Building band websites - what do you use?

[spinynorman]

Years ago I built our band website using Net Objects Fusion, then the band changed and we've been using Myspace for gig lists and song samples, while the old site just rots. So I thought I ought to do something about it and started looking at where the technology has got to since I last looked. And I feel rather swamped by the options - content managers like Joomla, CSS editors, Flash builders. So I wondered what anyone here is having success with. I taught myself HTML and Javascript a long time ago, but I'd rather not have to get too deep into syntax now, life's too short.

[bnt]

If it was my band, I would use my existing [url="http://wordpress.com/"]wordpress.com[/url] account and set it up there. You do everything online through a web browser, no need to install any software on the computer.

I like Wordpress because it's not just for blogs, you can put up loads of organised static pages, and also have a static home page if you want. With a free account you have some limitations, but you can pay a few bucks to have extras such as:
- more space and MP3 file hosting
- custom CSS, instead of one of their standard themes (though they are pretty good already)
- use a top-level domain name that you own, e.g. <band>.com instead of <band>.wordpress.com

[Sibob]

Myspace & Facebook!!

as if anyone looks at standard band websites anymore lol

Si

[bnt]

[quote name='Sibob' post='257458' date='Aug 7 2008, 06:26 PM']Myspace & Facebook!!

as if anyone looks at standard band websites anymore lol

Si[/quote]
Eh? Not everyone is into this whole "social networking" scam. MySpace and Facebook are ugly, inflexible sites that are there to extract info from you, and sell your eyeballs to advertisers. It's a fad with a couple more years left, so that's a cue to do something more solid, IMHO. If you build your own site from scratch, you can have total flexibility, including a proper site name (<band>.com), but that can take up too much time.

My suggestion of wordpress.com is somewhere in-between: simple at first, but more flexible if you want it to be. Put the website address on flyers etc., people will know where to look. Later, if you want, you can even set up your own site, install the Wordpress software, and migrate everything over easily.

Edited August 7, 2008 by bnt

[Dubs]

[quote name='bnt' post='257484' date='Aug 7 2008, 06:52 PM']Eh? Not everyone is into this whole "social networking" scam. MySpace and Facebook are ugly, inflexible sites that are there to extract info from you, and sell your eyeballs to advertisers. It's a fad with a couple more years left, so that's a cue to do something more solid, IMHO.[/quote]

As that may be, it’s pretty much the standard now though. Whenever we’re trying to get gigs we’re always asked for a myspace link, and it’s easy to tell people to go to myspace.com/…….. etc. Every ‘pro’ band has a myspace. Whether you agree with it or not, it’s pretty much the standard for every band at the moment given in the current commercial climate.

I agree they’re sh*t though

Edited August 7, 2008 by benwhiteuk

[Sibob]

My band still has a website, a .com, but it gets next to no traffic. We advertise it along with the myspace address and myspace takes all the hits!
Regardless of how long the 'fad' has left in it, I'd rather spend those 2 years taking advantage of it rather than flogging the current dead horse that is standard band websites, and missing out on all the potential publicity!

Si

[thepurpleblob]

My day job is developing web software, so if I've done a couple in the past just hand coding it - it's a lot of effort even if you know how. Depressingly, MySpace has consistently got a lot more activity. So... my advice, buid a simple page using a good memorable domain name (that looks better on business cards than a myspace link) with a picture of your band and a big link to myspace.

While we're at it.... never develop (or have developed) a website in Flash. No really, don't :-)

[thepurpleblob]

[quote name='Sibob' post='257496' date='Aug 7 2008, 07:09 PM']My band still has a website, a .com, but it gets next to no traffic. We advertise it along with the myspace address and myspace takes all the hits!
Regardless of how long the 'fad' has left in it, I'd rather spend those 2 years taking advantage of it rather than flogging the current dead horse that is standard band websites, and missing out on all the potential publicity!

Si[/quote]

Seeing as you mentioned it (and, please, no insult intended). Your web pages take *ages* to load (I didn't check why but I will if you like), the picture is missing and the show dates are a year old. I conclude your band is no longer in existence (if I bothered to wait for the page to load that is, which many won't). Whatever else you do, keep it simple, keep the information easy to find, up to date and don't do anything that'll make the punters stop looking.

Edited August 7, 2008 by thepurpleblob

[Sibob]

[quote name='thepurpleblob' post='257501' date='Aug 7 2008, 07:20 PM']Seeing as you mentioned it. Your web pages take *ages* to load (I didn't check why but I will if you like), the picture is missing and the show dates are a year old. I conclude your band is no longer in existence (if I bothered to wait for the page to load that is, which many won't). Whatever else you do, keep it simple, keep the information easy to find and don't do anything that'll make the punters stop looking.[/quote]

A sign of the severe lack on traffic going through it, whereas the myspace is updated daily if not hourly (much easier and quicker than standard websites) and has enough consistent traffic to keep us in the top 15 unsigned 'progressive' bands on myspace, we've previously been top 5 for weeks on end....no mean feat! I'm not bragging about 'how big we are' (because we're not), just commenting on the fair amount of consistent traffic going through the myspace.

When the album is complete, the website will be revamped with some relevant artwork and other bits and pieces, but will most probably just link directly to the myspace!

Oh and with regards to loading times...the myspace profile loads perfectly quickly on my lil 'ol laptop

Si

Edited August 7, 2008 by Sibob

[Raslee]

Moonfruit is worth a look, thats what i use.

[stingrayfan]

You can get something half decent together quickly on GoogleSites (used to be called GooglePages) for free - with no annoying ads or popups.

[pete.young]

[quote name='Sibob' post='257507' date='Aug 7 2008, 07:31 PM']A sign of the severe lack on traffic going through it, whereas the myspace is updated daily if not hourly (much easier and quicker than standard websites) and has enough consistent traffic to keep us in the top 15 unsigned 'progressive' bands on myspace, we've previously been top 5 for weeks on end....no mean feat! I'm not bragging about 'how big we are' (because we're not), just commenting on the fair amount of consistent traffic going through the myspace.

When the album is complete, the website will be revamped with some relevant artwork and other bits and pieces, but will most probably just link directly to the myspace!

Oh and with regards to loading times...the myspace profile loads perfectly quickly on my lil 'ol laptop

Si[/quote]

You completely missed the point of that helpful message. Either take your website down or update it - it looks like your band has folded, and anyone coming in through that route won't get as far as the myspace.

We find that we get far more bookings through the website than we do through the myspace pages. I guess it depends what kind of a band you are, and what kind of a website you have.

[OldGit]

Spinynorman _ What is your market? That will decide if you should have a real website plus myspace or just a Myspace.


Myspace(alone) is for bands who are looking to develop a following, draw their own crowd, play ALT or original type music and appeal to a young audience. That's until you get a record contract or big management to pay for a startling pro real website to work alongside your Myspace, have street team areas, downloads etc..


Real websites work much better for bands selling their services into the function market, weddings, clubs.
A myspace which [i]supports[/i] that marketing can be useful for the downloads etc but most pro bookers and mothers of brides are unlikely to book a band from a myspace page as the usability, contact info etc is hard to use until you've struggled through the awful way the information is laid out (and those illegibility backgrounds behind the text - aargh!)

Totally different markets and totally different marketing.

The Wordpress option sound interesting but can you control the SEO well enough? Does Google index it all?

SiBob - just make your old "real site" URL redirect to your myspace and remove the problem.

If you are doing a website (or a myspace) you may like to trawl through my
[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=142&st=0&p=936&#entry936"]OldGit's Band Website review and ideas thread[/url]
for some ideas.

Edited August 7, 2008 by OldGit

[bnt]

[quote name='OldGit' post='257670' date='Aug 7 2008, 11:06 PM']The Wordpress option sound interesting but can you control the SEO well enough? Does Google index it all?[/quote]
I suppose that depends on what you mean by SEO. It does get indexed by Google, it has categories & tagging, RSS feeds, it will ping Technorati etc. for you. If you mean aggressive SEO methods, googlebombing, tracker scripts, spamming, keyword stuffing, etc., then I don't think so.

[OldGit]

[quote name='bnt' post='257679' date='Aug 7 2008, 11:14 PM']I suppose that depends on what you mean by SEO. It does get indexed by Google, it has categories & tagging, RSS feeds, it will ping Technorati etc. for you. If you mean aggressive SEO methods, googlebombing, tracker scripts, spamming, keyword stuffing, etc., then I don't think so. [/quote]


Nah I just mean the standard stuff .. can you control the title , description and ALT tags so you can control the google results page stuff for your site...
When mother of the bride searches for "wedding band solihull" will google return your site -
That sort of thing.

I was asking because of the line about having a real url rather than a wordpress url - sounded like one of those url masking activities Google hates ..

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

I use WordPress for all the sites I make now.

For the [url="http://www.o5b.co.uk"]obviously 5 believers[/url] site: I used WordPress with various plugins for things like audio players, Gig Listings, Google maps, contact form & paypal payments.

[thepurpleblob]

[quote name='pete.young' post='257641' date='Aug 7 2008, 10:13 PM']You completely missed the point of that helpful message. Either take your website down or update it - it looks like your band has folded, and anyone coming in through that route won't get as far as the myspace.

We find that we get far more bookings through the website than we do through the myspace pages. I guess it depends what kind of a band you are, and what kind of a website you have.[/quote]

Yep - that's the one

Another little point common on band websites... and my personal favorite (not done on this site by the way) is - "our next gig is 29th September!!". Turns out it was in 2006 :-) Always, always put the year!

[coasterbass]

I bought Mr Site for £25 a couple of months ago and built our website from scratch in a weekend. I'm a complete dunce with this stuff but it was pretty simple and personally, I'm well chuffed. Their online support is really prompt too. For £75(?) you get the advanced version which has more add-ons.

www.coaster-music.co.uk

[bnt]

[quote name='OldGit' post='257707' date='Aug 7 2008, 11:58 PM']Nah I just mean the standard stuff .. can you control the title , description and ALT tags so you can control the google results page stuff for your site...
When mother of the bride searches for "wedding band solihull" will google return your site -
That sort of thing.

I was asking because of the line about having a real url rather than a wordpress url - sounded like one of those url masking activities Google hates ..[/quote]
Wordpress aren't using URL masking - I had to tell my domain registrar to use Wordpress' own DNS servers, so they are actually hosting that DNS name as normal.

Let me see... if you write a static page or a blog page, you have a title, of course, and an optional excerpt. You have categories for organising things, you can set a parent page (so you can have pages, sub-pages, sub-sub-pages etc.). You have tags, which are used for pinging search engines (which is where you'd put in "wedding band solihull"), and you can put in a trackback URL. You have full control over alt tags on images etc.. You don't get the option of setting arbitrary meta tags full of stuff (the keyword stuffing I was referring to).

Personally, I think SEO is overrated. I mean; call me naive, but (in my limited experience) if you have a unique selling point, and you reflect that clearly in the web pages, Google etc. will index it and people will find you. I'm still getting dozens of hits a day on a particular FAQ I wrote 2 years ago, because it filled a niche that needed filling. It's only when you're doing the same thing as loads of other people (no unique selling point) that you have to game the search engines, and the effect doesn't last.

[stingrayfan]

[quote name='Jean-Luc Pickguard' post='257723' date='Aug 8 2008, 12:46 AM']I use WordPress for all the sites I make now.

For the [url="http://www.o5b.co.uk"]obviously 5 believers[/url] site: I used WordPress with various plugins for things like audio players, Gig Listings, Google maps, contact form & paypal payments.[/quote]
Looks really good.

I've just redesigned ours using iWeb on the Mac. See what you think: [url="http://wagthedogband.co.uk"]www.wagthedogband.co.uk[/url] It's my first attempt attempt at a proper site.

It's currently on the .Mac server which is painfully slow, so will be swapping it out to a proper host soon. Anyone got a good FTP app for Mac to get it from iWeb-->server please?

Edited August 8, 2008 by stingrayfan

[Cantdosleepy]

If you're looking for a free, fairly-easy-to-set-up, loads-of-possibilities site, I'd advise something like Joomla. Wordpress is pretty good too.

The inestimable Jeff made the website of our last project - [url="http://www.goodoldneon.com/"]http://www.goodoldneon.com/[/url] - but that one's a different matter, as we don't do gigs or owt - it's just a funky repository of our (free!) album.

[JimH]

I'm suprised no-one's mentioned www.reverbnation.com yet - not a full website builder, or a social networking page, but there's some nifty tools there, and plug-ins for Facebook, etc. as well.. No techie skills/not much time needed either...

[url="http://www.reverbnation.com/thelastmenstanding"]http://www.reverbnation.com/thelastmenstanding[/url]

is our page

[OldGit]

[quote name='bnt' post='257829' date='Aug 8 2008, 09:53 AM']Wordpress aren't using URL masking - I had to tell my domain registrar to use Wordpress' own DNS servers, so they are actually hosting that DNS name as normal.

Let me see... if you write a static page or a blog page, you have a title, of course, and an optional excerpt. You have categories for organising things, you can set a parent page (so you can have pages, sub-pages, sub-sub-pages etc.). You have tags, which are used for pinging search engines (which is where you'd put in "wedding band solihull"), and you can put in a trackback URL. You have full control over alt tags on images etc.. You don't get the option of setting arbitrary meta tags full of stuff (the keyword stuffing I was referring to).[/quote]

Keyword stuffing is a rather pejorative term.
Careful use of key words and phrases to ensure people searching for those things on google are presented with an attractive link to your site in the google search results page is just sensible.

Google uses the title and description meta tag content on its results pages. That's what I'm talking about. If you can't edit the description tag what does google present in the results? Normally it substuitutes the first 20 or so words it can read from your page -and that may be a menu or something else unsuitable.

How does the rest of the stuff you referred to help specifically with this situation - people looking for a band in google?

Blogger is a great tool and the results look great but I'm genuinely interested in how well it performs with Google.

[quote]Personally, I think SEO is overrated. I mean; call me naive, but (in my limited experience) if you have a unique selling point, and you reflect that clearly in the web pages, Google etc. will index it and people will find you.[/quote]

I don't really understand that. All bands are different but .. what's unique about that?
What [b]is[/b] your USP?

[quote]I'm still getting dozens of hits a day on a particular FAQ I wrote 2 years ago, because it filled a niche that needed filling.[/quote]

Bit different though isn't it? It's unique and it fills a niche .. How many bands do that? and how many of those are new people finding it as a result of a search in google? By now it's probably linked to by thousands of other sites and blogs...

[quote]It's only when you're doing the same thing as loads of other people (no unique selling point) that you have to game the search engines, and the effect doesn't last. [/quote]

Well bands [b]are[/b] doing just the same as loads of other bands..

Sure, once someone has seen you and knows your name then it's less important .. but I'm mostly talking about the hughly compatative function band market where bands are largely interchangable and being found is key to expanding your market. People only get married a few times in their life so we function bands need a constant stream of new clients.

Fortunately most band websites are totally pants at SEO (as well as other things) so that a little tuning and understanding about how Google works goes a long way.


and, of course, you have to do a million other things as well to get the best out of your website and band marketing ..

Edited August 8, 2008 by OldGit

[wateroftyne]

Well, for the sites I've designed (for example www.peterdonegan.com) I use HTML, CSS and nice lean static pages. I'm happy with the resulats and the feedback.

I did half-heartedly set up a MySpace, but it just points to the main site 'cos I think MySpace is awful, and it means nothing to our target audience.

[OldGit]

[quote name='stingrayfan' post='257865' date='Aug 8 2008, 10:22 AM']Looks really good.

I've just redesigned ours using iWeb on the Mac. See what you think: [url="http://wagthedogband.co.uk"]www.wagthedogband.co.uk[/url] It's my first attempt attempt at a proper site.

It's currently on the .Mac server which is painfully slow, so will be swapping it out to a proper host soon. Anyone got a good FTP app for Mac to get it from iWeb-->server please?[/quote]


As the party band market is largely geographical (and that's reflected in your search terms) , I'd recommend making it clear from your header graphic where you are in the world.

Your site also seems be built with Frames. If that's so Google won't read anything ...
I tried searching for your text (from the long list of places at the bottom of the home page) and found your myspace page but not this site...
It may improve if it's that new but you need to look out for any google friendly fixes that iWeb may offer.