credit: smemon87
How can you quickly become one of the most respected musicians in your music scene?
You could spend $10,000 per month on the best PR company, you could get signed to a major label for a couple of million, or you could just do a couple of little tweaks to your website that will instantly boost your status in the eyes of the fans.
I know you might be thinking that just changing a few things here and there on your home page, is not going to put you on the same level as a major label artist. But the fact is that fans perception of your relative success becomes the truth in their mind.
…and the benefit of being seen as one of the “players” is that people will be more likely to recommend you to their friends, or make the effort to come to a show.
The stuff in this post is like a nice salad dressing, that will help display your musical “main course” in the best possible light. So make sure that you always work on creating great tunes first, then you can use the advice below to set yourself apart from the crowd.
1. Publicize Your Success
Have you ever been to a website that says something like “featured in the New Your Times” with a little logo to go along with it?
Well as soon as you start to get interviews from cool blogs and press you should use the same idea on your own home page.
Music fans will subconsciously see those logos and raise you up a couple of steps on the ladder.
If you’re spending all that energy in getting featured, why not make the most of it?
There is a great example of this on the Gen-y Rockstars.
2. Create A Logo And Stick To It
This does not have to be rocket science, but you just want to visit this website and find a nice font that represents your music.
You can now use that in all communications with the fans.
This is branding in its most simple form, and will keep you in the mind longer.
3. Fan Reviews
Next time you play a show don’t just leave after your set…
You should get out in the crowd and talk to people with your trusty smart phone in hand. When people approach and praise your gig you should ask them if they would like to give a 20 second review for your website.
Recommendations from happy gig-goers will boost your credibility a ton.
4. Notice The Nice
As you start to play a few shows and sell albums people will invariably tweet something cool about you, post a positive comment on your Facebook wall, or say something nice in the media.
So it’s your job to collect all that stuff and add a page to your website called something like “What people are saying”.
You can just take screenshots of nice tweets, or post a little snippet of audio from a radio mention.
The great thing about this is that people do it automatically so it’s very little work to collect it on a profile building page.
This page will also be helpful when you’re trying to get gigs, or asking industry people to help you out.
You can use the Google alerts method to inform you any time you get a nice comment.
5. Check for Bugs
credit: johannviloria
Nothing says “crap newbie band” more than broken links on your website, or an album download page that does not work.
Make sure you check all your important links on a regular monthly basis to make sure you continue to show a professional image, in the eyes of music industry people, and most importantly to your fans.
You can use this broken link checker plugin to help speed up this process a little.
6. Create Your Website Icon
This is the little picture that shows up in the top of the browser like this….
A ‘favicon” is just another part of your branding and I have seen musicians who use their own face up there, or even have something animated. Just another chance to show your fans that you are serious.
You can learn how to set it up here.
7. Ditch the Spam
We are trying to show fans that we are already doing well, and that they would be missing out if they did not follow along…
So the last thing you want to do is look desperate by spamming every music site you can find.
If you’re unsure if a certain music marketing tactic is shady give yourself the Grandma test.
8. Tidy Up
If you’re using a blog for your website it will no doubt come with a load of random shit in the side bar like an admin panel, tag cloud, buttons, widgets and on and on…
Get rid of all that stuff and focus on what’s important.
You want people to come to your site => listen to and love your music => join your mailing list => then become life long super fans.
Remove anything that does not help you achieve that goal.
9. Buy a Domain Name
This should be obvious but I thought I would mention it anyway…
Getting a .com domain name is the first step for any serious music entrepreneur, because you suddenly become a “proper musician” with a “proper website”.
It can be tempting to stick with your freebie blog, but it’s also risky because if you break some kind of random rule your whole site might get canned!
The other good thing about getting your own domain is that you will have a professional looking email address for people to send your fan mail to!
10. Design Guru
When you’re starting off you should build your own website fast, and not spend ages trying to make it look perfect. (You can easily learn how to do that with my free guide.)
But once you have some money coming in hire a good designer for an hour to tweak the look and feel a little.
It will cost you some cash but getting a professional eye on your web presence will hep to position your musical brand as one of the leaders in the scene.
Scott from websites for rockstars is the man to talk to.
11. Spelling
I’m “The Typo King” so am not really one to talk about this, but all I will say is that some people really find it a turn off if the text on your site is full of mistakes. Have some clever freak proof read your web copy, press releases and newsletters for you.
Final thoughts
Just take a few hours and get all this stuff done… but please don’t spend years creating the perfect logo or tweaking your site. You just want to raise the bar slightly and set your music apart from the crowd.
All together now…
“The Music Is The Most Important”
Talk soon,
- Chris
Watch the video podcast version below…
Tags: Musician Web Page, Website Design
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