Online promotion is one of the most essential tools for bands and musicians in the digital era. Your EPK is an important aspect to your web presence, but it’s not the be-all end-all to your success as a musician. The ability to reach potential fans instantly on a global scale is an amazing opportunity in today’s day and age, but presenting it in the right way is where the real challenge lies. To help, here are our 7 tips for creating and maintaining an effective band website.
1. The ‘Above the Fold’ Rule
Think of your website as a newspaper. The most important material- the headline, the cover story, and the most engaging photos - are all located above the fold. These are what grab the reader’s attention when they pass the newsstand, and ultimately affect whether he or she will want to read more.
No different with your website! Band name, logo, navigation menu, music player, etc. should all be kept prominently above the fold so that your audience knows exactly where they are as soon as they hit your homepage. Less important items like links to other websites, archived blog posts, or photos of your drummer’s cat are better suited for the bottom of the page, where users can find them while scrolling through your site.
2. Keep Navigation Simple
Nothing should be more than one or two clicks away from the homepage (and even two clicks is pushing it). The navigation menu should appear consistently on each page so that users can easily find their way from one page to another without getting lost. Building a cool-looking site is great, but make sure that it has a user-friendly layout. No one likes getting trapped in a labyrinth of hidden links and dead-end pages just to find something as simple as your music player.
3. Visuals
HostBaby.com recently posted a great blog entitled Band Photography: The Importance of Good Photography on Your Website. This lists the top “Do’s and Don’ts” for assembling band photos, and wisely points out that “good photography can make or break whether or not people will hire you, feature you in their magazine, or even just stay on your website for more than 10 seconds.”
Aside from making sure that your pictures look professional, it’s essential to use images that accurately capture your band’s style and aesthetic. People will see your site before hearing the music, so make sure your photos are compelling enough that they’ll want to hear more.
4. Content is King
It’s important to make sure the material you’re putting out there is consistent and worth the reader’s while. Before all else, make sure that you’re creating great, quality content that you truly believe in. With the abundance of blogs and social networking sites, it’s easy to see how some musicians get so wrapped up in talking about their music that they forget to focus on their music. One well-written blog post that’s had a lot of thought go into it is infinitely more rewarding for a fan than fifteen tweets in a single day. People will eventually just tune out. The key is to find the right balance between quality and quantity in order to keep fans engaged.
For some great insight on this topic, check out this blog post entitled Is Social Media Hurting Your Band’s Creativity? over at Bandzoogle.com.
5. Mobile-friendly
The shift towards internet-ready mobile devices is rapidly growing and as a result, more and more fans are surfing for music on-the-go. Making your site mobile-friendly is going to be key as mobile browsing becomes commonplace over the next couple of years. You don’t need to throw out your existing website nor do you need to be a web design guru to make essential elements of your site HTML5-compatible. Topspin offers an excellent mobile-friendly music player that can be seamlessly plugged in to your website. For those who want to dig deeper into the nuts and bolts, Richard Shepherd of ThinkVitamin.com provides a helpful overview of HTML5 for audio applications.
6. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Ever Google a band you like? Well if someone sees you play at a club downtown and they’re able to remember you band’s name long enough to get to their laptop, chances are they’ll Google you too. The trick is to have your band’s website display among the first hits at the top of the page, which can be done by improving your site’s SEO, or search engine optimization. This is not always an easy undertaking, especially for a relatively new band that may not be driving enough online traffic to show up on Google’s radar.
In a post on Tightmixblog.com titled Use Your Email List and Google Traffic to Drive More Music Sales, Adam Nicholson offers some key advice on how to boost your band’s SEO using keywords and backlinks. Using the right keywords strategically on your site can make your band significantly easier to find on the web. Meanwhile, backlinks, or links to your site from other websites, are essential for improving SEO.
7. Mailing List
Last but not least, the importance of having a fan mailing list can’t be stressed enough. In the post mentioned above, Adam Nicholson also notes that a mailing list is “arguably the most powerful resource at any musician’s disposal” and is “the best way to convert sales of your music.”
And when you think about it, people that actively subscribe to your mailing list are by far the strongest and most supportive part of your fanbase. These are the fans that have showed interest in your music, and are open to a direct form of communication with you. If you can engage these fans properly, they’ll be the first to download your latest EP, order a T-shirt, and bring friends out to your next show.
There are many great widgets available online that allow you to easily acquire fan email addresses directly from your website. Just plug one in and voila – your site is all set to start collecting new subscribers. With this and many of the other resources outlined above, you’ll be well on your way to building a killer website for your band!
