Weststarx Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 Howdy Partners, I'm looking into getting a website set up for my covers band. Has anyone got any experience of who are the best/cheapest companies to use to set one up? And also do you think its worth getting a website when you have the likes of Facebook, Soundcloud etc? Thanks guys Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andydye Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 (edited) Thus far my originals band have facebook, twitter, soundcloud, instagram and an email address (only an outlook.com but better than nowt) and everything is free so far, at some point I know we'll have to have a proper website but there are costs involved with that so [b]I'm interested to see what advice pops up in this thread[/b] As we see it (so far): facebook is excellent for demonstrating an 'online presence' and the number of likes & folks talking about you can be a decent measure of potential draw at a gig; soundcloud is an excellent place to put a couple of demo tracks for anyone considering booking you to hear what you sound like and how competent you managed to be on the recording; twitter, I reckon this is most useful for folks keeping up to date with any gigs you've got coming up and any announcements you make instagram, is a bit crappy but works nicely with twitter for bunging occasional random pics out band email, really handy for bookings and also for sending out any other email info to a list of folks who aren't necessarily on facebook... at some point we need to sort out a youtube for the band but I haven't quite fathomed that one yet once we get a website it should be made to work with all of the above as a central point for all the info and some expanded biography info and gig history etc... Edited April 30, 2014 by andydye Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingraybassman Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 Websites are a subjective beast. I think as a start point social media is brilliant for building interest. If you get to a point where your following is building nicely, then a website makes sense. If you are trying to get functions/paid gigs then I would imagine it becomes a fairly essential tool. I guess you need to weigh up the expense involved, I have seen some sites that have cost a fortune that are awful so be weary would be my advice. And remember you want to be able to add content to it easily. Do you have a logo you are using? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weststarx Posted April 30, 2014 Author Share Posted April 30, 2014 [quote name='stingraybassman' timestamp='1398853812' post='2438213'] Websites are a subjective beast. I think as a start point social media is brilliant for building interest. If you get to a point where your following is building nicely, then a website makes sense. If you are trying to get functions/paid gigs then I would imagine it becomes a fairly essential tool. I guess you need to weigh up the expense involved, I have seen some sites that have cost a fortune that are awful so be weary would be my advice. And remember you want to be able to add content to it easily. Do you have a logo you are using? [/quote] Indeed, I've seen a fair few duff one as well, but i'm the type thats not happy with something till its perfect haha! Logo's is something that we've been discussing but noone can agree on - typically. I'm half tempted to just use one and make the descision for everyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kraken Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 in previous Bands it was always about keeping it up to date and current as easily as possible, which basically meant updates from mobile phones or existing band sites, so we ended up with a site that used Reverbnation, Twitter, one of the Blog websites, had links to the online Music purchase sites amongst others. I think the site is still up [url="http://www.thinkingfortuesday.com"]www.thinkingfortuesday.com[/url] the band is no longer working but the site is still good. that said I'm not sure how much longer the site will still be there for as I think it is up for renewal this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 I'd just put your logo on a page, then a link to all the social media sites. Embed a feed from twitter or facebook, stick your email address on there and you're done! Obviously it'd be nice to have a full site with "bio" and "gallery" and whatever you want to put on Not sure if this is a good example or not but this is the most recent site I did www.headsticks.co.uk and I think it works well enough although it's not well linked in to social media. It's just very, very simple Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charic Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 The reverbnation sites are pretty good [url="http://www.faintlines.com"]www.faintlines.com[/url] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Carter Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 I've built quite a few band sites in my time (for my bands and for others) as well as other business sites. You could probably get away with an about.me page in the first instance. A good background image, bio and links to all your media outputs should build you come interest. mine is [url="http://lcarter.co.uk/"]here[/url] to give you an idea After that I would suggest going for a good WordPress template and then linking in as many of your social accounts for content as possible.There are plugins available for most social sites and you can even auto post site news back to the social sites to attract traffic. If you want to do everything on site you can as well, a good plugin for gig listings is Gigpress. here's one I put together for a friend recently : [url="http://lavendorerogue.com/"] clickety click[/url] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cat Burrito Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 My band with the indie deal has a webpage that cost a few hundred and my knockabout band has a free site where we paid a few quidd for the domain name. I think the expensive site looks good but is a real battle to upload new information (designed by a computer programmer who forgets we're all simple musicians). The other band literally has all of 2 pages and serves a purpose. I agree that in an age of Twitter and Facebook they are less essential but both direct people to see us on the various social networking sites, can sell merch and have the capacity to capture those who don't tweet etc. I think they are a good idea. Googling cheap easy band sites or similar should get you started. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesBass Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 It depends on WHY you want a website. What would you have on there? Are all of your relevant details available elsewhere online? Do you sell merchandise etc.? I'm in the process of building my own personal website dedicated to my bass playing, teaching, promotions work, management work and my engineering work. So basically my website will serve as an online CV and promotions tool. It's gonna cost me a grand total of £100 for 2 years domain rights and hosting. I'm gonna be using HostPapa for my host as it offers me EVERYTHING I need, I can build a website using code or templates or even wordpress. So there's flexibility there. I can also link in my social media profiles so people can find me in every possible way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dand666 Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 I agree with JamesBass. What would a Website do differently to social media sites? We only play weddings/functions and we have gotten all of our own work off social media sites. When going on agencies, you can't have the same band name so you will have to change that, so having a website for us is pointless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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