WHY DO I NEED A WEBSITE?

Every band needs a website: Fact is that owning a web page shows credibility as well as professionalism. Consequently it is possible that a band is taken seriously by the press, the media and the general music industry. In other words: Having a website means that the respective band turns out to be serious and does not represent an amateur band.

Having an official website offers a band a variety of different advantages: The most important one, however, is to have a channel in order to reach fans, fan groups as well as the media and the press. Fact is that fans want to find out more about their favorite singers. They are searching for personal data of each band member, want to get presented the latest and most recent news considering concerts, events, new singles and albums, etc., want to look at photos and listen to new singles by means of a media player or sound clips. Consequently a band website has to be well-designed and should provide a high-quality web hosting. This is very important in order to enable the fans a continuous accessibility. Furthermore this kind of website also requires a big web space – this because of the reason that photos with high resolution as well as mp3 files do represent big data.

When creating a band website we will use WordPress, because it makes it possible to have a so-called content managed area or rather backend. A content management system, which is also known under the short name of CMS, is very easy to use. So content, images, photos and other updates can be done very easily – this work does not require to have specialized technical knowledge and moreover it is not necessary to engage a designer or web specialist.

Note: A band website is not only important to meet fans and fan groups within the Internet, but also to recruit new fans and consequently call their attention. So by means of such a website bands do get offered the chance to promote their band name, to save printing costs and to emphasize their general image.

Here are 20 reasons you should have a website:

1. You own your website. There is no fear of being deleted because you are being too “commercial” or violating any 3rd-party terms of service.
2. You can claim your brand on the web and prevent others from taking your name.
3. You are creating your own brand equity, instead of relying on 3rd party websites.
4. You increase your web exposure.
5. You develop a stable presence on the web. You never know if that 3rd party website will exist in the future or be as relevant. What happens to all that work that you put into the 3rd party to help them create THEIR brand not yours (e.g. MP3.com shutting down)? How much time was devoted by artists on Myspace the past 5 years? All of your “friends” left and unless you captured their email through your official site, then you are in trouble.
6. You control your search engine results. Be ranked #1 for your artist/band name. If you have your own dedicated domain name it is easier and also you can receive search “juice” or “pagerank” to your official page by linking to your official site from social sites as well as others linking to you.
7. Building a brand is a long-term strategy.
8. Visitors to your website have a much higher sales conversion ratio than 3rd party sites.
9. You control your own brand, image, and user experience, instead of relying on what a 3rd party service provides.
10. You portray professionalism and legitimacy. Would anyone in the press or in the music industry take you more seriously if you had a website or if you did not have a website? First impressions count.
11. You can funnel and aggregate all your social media and widgets in one location, where it is convenient for your fans to find information about you.
12. Flexibility. You can create polls and add any programming, widgets or any modules of your choice without being limited to 3rd party restrictions.
13. You can own your shopping cart and keep more profit from your sales.
14. You can add your own advertising and sponsors on your page.
15. You can offer unique product bundles and exclusive contests for your fans.
16. You build credibility with your fans as well as can create a fan club area for your superfans as well as dedicated message boards to interact with your fan.
17. You can strengthen your online presence by linking to and from all your social media profiles.
18. You can add tracking code like Google Analytics to measure your performance and see what parts of your site get the most traffic. Using such metrics can help you measure your site performance and sales, and assist you in making changes to improve your bottom line profitability.
19. You can collect emails and create a newsletter designed to keep you in touch with your fans, give them up-to-date news and increase sales. It is more expensive to acquire new fans than to maintain your current following. Recurring sales are integral to your success
20. Invest in yourself and not others. Websites are like cheap virtual real estate property. Why wouldn’t you invest in your domain name for only the costs of a few Starbucks a year?