises.
TIP: Don’t pay more than $1,000 for a basic WordPress site.
TIP: Don’t work with an “artsy” web designer who does not build in WordPress because he will give you a flash movie intro or a complicated site. If you want artsy, buy a fabulous new outfit, or create a physical piece of merchandise using http://www.MerchLuv.com that’s really cool, and expresses who you are, but please don’t be “artsy” on your website.
Your website must be clear and functional!
To read the full article, and learn more about the content you should include on your website visit Cyber PR.
