Band website, how to do it on the cheap?

F

flybyfender

Guest
Hey guys,


I would like to know if any of you had any past experience about creating & having a band website?


I am not a programmer and I do not want to learn how to code HTML just to create that one website.


Here are the things that we want:
- Our own .com domain
- Servers included, with unlimited transfer
- Unlimited content/songs
- Music player on the website
- Fans can contact us directly on the website


It would be nice if it had Facebook & Twitter integration too.


How much should I be looking to spend for a custom website from a professional webmaster (including the requested features above)? Many people told us between 1,500$ and 3,000$ is the average pricing nowadays, is that true!!!? Do you guys have any suggestions? Is Myspace still good?


Thanks,
F.B.F
 
Get hosting with mysql database, install wordpress and find a theme template you like, there are over 1000 free templates that can be installed directly from the Wordpress dashboard, and plenty of web designers make nice templates they sell on the low.. Or you could simply customize the newer templates that come with the install, they are made easily customizable (change background, header etc.). You don't need to be able to code to accomplish this.

You could get a nice music player by uploading tracks to Soundcloud and using their embed on your website.

And there are plenty of free plugins for social media stuff and pretty much anything (again you can search and install from Wordpress dashboard).

Some plugins we've found useful:

  • Akismet - comes with the install, get your free license and activate it to prevent spam efficiently.
  • AJAXed Wordpres - improve user experience with AJAX.
  • Feedburner Feed Smith - if you want to manage your rss feed with Google's Feedburner.
  • Google XML Sitemaps - creates a map of your site for search engines.
  • Greg's High Performance SEO - for search engine optimisation, add keywords to posts and all that.
  • MailChimp - easy customizable mailing list widget that can be implemented on your sidebar (ie. theboomjacks.com) don't have a MailChimp mailing list account yet? Signup here. Free plan up to 2,000 subscribers/12,000 emails per month.
  • WP Super Cache - creates static html files of the php files. Makes your site load faster.
  • WP Google Analytics - no need to hard code your Google Analytics code on your pages, get good stats on visitors
  • 1 Bit Audio Player - adds a simple play button next to an audio file inserted into a post. File will be downloadable with this. There are of course also players with playlists and all that.


Only costs would be domain and server.
 
Whichever way you go make sure that you pay to own the domain name up front, don't get caught in the "we'll supply you with a free domain name as well".

The reason for this is that not all of then hosting companies are sweet about passing the domain name to you if you decide to go elsewhere, and most, if not all, register their "free" domain name in the name of the company president, making it more difficult to claim that it is your trademark/intellectual property/etc... if a dispute should arise.

If you are going to take the free domain name make sure it is one of the ancillary namespaces like .net or .org or .info or whatever: make sure sure that you pay the full price for a .com namespace, that way you know you can take it with you. Also make sure you pay for re-registration on time or someone in China or somewhere else who sees that you have been making money may jump on it and then you have start marketing all over again with a new name.
 
Get a wordpress blog and soundcloud account and you should be solid. Hostmonster is reasonably priced.
 
spelling and grammer corrections

flybyfender said:
Hey guys,


I would like to know if any of you had any past experience about creating & having a band website?


I am not a programmer and I do not want to learn how to code HTML just to create that one website.


Here are the things that we want:
- Our own .com domain
- Servers included, with unlimited transfer
- Unlimited content/songs
- Music player on the website
- Fans can contact us directly on the website


It would be nice if it had Facebook & Twitter integration too.


How much should I be looking to spend for a custom website from a professional webmaster (including the requested features above)? Many people told us between 1,500$ and 3,000$ is the average pricing nowadays, is that true!!!? Do you guys have any suggestions? Is Myspace still good?


Thanks,
F.B.F
Click to expand...

Okay, this is what you do.

- Use Just Host for hosting, they're the most affordable and reliable hosting company I've ever worked with. If this is your first website, I strongly recommend you read this. Just Host gives you everything needed to build powerful online business: Unlimited Transfer, free domain and more...

- Most people are using soundcloud; however, if you're looking for the producers alternative, check out my flash store. When I start posting new beats, I'll be using them along with soundcloud. Joomla and Wordpress both give the option to receive emails, but you'll need to set the email up using the cPanel and attach it to your sites CMS. The cPanel is included with the hosting service. Feel free to contact me for more consultation, I'm more than qualified to help you legitimately.
 
Last edited:
Sorry to contradict JC; I just left Just host after 3 years because they wanted to charge me more than double what I had paid the first two years, and a hike of 50% on the third year, just for a single years continuation.

I'm currently with webhostingpad where I paid $10 more for 5 years service and an included domain name ($120 for the 5 years). In the past 4 months I have had only one outage that was caused by their automated limitations on bandwidth usage - they increased the bandwidth within 10 minutes of me requesting the limit upgrade (for free). Responsive service and reliable. Oh, and at the end of the 5 years I will still pay the same price for another 5 years, which is cool, because I know what my future costs will be now.

They offer unlimited bandwidth but put limits in place so that they can monitor individual accounts and determine if they need to change the hosting services to a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or if they should just bump up the bandwidth for that account - a reasonable thing to do when you consider that some folks may try to run a multi-million business site for peanuts....

Cool info on your skills base on your website (been doing websites since 1994 myself)
 
bandcoach said:
Sorry to contradict JC; I just left Just host after 3 years because they wanted to charge me more than double what I had paid the first two years, and a hike of 50% on the third year, just for a single years continuation.I'm currently with webhostingpad where I paid $10 more for 5 years service and an included domain name ($120 for the 5 years). In the past 4 months I have had only one outage that was caused by their automated limitations on bandwidth usage - they increased the bandwidth within 10 minutes of me requesting the limit upgrade (for free). Responsive service and reliable. Oh, and at the end of the 5 years I will still pay the same price for another 5 years, which is cool, because I know what my future costs will be now.They offer unlimited bandwidth but put limits in place so that they can monitor individual accounts and determine if they need to change the hosting services to a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or if they should just bump up the bandwidth for that account - a reasonable thing to do when you consider that some folks may try to run a multi-million business site for peanuts....Cool info on your skills base on your website (been doing websites since 1994 myself)
Click to expand...

Wow guys, I was not expecting so many good replies so fast. I made some research and ended up on Bandmo (bandmo.com) a website generator designed especially for music artists & bands. It’s pretty cheap considering that it includes hosting + domain + everything else. I think it might just be more simple to deal with them instead of ordering every element I need from different companies. The reviews I found are looking pretty good, I am going to try it now and let you know what happens...

Thanks!
PS. If you guys have more suggestions, keep em coming!
PS2. I think i'm going to love this forum :P
 
Last edited by a moderator:
ProducerJC said:


Okay, this is what you do.

- Use Just Host for hosting, they're the most affordable and reliable hosting company I've ever worked with. If this is your first website, I strongly recommend you read this. Just Host gives you everything needed to build powerful online business: Unlimited Transfer, free domain and more...

- Most people are using soundcloud; however, if you're looking for the producers alternative, check out my flash store. When I start posting new beats, I'll be using them along with soundcloud. Joomla and Wordpress both give the option to receive emails, but you'll need to set the email up using the cPanel and attach it to your sites CMS. The cPanel is included with the hosting service. Feel free to contact me for more consultation, I'm more than qualified to help you legitimately.
Click to expand...

yes if you're on a tight budget go with JC for sure he have you up and running in no time.
I use Musician Websites | Author Websites | Build Music Website | HostBaby because I'm a clicking and point person and hostbaby makes it easy for a new webmaster

The Walking On Water Media/Ent. Business Coach Antonio
Research and Information Gathering Expert

---------- Post added at 07:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:05 PM ----------
bandcoach said:
Sorry to contradict JC; I just left Just host after 3 years because they wanted to charge me more than double what I had paid the first two years, and a hike of 50% on the third year, just for a single years continuation.

I'm currently with webhostingpad where I paid $10 more for 5 years service and an included domain name ($120 for the 5 years). In the past 4 months I have had only one outage that was caused by their automated limitations on bandwidth usage - they increased the bandwidth within 10 minutes of me requesting the limit upgrade (for free). Responsive service and reliable. Oh, and at the end of the 5 years I will still pay the same price for another 5 years, which is cool, because I know what my future costs will be now.

They offer unlimited bandwidth but put limits in place so that they can monitor individual accounts and determine if they need to change the hosting services to a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or if they should just bump up the bandwidth for that account - a reasonable thing to do when you consider that some folks may try to run a multi-million business site for peanuts....

Cool info on your skills base on your website (been doing websites since 1994 myself)
Click to expand...

yeah but this guy said his looking to get in super cheap I doubt he has $120 for the five years which is better way to go.. Sometimes it's better to save up so money then start your website. Mad Scientist what do you have in the lab lol.
 
flybyfender said:
Wow guys, I was not expecting so many good replies so fast. I made some research and ended up on Bandmo (bandmo.com) a website generator designed especially for music artists & bands. It’s pretty cheap considering that it includes hosting + domain + everything else. I think it might just be more simple to deal with them instead of ordering every element I need from different companies. The reviews I found are looking pretty good, I am going to try it now and let you know what happens...

Thanks!
PS. If you guys have more suggestions, keep em coming!
PS2. I think i'm going to love this forum :P
Click to expand...

Reconsider doing that.

I've found it necessary to have very specific tools when trying to reach that online masses. For example, Awstat is a reporting journal that monitors all traffic to your website. Google analytic tracks similar statistics; however, their numbers are not accurate because they only monitor website traffic. Awstat monitors traffic to the server designated to your website which makes is the most accurate system I know.

You need accurate web analysis in order to see your web traffic and what they like most about your website. You'll also need to know things, like: daily visitor numbers, unique vs. repeat visitors percentages, page visit duration, linkback web traffic, and more...

Having this information will make for a better web ownership experience.
 
You can try Blogger.com, and use all there embedded features. Design your page using their templates, and buy the domain name to forward it to your blogger page.
 
UPDATE!I did it! Here's my new band website:sunholesmusic.comWhat do you guys think? I like it!!! :)I chose to do it with bandmo.com - It's 100 % worth the price IMO. Took me about 1 hour to do everything.
 
flybyfender said:
UPDATE!I did it! Here's my new band website:sunholesmusic.comWhat do you guys think? I like it!!! :)I chose to do it with bandmo.com - It's 100 % worth the price IMO. Took me about 1 hour to do everything.
Click to expand...

It looks great, now you need to focus on driving traffic to it.
 
Your site looks good. I like the opening track on your page "Nothing Is Alright". Has a cool Taking Heads with a touch of B52's vibe to it....nice.

Here are some tips to help you promote your music......

28 Tips - How To Promote Your Music
 
Last edited by a moderator:
flybyfender said:
UPDATE!I did it! Here's my new band website:sunholesmusic.comWhat do you guys think? I like it!!! :)I chose to do it with bandmo.com - It's 100 % worth the price IMO. Took me about 1 hour to do everything.
Click to expand...

nice and simple site layout and like JC recommended spent your time now driving traffic to your site and I'll add keep your information updated using your social network and your gig events to route fans to your site
and having a product to sell once they get there.

The Walking On Water Media/Ent. Business Coach Antonio
Research and Information Gathering Expert
 
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