Making your own website

[Isk2009]

I know there have been conversations about this before, but what are the benefits of making your own website, as opposed to using a service like SC, PMP, Soundcloud or myflashstore at this moment?

As someone who is still in the initiative stage of climbing the ladder, would there be a real benefit to making my own website? I can't help but think that it would be useless because you'd have to build your traffic from the ground up... which I assume would be incredibly difficult without already having an established name. Where with one of the web services, the traffic flow would be unlimited.

Even if you were to use one of the web services in combination with your own website...wouldn't it just be redundant? Sure you'd get more traffic to your website, but apart from special deals and such, what would be on your website that you couldn't already implement using a service like SC? I've seen some very clever ways of using a soundclick page as a homepage.

What would there be to gain?


I ask b/c I've noticed that Johnny J threw a mini fit on twitter about the cheating on Soundclick, and from what I can tell is set on finally making his own website. I can see how that makes perfect sense for him, but even then I'm sure that his traffic flow would still take a sizable hit. But what about someone like me who doesn't have a fanbase? Regardless of the cheating on there, if there's still money to be made, why move? With all the customization features on SC, you can create an image of your product far more effectively than you could on Soundcloud or MFS, which look pretty bland and are pretty much visually un editable as far as I know...

 

[ridiculus]

well for one; Your own domain name. My Name Here dot com. Having a sub-domain is kinda weak in my opinion and it takes away from your brand factor. I guess you have a point about the building traffic factor, but just like everything, things take time right? I guess it's just the independent aspect that attracts a lot of people.

 

[bandcoach]

Pros

• All revenue is yours - but remember that is gross not nett
• One stop for all things about you and your music
• Costs are limited to
  • domain name registration
  • hosting fees
  • shopping cart fees
  • bank processing fees
• You gain the ability to have your own embedded player.
• You can fix it so that nothing gets off the site at all unless it is paid for
• No having to deal with traffic limiting scams or account reviews because you are doing something that disadvantages the owner of the site/domain

Cons

• Need to do your own accounting for sales
• Traffic will be slow to begin with
• Getting credit card access to your shopping cart is difficult for un-established businesses - meaning you need to deal with paypal or similar to begin - they will take a chunk of change out of every transaction (just as the credit card companies will).
• Need to find a web designer to design, implement and maintain your site
• Site management takes time every day

 

[Isk2009]

^reading

---------- Post added at 10:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:12 PM ----------

That's the thing though,

Pros

• All revenue is yours - but remember that is gross not nett

* sure I could get ALL the revenue for my sales, but even then the % of my sales that is paypal's cut is still very small...and even then if you weren't using paypal or moneygram etc, how would customers get their money to you? Like you mentioned you'd still have to pay someone a cut of your sales anyway.

• One stop for all things about you and your music

*SC could easily be a one stop place for everything about my music, all it takes is a little CSS/html coding and you can put so many different widgets and such on your SC page

• Costs are limited to
  • domain name registration
  • hosting fees
  • shopping cart fees
  • bank processing fees

-I have a domain name which is only $10/yr, which is excellent, and I just forward it to my SC page. I had purchased webhosting from hostgator and had used in for about 4 months, but I was paying $14.95/mo. Soundclick is only $10/mo and does just about everything I assume one in this situation would need it to.

-You can find a good free shopping cart. I'm using one now and am about to switch over to another free service that I learned about via Biggrome.

• You gain the ability to have your own embedded player.

*Sure you could have your own embedded player, but you could do the same with SC. As long as you have a player and a shopping cart, what else do you need? Also the shopping cart that I'm about to bring in is a customizable embeddable player all on it's own.

• You can fix it so that nothing gets off the site at all unless it is paid for

but how exactly could you do that if you're selling music? With most places, if you have a streaming player, your music can be ripped in some way.


That in combination with all the cons you listed makes it seem like the only thing to gain from moving to your own website would be a sense of independence in the case of an online beat merchant...... But that would come with some potentially big costs...


Seems like your own website would only be useful if you yourself are offering a service that people would want to use more than once and not just selling your music.

 

[fataltone]

good post bandcoach

I like this site alot ..I'm going to start here and then get a website designed for my label at a much later date
actually after looking at the online manual I see that the customization is very deep

I have a registered domain name and joomla website now and don't feel like learning joomla right now....
Domain transfer - HostBaby Wiki

Site Builder: External Link - HostBaby Wiki
this is how I'm going to customize my hostbaby site
when you add a page it like this
before in the navigation bar
home music blog bio calendar photo gallery press/news
now you want to add business coaching
because you want to not only sell your music,you want to offer business coaching services
so now the navigation bar looks like
home music blog bio calendar photo gallery press/news business coaching
so I could truly use this site for my label...it's super customizable...

you get
Features | HostBaby which will get you traffic faster

you get this
Features | HostBaby which makes your product easier to sell

and
you get to add third party widgets along the already fantastic widgets
Site Builder: Widgets - HostBaby Wiki
also this
Site Builder: Widgets - HostBaby Wiki

I sound like a hostbaby salesman but I'm not I just love the
services
of
CD / DVD Duplication, CD / DVD Replication, CD / DVD Duplicators, CD / DVD Printers, Blank CDs and DVDs parent company of
these companies
Musician Websites | Author Websites | Build Music Website | HostBaby
Self Publishing on Kindle | Publish Book on iPad | BookBaby
Discover Music | Music Distribution | Get on iTunes | CD Baby
and when you use the services of one of these companies you get discounts on the other services of the other companies
under the discmakers umbrella which is ran by indie musicians like us....so they offer services they want and use themselves..
but as any company they are out for money too

 

[Isk2009]

^ Nice, I've never heard of hostbaby before, I might check that out.

But just as I mentioned, it would be useful to you, fataltone, becuse you have a service other than music to offer. I always see unestablished beatmakers talking about having their own website when they're just selling beats...I wonder if they've really thought their plan through or are just bandwagoning on this romanticized idea of being an independent entity. People always sh!t on the idea of soundclick because all they can think about not is making it up on the charts because of the cheating, but depending on what your talents are, it's still seems like a good choice to host your work on the online market.

Is there something I'm missing?

 

[fataltone]

you should actually start developing artists or just one artist and get to selling music..
make sure you guys have legal stuff iron out before even making one notes or one bar
work with one singer and one rapper...
make sure they have the same morals and ethics and work habits as you

on hostbaby most of the ppl on their are singers,rappers,and producers

soundclick has the internal marketing options is very nice...more you pay the more exporsure you get with soundclick..
I got away from selling beats a while ago...saving up my catalog for my artists...
I love developing artists and

 

[shawty1]

Either OR (Soundclick/Website) could be just as much of a dud or as effective. Just depends on how far you're willing to go to drive traffic and build a campaign.

CSS/HTML goes a long way on Soundclick but when those pages try to get "converted" into full-blown sites the page always ends up a cluttered mess lol. Niggas try to fit too much into that one page. a Biography, a Shopping Cart, a Video Hub, Contract Obligations, etc . . . lol.

 

[Isk2009]

^@fataltone Yea that's something I have the least experience with, but I do want to start doing it at some point, but for now I just want to do one thing at a time and given the circumstances, focusing on myself seems like a good thing to do at the moment. Building an artist seems like the thing to do these days though. I'll probably start digging around the local scene more when I move next year.

@shawty1 that's true also. But that's why you gotta keep the information compact and simplified. I've never understood why people would think anyone is interested in your bibliography when they're there for your music lol. Only thing about yourself that really matters is your production credits

 

[shawty1]

on soundclick yeah -- niggas not interested in that shit like that . . . if anything shit like that turns people off faster, I know I X out when I have to squint & search for the music player . . .

but if it were on an original site you'd be pretty careless NOT have a full-blown biography tab or link somewhere, on your own site people kinda 'give a shit' about things like that . . . Look at Team Green's website or Drumma Boy's pages.

 

[Isk2009]

^ Yea I def agree with having a bio on your own site, but at that point you're probably big enough to where people might actually give a damn to know who you are besides a producer lol

 

[bandcoach]

-I have a domain name which is only $10/yr, which is excellent, and I just forward it to my SC page. I had purchased webhosting from hostgator and had used in for about 4 months, but I was paying $14.95/mo. Soundclick is only $10/mo and does just about everything I assume one in this situation would need it to.

The only quibble I had with your response was this -

what do you get for $15/month ($180/year)?​

I'm paying AU$6 a month for (AU$72/year)

• unlimited bandwidth
• unlimited diskspace
• park all the domains you want
• have all the subdomains you want
• unlimited e-mail addresses
• tech support and
• more

with Web Hosting : Professional Web Hosting from Just Host

I do all of my own site development and coding.

I pay the going commercial rate for domain names (I have 4 distinct names and most of the .net, .org, .com extensions for them as well - so I'm shelling about AU$140/year for 16 domain names). At this point in time these sites are not monetized and are only likely to be monetized heavily when I can devote more time to their day-to-day operations.

However, I can also claim most of my expenditure as a tax deduction because the first two sites were set up as adjuncts to my classroom teaching, so monetizing them has not been a priority - when they make money I start paying taxes on the income (I won't lose their deductibility, however).

 

[j.troup]

I know there have been conversations about this before, but what are the benefits of making your own website, as opposed to using a service like SC, PMP, Soundcloud or myflashstore at this moment?

As someone who is still in the initiative stage of climbing the ladder, would there be a real benefit to making my own website? I can't help but think that it would be useless because you'd have to build your traffic from the ground up... which I assume would be incredibly difficult without already having an established name. Where with one of the web services, the traffic flow would be unlimited.

Even if you were to use one of the web services in combination with your own website...wouldn't it just be redundant? Sure you'd get more traffic to your website, but apart from special deals and such, what would be on your website that you couldn't already implement using a service like SC? I've seen some very clever ways of using a soundclick page as a homepage.

What would there be to gain?


I ask b/c I've noticed that Johnny J threw a mini fit on twitter about the cheating on Soundclick, and from what I can tell is set on finally making his own website. I can see how that makes perfect sense for him, but even then I'm sure that his traffic flow would still take a sizable hit. But what about someone like me who doesn't have a fanbase? Regardless of the cheating on there, if there's still money to be made, why move? With all the customization features on SC, you can create an image of your product far more effectively than you could on Soundcloud or MFS, which look pretty bland and are pretty much visually un editable as far as I know...

Having your own website does a few things for you, regardless of the size of your fanbase.

1) Legitimizes you to your clients. Think of how you view a business that has a HOTMAIL email address, vs their own BUSINESS.COM email address.

2) Helps establish your brand. Your logo, your color scheme, your everything.

3) Puts you in control. You get to present business in the way that best serves your clients, and the way that best represents your brand.

4) Sets you apart from the rest. Instead of being lost in the SEA of Soundclick pages, you have your own destination.



Now...I'd still maintain a Soundclick presence. Why? Because that's where the traffic is at. Everybody is going to soundclick for beats. Rappers that come thru my studio have beats off soundclick. But make sure that your Soundclick page has links and directs people to your main page.



That's it. Good luck.

 

[fataltone]

I use Just Host now and run a joomla website under construction.. it is a great deal.. but Musician Websites | Author Websites | Build Music Website | HostBaby is just better for me at $199.00 a year with tons of build in hostbaby widgets for facebook,your actual website as well the ability to use third-pary widgets..the very deep editing...but easier to setup..for me..
the features like
Your website will benefit from the latest in web standards and new technology. We are always striving to improve and innovate for our artists.

Storage and Bandwidth
10GB Storage Space
We give you plenty of room to start out big and grow as much as you like! 10GB of storage space is plenty of room for all your images, audio and video files. And if you need more, just ask!

UNLIMITED* Bandwidth
It's our job to give you a steady platform from which to grow your online presence. For that reason, we don't throttle your bandwidth. Get radio play? A big online mention? TV? No worries. We'll keep your site up and humming for your thronging fans.

* For sites that steadily use tons of bandwidth, we'll work with you to find the best solution for your site.

Search Engine Optimization
We optimise our websites using all the latest SEO standards so they come up #1 in online searches. This way it's easy for your fans to find you online.

Google Analytics
In addition to the web stats we offer in your account, you can easily integrate Google analytics with any HostBaby site. All you have to do is paste in your Google analytics ID and we'll do the rest.


more on the features
Features | HostBaby
the ease to add to the navagtion bar more pages so you can offer more services than just music..like my business coaching services


when you sign up for hostbaby you get
5 Free Submissions | Website Design | Websites for Musicians | HostBaby
and this is every year

 

[j.troup]

I use Just Host now and run a joomla website under construction.. it is a great deal.. but Musician Websites | Author Websites | Build Music Website | HostBaby is just better for me at $199.00 a year with tons of build in hostbaby widgets for facebook,your actual website as well the ability to use third-pary widgets..the very deep editing...but easier to setup..for me..
the features like
Your website will benefit from the latest in web standards and new technology. We are always striving to improve and innovate for our artists.

OMG, $200/year for hosting???????


I pay like $4/month at GoDaddy.com. Unlimited bandwidth, like 20 GB storage, email addresses, etc, etc.


I run a Joomla site too.


I'll either use Artisteer - web design software and joomla template maker to design/edit the site, or I'll go to Website Templates | Web Templates, pick out a template, and edit it.



Of course, you've seen my website. www.IndustrySound.com, and www.BlackAtomProductions.


And here are a few older websites for artists that I've made, that aren't in use anymore, but are still sitting on my server...
http://www.BlackAtomProductions.com/goldie

www.IndustrySound.com/dyenna (2009/2010)



I'll never do another Flash website (unless it's Flash CMS), because they are just too difficult to update.

 

[fataltone]

OMG, $200/year for hosting???????


I pay like $4/month at GoDaddy.com. Unlimited bandwidth, like 20 GB storage, email addresses, etc, etc.


I run a Joomla site too.


I'll either use Artisteer - web design software and joomla template maker to design/edit the site, or I'll go to Website Templates | Web Templates, pick out a template, and edit it.



Of course, you've seen my website. www.IndustrySound.com, and www.BlackAtomProductions.



I'll never do another Flash website (unless it's Flash CMS), because they are just too difficult to update.

Have you put any music up on Cdbaby which is distributes through all major online stores like iTunes,Amazon,and you get your CD,Vinyl into 2,500 brick and mortar stores
you get 5 free submissions when you sign up with Hostbaby which is worth how much $195
so if you're serious about selling your music through the top online stores and 2,500 brick and mortar stores ,facebook
you'll actually only pay $4 once you use the value
Music Promotion Tools | Promote Your Music | CD Baby
once your under the umbrella of discmakers,hostbaby,cdbaby,bookbaby,filmbaby you got a ton of weapons at discount prices
Musician Tools and Services | CD Baby Services


Features | HostBaby

Artisteer - Purchase
standard editon $129.00
so $129.00+48=$177 and still no music up on CDbaby which is your way onto iTunes,Amazon
list of all the places you'll get you music on through CDbaby
Digital Distribution Partners | CD Baby
and
you get access to this
CD Baby Partnerships

which is why I'm switching over...
I'm about setting myself up with tools for my success

J.TROUP nice sites by the way

THE WALKING ON WATER MEDIA/ENT COACH Antonio
LETS BUILD A RELATIONSHIP TO BUILD YOUR SUCCESS

 

[Isk2009]

The only quibble I had with your response was this -

what do you get for $15/month ($180/year)?​

I'm paying AU$6 a month for (AU$72/year)

• unlimited bandwidth
• unlimited diskspace
• park all the domains you want
• have all the subdomains you want
• unlimited e-mail addresses
• tech support and
• more

with Web Hosting : Professional Web Hosting from Just Host

Wel I initially took up a business account with Hostgator because the special deal they were offering was the first month for only 99 cents lol. But at the end of that month I realized that they had kind of played me and I ended up getting charged $15.00/mo on the second month instead of the $10 they were advertising on their front page lol. They pulled another one over on me because it would cost me $20 just to downgrade to a standard account, so I just decided to say phuck it and payed for another month, they gave me the last one free though lol.

But Just Host looks very nice, I did crazy webhost scouting and no one ever even mentioned just host lol.

Having your own website does a few things for you, regardless of the size of your fanbase.

1) Legitimizes you to your clients. Think of how you view a business that has a HOTMAIL email address, vs their own BUSINESS.COM email address.

I can see that, but I actually just set up a sales@silentnoizemusic.com email address for what I'm using already.

2) Helps establish your brand. Your logo, your color scheme, your everything.

I can't argue with that

3) Puts you in control. You get to present business in the way that best serves your clients, and the way that best represents your brand.

Good point also, I'm not mad at what I can do now, but more freedom of presentation could be useful.

4) Sets you apart from the rest. Instead of being lost in the SEA of Soundclick pages, you have your own destination.

Sure, but there are simple things you can do with a VIP layout on soundclick that can mask the fact that you're even using it apart from the url in the address bar lol. You can hide the SC navigation bar at the top of the page if you design your page right lol. I suppose it's not exactly the same, but still pretty close. So then not only will you be found by SC surfers you could still send people outside of SC to your page via your domain name and they might not even notice that it is a soundclick page lol.

Now...I'd still maintain a Soundclick presence. Why? Because that's where the traffic is at. Everybody is going to soundclick for beats. Rappers that come thru my studio have beats off soundclick. But make sure that your Soundclick page has links and directs people to your main page.

Cool, but at that point I suppose I'd need some unique content other than my music, right?

 

[j.troup]

Have you put any music up on Cdbaby which is distributes through all major online stores like iTunes,Amazon,and you get your CD,Vinyl into 2,500 brick and mortar stores
you get 5 free submissions when you sign up with Hostbaby which is worth how much $195
so if you're serious about selling your music through the top online stores and 2,500 brick and mortar stores ,facebook
you'll actually only pay $4 once you use the value
Music Promotion Tools | Promote Your Music | CD Baby
once your under the umbrella of discmakers,hostbaby,cdbaby,bookbaby,filmbaby you got a ton of weapons at discount prices
Musician Tools and Services | CD Baby Services


Features | HostBaby

Artisteer - Purchase
standard editon $129.00
so $129.00+48=$177 and still no music up on CDbaby which is your way onto iTunes,Amazon
list of all the places you'll get you music on through CDbaby
Digital Distribution Partners | CD Baby
and
you get access to this
CD Baby Partnerships

which is why I'm switching over...
I'm about setting myself up with tools for my success

J.TROUP nice sites by the way

THE WALKING ON WATER MEDIA/ENT COACH Antonio
LETS BUILD A RELATIONSHIP TO BUILD YOUR SUCCESS

Yeah...I've put plenty of stuff on CD Baby...and they don't charge an up front fee. They work on a percentage of sales. From what I remember...It's been a few years since I put anything up on CD Baby.

(***edit*** I see CD Baby is now charging $40 per album. Whoa.)


My problem with CD Baby is that they don't provide any type of metrics for you to analyze, nor do they provide any type of tools for managing your fanbase, etc.



I use Nimbit.com | the power of direct to fan. They provide a whole host of tools to manage your fanbase and releases. The best part is that they provide you with all kinds of METRICS to analyze your strategy, and quantify what's working, what's not, and how to adjust the strategy.



That data is EVERYTHING. I work for a company that makes $200 Million dollars a year (in profit) off of THE DATA.


Gotta have that data to analyze.

 

[fataltone]

Agreed! Other Direct-to-fan platforms are able to provide weekly tracking from itunes, why is Nimbit not up on this as well??

I'm sure there's negative statements about CDbaby too lol

found these things about CDbaby
Analyze your web traffic

With our hits tracker, you can easily assess the effectiveness of your music promotion campaigns, make adjustments based on real-time data, and focus your energy on the places that are bringing in the most sales.

Music Promotion Tools | Promote Your Music | CD Baby



nimbits says they offer Realtime sales analytics & reports but can't find any info on exactly what that is..details
where can I see the details
you got a link I could check out

also like this
We’re excited to let you know that starting today, you’ll be making more money from your MP3 sales at CDBaby.com. We’ve simplified our digital-download pay structure, and we did it to benefit you.

On every digital purchase (single song or album) made from CDBaby.com, you’ll get paid 75% of the selling price. That means for a single-song download priced at $0.99, CD Baby has lowered our cut, so you’ll now make a little more than $0.74 per song. That’s more than any other major retail site! And don’t forget: you can set the price to be whatever you want

and their blog
A Music Promotion Resource for Independent Musicians | DIY Musician

 

[j.troup]

nimbits says they offer Realtime sales analytics & reports but can't find any info on exactly what that is..details
where can I see the details
you got a link I could check out

It's in the dashboard. I was at a presentation at the ASCAP Conference, where the Nimbit people showed all of the ins and outs of the service. I signed up for the top account soon as I got home.



Nimbit.com | The Direct-to-Fan platform



Should tell you everything you need to know.