Why You or Your Band Needs Your Own Website

Why You or Your Band Needs Your Own Website

There are so many things to cover on this topic that I decided to break this down into 2 separate blogs.

Since I have designed a number of websites for bands, and musicians I thought it was time to break out the reasons why having a website is so important. The starting point for anyone is to have your own piece of virtual real estate that you control exclusively and completely. This is the most important thing you can do to begin promoting your music.

We will keep this as simple as possible.

1. You HAVE to have at least ONE place where people can find you and your music

Let’s start off with the basic concept that if someone hears about your band (whether that’s a fan, a promoter, a record company…etc), they need to be able to find you online easily and they need to be able to get the information or music that they need from that search.

It is easier to present all the key information – a biography, live dates, contact info, music and video – on your own site than it is on any third party platform or social media site or page.

The key issue is that you have one core place online where people can find you.

2. You need to be in  total control

The point is that once you’ve accepted that only a website designed to do what you want it to do will be good enough to support your career, then you have actually freed yourself to achieve the best possible result. We work with artists in music and companies both within the music industry and from other disciplines. The biggest mistake that they always make in their digital marketing (until we help them fix it) is that they decide they want a website but they don’t work out what they want it to do.

This might seem like a simple thing to say but don’t miss the significance of it.

Almost every business, and definitely every artist seeking any level of success, needs a website that is designed to inform potential fans (customers in the case of a business) about them and their music, then to acquire those fans for the long-term (generally by email subscription but perhaps by membership or some other device) and then to convert them into buying fans.

Only in a place where you can build whatever you want is it possible for you to properly create an environment that makes that acquisition and conversion process effective.

Making fans come to your website to go through that process also allows them to share that experience with all their friends across all online properties and it persistently and constantly allows you to build deeper and better engagement with them

If you build your own artist website, it belongs to you and you can design and build it exactly as you like so that it does all of this, properly.

3. You can build a coherent brand and image

So, not only can you build in what you want your website to do, but when it’s totally under your control you can make the design and imagery truly reflect your band and your brand.

If you’re going to succeed as an artist with any kind of commercial appeal (even in a small niche/genre as a ‘hobby’ artist) you will need some degree of image that reflects your demographic and how you fit into some kind of scene.

Your photos, artwork, stage outfits and a plethora of other design elements will need to fit that aesthetic. I know that the degree to which this is true will depend on the style of music you play and the level of your ambition.

If you accept that,then all your imagery should reflect your chosen path – and that should be rolled out across all your online profiles.

But, it should begin with your site and that can dictate the design elements you use elsewhere. Again, it’s easier to refine your image and design on a fully customisable site that you have total control over than it is anywhere else.

Get it right on your own site and spread it coherently from there.

And, don’t forget that only on your own site will your brand be paramount. On any other platform your brand will always be subservient to the brand of that site.

4. Having your own artist website looks professional

Do you think that finding a great looking website makes a better first impression on a fan or someone who might want to help you in your career than if they can only find social media profiles?

I know what I prefer to find.

An artist who has bothered to work out how they want to be perceived (image and brand, as we looked at above) and has had the wherewithal and commitment to build a great website is one I will almost certainly spend that crucial extra bit of time checking out. The bottom line is that a good artist website impresses me and gets an artist over the first hurdle of making me bother to stay and look around at all. Then their music needs to do the talking. But, draw people in and you’re on the right path.

In short, having a professional website makes it look like you’re serious about your art and that you understand the importance of building for the long-term.

5. You CAN’T rely on social media platforms!

When you’re running an efficient band website, your fans will be conditioned to return there as their primary source of information about you, new fans will find your site first and realize it’s the best place to connect with you, you’ll use it to build your fan mailing list and, (this is really very important) it will not disappear on you.

Social media sites can disappear overnight. Third party companies who host your website built on their platform and your hard-won email list will probably allow you to back up your site and fan data and (fingers crossed) they won’t go bust….but it has happened before and it will happen again. That can’t happen if you control your site.

Sites like Facebook also have a whole set of rules about what you can do on your profile. For example, right now you can’t have an ‘overt call to action or commercial message’ in your Facebook Timeline cover image. That sucks.

You can put whatever you like in any banner or header image on your own website. When your new album is out you can have a big buy button and a picture of questionable sexual taste should you so wish. Try doing that on Facebook.

Not only might any third party business that you decided to rely on (a ‘build your website here’ company or a social media site) go bust overnight, slowly fade from prominence and lose traffic and public confidence or prevent you from doing things the way you want, perhaps the worst trick they can pull is to delete your site or profile. This might happen because you’ve transgressed their rules or they might get hacked or who knows what. But, again, it does happen.

The long and the short of it is that no matter how much we all believe that Facebook will be here for years to come and we can rely on their principles of fair play, not building your own website and sending your fan traffic there regularly could prove to be really stupid when Zuckerberg decides to walk out and switch the servers off if he has a tiff with his shareholders!

6. You can do whatever you like with it!

We’ve covered this in 2,3,5 & 6…to a degree. But, the true extent of what it means needs to be hammered home.

On your own site you can take risks, try new strategies and do stuff that you’re simply not sure about. As we’ve discovered, doing that anywhere else might have unforeseen consequences! On your own site there are no restrictions and your site is ultimately customizable. You can do what you like and see if it works without any fear of breaching the rules, getting shut down and losing your fans forever.

We will cover more in part 2 next week.

Always remember, your Facebook Page and your Bandcamp page are NOT yours. They belong to other people and can’t be forced to do all the things that you might want to do.

Build a band website that you control completely as soon as possible and it will serve you forever.