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Post your Band Website!


Al Krow
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Stylon Pilson said:


My current band's website is really a glorified holding page at the moment. Our first gig is in 10 days, so we don't yet have any photos or anything like that. The website is just a single page with links to our Facebook and Twitter pages, and details for the upcoming gig.

 


Since we've now had our first gig and have managed to glean a small selection of photographs from the audience, I've gone ahead and built a website:

[link removed]

It uses WordPress with the GigPress plugin.

I'm happy with the design (except for the gig calendar - I'm going to try to tweak that to make it a bit more pretty), the main problem is just one of content.

S.P.

 

Edited by Stylon Pilson
Link removed, as since I left the band they've allowed the domain to expire and now it's pointing to some dodgy Chinese site
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Gigpress is great. I've used it on many sites, if you need any pointers on formatting give me a shout.

I've gone over to Events made Easy for WordPress based events lists. It can sync with Facebook events, so if you add your events to a band Facebook page you can pull all the data back to WordPress (saves on double entry for us lazy people). Again, if you need any info give me a poke.

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Some great website links guys - keep them coming! It's really brilliant to find out a bit more what my fellow BCers are all about!

[quote name='super al' timestamp='1506895417' post='3381913']
I've been waiting...
...and waiting...
...for our drummer to finish our website so I could post on here!
[/quote]

Lol! And thanks for posting! I'm still waiting (and waiting) for our drummer to get ours done and [i]she [/i]works in IT, so you would have thought this would have been a doddle for her?

[quote name='Stylon Pilson' timestamp='1506957582' post='3382301']
Since we've now had our first gig and have managed to glean a small selection of photographs from the audience, I've gone ahead and built a website: [url="http://hepsonic.com/"]Hepsonic[/url] It uses WordPress with the [url="http://gigpress.com/"]GigPress[/url] plugin.
[/quote]

[quote name='nightsun' timestamp='1506958305' post='3382310']
Gigpress is great. I've used it on many sites, if you need any pointers on formatting give me a shout. I've gone over to Events made Easy for WordPress based events lists. It can sync with Facebook events, so if you add your events to a band Facebook page you can pull all the data back to WordPress (saves on double entry for us lazy people). Again, if you need any info give me a poke.
[/quote]

Thanks for the GigPress suggestion. Better / easier to use than Wix which I guess would be other obvious choice for a newbie?

Edited by Al Krow
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Lol! And thanks for posting! I'm still waiting (and waiting) for our drummer to get ours done and she works in IT, so you would have thought this would have been a doddle for her?



Working in IT doesn't mean that you have the graphic design skills also required to create a decent web site (and even any HTML skills depending on what she does in IT). And IME when you work at one thing for your day job, the last thing you want to do in the evening is more of it for your hobby. Edited by Dad3353
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Working in IT doesn't mean that you have the graphic design skills also required to create a decent web site (and even any HTML skills depending on what she does in IT). And IME when you work at one thing for your day job, the last thing you want to do in the evening is more of it for your hobby.



Agreed, but she trained as a graphic designer and put her hand up willingly for the job (well actually insisted on doing it to be more precise!) six months ago... :blush:

Btw - isn't that one of the advantages of e.g. Wix (and I'm guessing GigPress) that they provide a whole bunch of "ready to go" templates that you don't need to be a graphic designer to get something pretty decent? Edited by Dad3353
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Agreed, but she trained as a graphic designer and put her hand up willingly for the job (well actually insisted on doing it to be more precise!) six months ago... :blush:

Btw - isn't that one of the advantages of e.g. Wix (and I'm guessing GigPress) that they provide a whole bunch of "ready to go" templates that you don't need to be a graphic designer to get something pretty decent?



Having been in her position in the past I can completely sympathise. She will have insisted on doing the web site because she knows that the alternative will be something nasty cobbled together with a template that she will hate forever.

The problem with the template "design" route is that all the good ones will have already been over used and not everyone will have the taste to know which ones are right for your style of band. When you are playing covers you don't have the luxury of being able to use the music to make you individual so it is very much down the presentation (both on and off stage) that is what is going to set you apart form your competition. Edited by Dad3353
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http://www.rf2.rocks

This was put together by our multi-talented sound man, who when he isn't doing stuff for us moonlights in IT as a day job. I'm not sure what it is built in, or who hosts it, but it does seem to get us some attention. We distribute a lot of flyers that generate website hits, and sometimes gigs too. It doesn't hurt that our leader works in advertising either, so most of our collateral is well produced.

Facebook is better than our own website at getting gigs noticed since people can 'follow' and get notifications, and we are all active on there - sharing band posts etc. but the website doesn't cost much and I think people expect it?

Edited by Dad3353
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Not sure what options WIx has to be honest, I've never used it but I've seen some half decent sites built with it. Personally I use WordPress as a base for all my sites, find a free template that half way close to what I need and then customise to taste. The benefit of WordPress is the number of plugins available (additional pieces of code to perform a particular task), of which Gigpress and Events made Easy are examples.

You can make a WordPress site as easy or complex as you wish.

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I can't add my own website as I've not got a band (or been able to play bass for nearly a year after an operation on my finger :() - I do design and build websites for a living though (and digital strategy/consulting etc - just call me Mr Fancypants ;)).

Quite a few of the sites posted aren't responsive, i.e. adapt to be viewed correctly on a mobile phone - I'd really recommend you make your sites responsive as most traffic these days is from mobile devices. I know I've googled a band on my phone after seeing them live. Responsive sites also get ranked higher in google searches than non-responsive.

I didn't spot anyone with an email sign up and I think you are missing a trick - if someone cares enough to look at your site, ask them to sign up to an email list! Then you can send out regular (or at least semi-regular) emails with gig/tour dates and remind people that you are avalible for booking etc. People who have actively signed up are far more likely to turn up to your gigs, and you don't just have to rely on the venue promoting either. Is super easy and cheap too! The two I'd recommend are MailChimp (has a free tier up to 2000 subscribers) - https://mailchimp.com, and Campaign Monitor (https://www.campaignmonitor.com/b/). Both super easy to get started and cheap promotion compared to printing flyers.

Hope thats helpful to someone. Give me a yell if you have any questions. :D And good luck with getting those gigs! :)

Edited by Dad3353
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I can't add my own website as I've not got a band (or been able to play bass for nearly a year after an operation on my finger :() - I do design and build websites for a living though (and digital strategy/consulting etc - just call me Mr Fancypants ;)).

Quite a few of the sites posted aren't responsive, i.e. adapt to be viewed correctly on a mobile phone - I'd really recommend you make your sites responsive as most traffic these days is from mobile devices. I know I've googled a band on my phone after seeing them live. Responsive sites also get ranked higher in google searches than non-responsive.

I didn't spot anyone with an email sign up and I think you are missing a trick - if someone cares enough to look at your site, ask them to sign up to an email list! Then you can send out regular (or at least semi-regular) emails with gig/tour dates and remind people that you are avalible for booking etc. People who have actively signed up are far more likely to turn up to your gigs, and you don't just have to rely on the venue promoting either. Is super easy and cheap too! The two I'd recommend are MailChimp (has a free tier up to 2000 subscribers) - https://mailchimp.com, and Campaign Monitor (https://www.campaignmonitor.com/b/). Both super easy to get started and cheap promotion compared to printing flyers.

Hope thats helpful to someone. Give me a yell if you have any questions. :D And good luck with getting those gigs! :)



Very sorry to hear that about you having had to give up bass. Have the medics said how long before you will be able to get the bass out again or whether it's possible to change technique e.g. with using a plectrum / pick?

And some really useful tips there, thanks very much...I will pass them onto our drummer who didn't quite manage to get our website finished this weekend (again)! We don't really have much design or IT expertise in my other band so I'll PM you to see if we can afford your web design skills! Edited by Dad3353
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  • 8 months later...

Here’s ours: 

https://www.tildawn.co.uk/

Our guitarist put it together on Wix; it’s not bad but it does the job. I think it was designed more to be viewed on devices, rather than on a desktop. 

To be honest the vast majority of our enquiries and interaction come via our Facebook page. 

Edited by BrunoBass
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