The disturbing truth about building your own websites. You will be shocked !

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Ether Two

New member
Man, I am shocked by the stats from top selling producers own websites!

All I can say is that right now if you are building a website... STOP!

Don't go any further because you are seriously putting time energy and money

into a system that doesn't bring you sales! yes that's right people

PRODUCER WEBSITES DO NOT MAKE MONEY!

I know this a huge claim but i can assure you 100%
what i'm saying is true!

So before i bring you the facts, I wanna introduce you all to a tool I use.

the tool is built from a site called similarweb. you can get a firefox or chrome extension for free.

This tool shows stats from websites. the kind of data you get to see are

Estimated visits, Countries, Time on site, Pageviews, Bounce Rate, Referrals, Social, Ads etc.

If you want to know if a website is making money you need to go to the referral section in the similarweb tab.

If you see a payment processor like paypal, you know 100% a website is making sales.

The referral tab shows where traffic is coming from and where the site is sending traffic to.

So on a beat selling website you 100% want to see that the site is sending traffic to paypal.

I checked the top 5 producers sites from myflashstore who between them on myflashstore had sold over 2000 tracks

THEIR WEBSITES HAVE ZERO REFERRAL TRAFFIC TO PAYPAL...
THAT IS SHOCKING!

The average time spent on these top selling producers sites range from 3 seconds to just under 2 minutes.
that's not even enough time to hear a whole track!

WOW

The bounce rate is ridiculous, so all this stuff you are learning about building a website will not achieve much.

You have the tools to check out what i'm saying, I speak the truth, nothing more nothing less.

When you check soundclick and myflashstore etc go to the referral tab you will see paypal there.

THAT TELLS ME THESE SITES ARE MAKING MONEY.

Look, I know this might be hard to swallow and I know for sure know one else is talking about this.

I don't know the reasons why, but what I do know is that if I can help to stop people from wasting time
and energy learning about something you really don't need to know about, you might just start to
look the other way and concentrate your efforts where the real action is!

I swear the due diligence I just did to discover this took me around 10 mins to see what is working and what isn't.

I think it's time for you all to do the same!

Go check out similarweb.com with your list of producer sites vs beat selling stores. the winner is clear by a mile.

RAPPERS BY BEATS FROM THE BIG BOY STORES. SO CONCENTRATE YOUR EFFORTS THERE.

p.s some sales may come from producers sites but these sales are no where near enough to call it a business.

Good luck guys, lets kick 2017 off the right way :)
 
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If it doesn't shock you, why do you think it's still being taught to producers that they need a website to become a reputable business?

I mean if so many producers know websites don't work why wouldn't they have something to say about?

I think it's really weird & disheartening for someone starting out in the game with the belief that having a website is the right move when it clearly isn't.

What's your thoughts on this?
 
Not a surprise at all. I was going to make a website for my music in the past but ALWAYS held off because I knew beats just dont sell on self hosted sites. Maybe adding a twist tho, could bring money in. Maybe not for your beats but by promoting products or even a beat site you sell on through an affiliate program. Theres plenty of ways to make money on your own site but selling your own beats there, your right. Its a waste of time.
 
Yeah I agree with you, making a membership site for producers to sell their beats on is definitely how you would make some good money. myflashstore has done of £17 million in sales so far, it's a very strong indication that with hard work and a twist on the services they provide you would put yourself in a strong position for success.

ObnoxiousMusic said:
Not a surprise at all. I was going to make a website for my music in the past but ALWAYS held off because I knew beats just dont sell on self hosted sites. Maybe adding a twist tho, could bring money in. Maybe not for your beats but by promoting products or even a beat site you sell on through an affiliate program. Theres plenty of ways to make money on your own site but selling your own beats there, your right. Its a waste of time.
Click to expand...
 
So, just send traffic directly to a myflashstore or beatstars player & bypass the website all together?

Would that be the solution?

Or, could it be the the beat players on these guys site are redirecting to PayPal when purchasing therefore getting the credit?

And for the record similarweb isn't 100% accurate.

Almost every top selling producer has their own website that they direct their traffic to. Their site are making the large majority of their sales.

You are misinformed my guy.
 
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All of these "site analysis" tools should be taken with a grain of salt.

I remember one had valued one of my websites at a couple of hundred bucks...

That site was floating around the low 5 figure range at that time. lol.

Without direct access to ones financials one can only "guestimate" what site(s) bring in. That said, I agree that a website shouldn't be your only means of selling beats because if you aren't ranking high in the serps traffic will be minimal. With organic buying traffic being practically non-existent.

My opinion:

I think building a website is a good thing if you plan on being around for a while and want a home base (that you control) to send people to.

On the other side of it tho, I know of a few producers with barely any web presence (outside of social media) who make a killing off selling beats because they are out there in the streets connecting with cats everyday...

To each his own.
 
I know similarweb isn't 100% accurate on all the stats, it is pretty accurate where inbound and outbound traffic is coming from though and a lot of serious marketers and advertisers use and trust these tools to find profitable sites and their referrer traffic.

I'm definitely not misinformed.

Researching competitors traffic sources is something I do daily, so I'm pretty confident when I look at sites through similarweb and I don't see outbound traffic to PayPal, it means that those sites don't send enough traffic to PayPal for similarweb to pick it up.

Have you spoken to all the top producers to know that they get more sales from their websites or are you just making assumptions ?

If you think having a website is the way forward for you then go for it.

For me personally, I wouldn't build one, knowing what I know now.

Da Youngsta said:
So, just send traffic directly to a myflashstore or beatstars player & bypass the website all together?

Would that be the solution?

Or, could it be the the beat players on these guys site are redirecting to PayPal when purchasing therefore getting the credit?

And for the record similarweb isn't 100% accurate.

Almost every top selling producer has their own website that they direct their traffic to. Their site are making the large majority of their sales.

You are misinformed my guy.
Click to expand...
 
Ether Two said:
I know similarweb isn't 100% accurate on all the stats, it is pretty accurate where inbound and outbound traffic is coming from though and a lot of serious marketers and advertisers use and trust these tools to find profitable sites and their referrer traffic.

I'm definitely not misinformed.

Researching competitors traffic sources is something I do daily, so I'm pretty confident when I look at sites through similarweb and I don't see outbound traffic to PayPal, it means that those sites don't send enough traffic to PayPal for similarweb to pick it up.

Have you spoken to all the top producers to know that they get more sales from their websites or are you just making assumptions ?

If you think having a website is the way forward for you then go for it.

For me personally, I wouldn't build one, knowing what I know now.
Click to expand...

If websites aren't making the sales then how are they being made.

If I put a MFS player or a BS player on my site, when someone makes a purchase, the player will redirect them to PayPal. My site won't get credit for it...the respective player's will get it.

Now, if I don't use any 3rd party player and let my website handle 100% of the purchase...then different story.
 
Yup you hit the nail on the head Da Youngsta, the business end is handled by MFS or BS players which tells me that I don't really need a website of my own to sell beats on.

Without the 3rd party players producers sites aren't profitable.

So if I wanted to sell beats online my main focus would be driving traffic to my profile page on MFS or BS.

I wouldn't need to worry about web design, building links, keyword research, google updates, analytics and everything else that comes from having a website.

Does that make sense?

MFS & BS are like Amazon & EBay, yeah for sure you could have your own online store to sell from. But some people see the benefits of just selling on Amazon or eBAY because they know that they can still have success just by using the platform they provide.

That decision they made allows them to focus on making a profit on the platform.

The traffic is already there because those platforms spend millions on advertising, so it makes sense to "follow the money".

Using these same principles when I'm looking at producer sites following the money takes me to MFS or BS so it's an easy decision for me to make.

I wrote this post to show fellow producers that maybe they could save themselves time from learning about web design and everything that comes with it.

They could focus more on pushing traffic to their profile pages instead of trying to compete in the serps.

I think we can both agree that when it comes to the business end of selling beats MFS & BS etc has it locked down.
 
Ether Two said:
Yup you hit the nail on the head Da Youngsta, the business end is handled by MFS or BS players which tells me that I don't really need a website of my own to sell beats on.

Without the 3rd party players producers sites aren't profitable.

So if I wanted to sell beats online my main focus would be driving traffic to my profile page on MFS or BS.

I wouldn't need to worry about web design, building links, keyword research, google updates, analytics and everything else that comes from having a website.

Does that make sense?

MFS & BS are like Amazon & EBay, yeah for sure you could have your own online store to sell from. But some people see the benefits of just selling on Amazon or eBAY because they know that they can still have success just by using the platform they provide.

That decision they made allows them to focus on making a profit on the platform.

The traffic is already there because those platforms spend millions on advertising, so it makes sense to "follow the money".

Using these same principles when I'm looking at producer sites following the money takes me to MFS or BS so it's an easy decision for me to make.

I wrote this post to show fellow producers that maybe they could save themselves time from learning about web design and everything that comes with it.

They could focus more on pushing traffic to their profile pages instead of trying to compete in the serps.

I think we can both agree that when it comes to the business end of selling beats MFS & BS etc has it locked down.
Click to expand...

Yeah, technically you don't need a site. You could just use a beat player and mask it under your domain.
 
Check it.

Browsing the web I found an interesting article which you guys should check out.

It discusses the pros and cons of selling on third party sites (using amazon as an example) vs your own site.

Here's the link: https://selfstartr.com/pros-and-cons-of-selling-on-amazon-vs-your-own-site/

There's a 20 min audio clip there which is mos def worth a listen.

The short and skinny is that there's a trade-off being made using 3rd party sites vs using and building your own site.

A good point they make is that when your customers buy [directly off that site ~ using amazon as an example] they see it as buying off amazon and not from seller xyz on amazon.

The same can be said for purchases that come as a result of the traffic on bs and mfs.

Instead of buying from producer xyz, customers may see it as buying a beat from mfs or BS. So in essence you never gained that customer. They are ultimately the customer of bs or mfs.

They also make some other good points during the discussion so def check it out.

My $.02 - While you don't need to have your own site to sell beats online, if you plan on building an online business it should mos def be on your radar.
 
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Thanks for the heads up on the article, I'm not disagreeing with you about having your own website at all, I understand the importance and the value owning a website has.

I've built many websites in e-commerce. It just seems like far too may producers sites still have BS & MFS players on their websites, so until these sites stop using 3rd party players and actually build there own stores the same problems arise MFS & BS still get all the sales and leads on a producers website.

The branding might be there but the leads and the money is still be controlled by the players.

I think the main reason the 3rd party players are used are for convenience. It's simple and straight forward. BS and MFS are copying Amazon and eBay tactics.

It's frustrating to see google ads from producers that redirect to BS and MFS.

Yes they might be making sales through advertising and they might get some sign ups to their newsletters but that all important buyers list doesn't belong to them and that's a real shame to see it happening for guys who are serious about their craft.

It feels like a double slap when I see that.

SFTRAXX said:
Check it.

Browsing the web I found an interesting article which you guys should check out.

It discusses the pros and cons of selling on third party sites (using amazon as an example) vs your own site.

Here's the link: https://selfstartr.com/pros-and-cons-of-selling-on-amazon-vs-your-own-site/

There's a 20 min audio clip there which is mos def worth a listen.

The short and skinny is that there's a trade-off being made using 3rd party sites vs using and building your own site.

A good point they make is that when your customers buy [directly off that site ~ using amazon as an example] they see it as buying off amazon and not from seller xyz on amazon.

The same can be said for purchases that come as a result of the traffic on bs and mfs.

Instead of buying from producer xyz, customers may see it as buying a beat from mfs or BS. So in essence you never gained that customer. They are ultimately the customer of bs or mfs.

They also make some other good points during the discussion so def check it out.

My $.02 - While you don't need to have your own site to sell beats online, if you plan on building an online business it should mos def be on your radar.
Click to expand...
 
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