Having a website is an important step towards becoming a professional musician. Depending solely on social media is just not going to cut it for most artists out there. You need a piece of online property that you can call your own and have full control over.

If you’re creating your own website or having someone else doing it for you, this blog will provide a complete run-through of what should be on your website. If you already have one, this will help to make sure your site is optimized for a positive user experience so fans, writers and bookers find what they need.

Before you start diving right into it, take a step back to do some planning.
 

Getting Started

Find a Website Platform

If you haven’t already decided on what website platform to use or secure your domain name, that should be a priority. Here are some website platforms to consider:

• Squarespace (Affiliate Link)
• Wix
• Weebly
• Bandzoogle
• WordPress

Choose the Right Template

Depending on the website platform you are using, you should have plenty of templates or theme options to choose from that will help layout your site. Find a template that suits your current goals as an artist and the information you want to present.

When choosing a template, also think about how you want to present yourself. Make sure the template you use communicates how you want to be perceived and is consistent with your brand.

You might need to update your social media channels so that they have the same look and feel as your website. If your social media channels currently have the branding feel you want to communicate, model your website to continue that message so that your branding is consistent.
 

Gathering Site Content

Once your template is chosen, start to get all the web content together for the site by using the list below.

Avoid putting too much content on the homepage. Studies have shown that too many choices or distractions can confuse people and turn them away. Narrow down your content by focusing on what the goal for the site is. Do you want to build social media followers, add to your email list, increase video views, sell albums or promote tour dates? If you are trying to accomplish multiple goals, prioritize them so that you can focus on your main objectives without cluttering your site.
 

Don’t Be Afraid to Compare

See what other artists you like or who perform similar music to you have on their websites. Look with a critical eye and observe web elements you think work well and notice if there are common trends in your genre.

Now that you have basic steps out of the way, read below for the complete list of elements that should be on your website.
 

1. Social Media Accounts

 
Provide links to the social media accounts that you have. Ideally, you want to focus on the main ones you and your fans use. You don’t need to list every single social media account you have if you aren’t updating them all. Chances are, the top ones to link out will be Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, Youtube, Spotify and Bandcamp.
 

2. High Quality Photos

 
High-resolution photos are the main elements that make your site look appealing and professional. Make sure you upload photos that aren’t grainy or blurry. This may mean having professional shots taken or designating a photographer at your next show to capture good photos. In terms of dimensions, it will vary depending on where the photos are used on the website; however, I usually recommend 1920 x 1080 resolution as a starting point.
 

3. Access to Listen to Your Music

 
Enhance your site experience by giving visitors the option to listen to entire songs (not just snippets) directly on your website. New potential fans want to be able to hear your music to decide if they like what you offer without having to dig around or even go to another website. Depending on the website platform, you can upload music natively or you can embed songs using Bandcamp or Soundcloud. I suggest not using Spotify only because an account is required to listen. However, you should have a link to your Spotify to build your followers up as it is the #1 streaming subscription platform right now.

I have found that people prefer the functionality of being able to manually play your songs instead of music automatically playing when the site is loaded.

4. Link or Embed Your Videos

 
Make it easy for visitors to watch your videos by embedding them in your site the same way as songs so visitors don’t have to leave your site to view them. Having videos from live performances is helpful for bookers who want to get an idea of how you are live and may lead to additional shows.
 

5. Bio / Copy

 
Your bio and how you describe yourself are important so communicate what makes you unique, relatable and interesting. Aim for more in your bio than the standard information (where you grew up, who you are influenced by, etc). Challenge yourself to really dig deep into your brand and come up with a bio that makes you stand out.

Start your bio with an attention-grabbing statement or question to get the reader’s attention. Then move into unique information about yourself. Don’t feel that you have to focus on only the positive things about your life. Including the struggles and challenges you’ve had to overcome establishes respect for the reader and is more captivating to read. Place your long bio in the ‘About’ or ‘Bio’ pages.

Once you have a long version of your bio, condense it so that you have a 3 – 4 sentence short bio that you can use on your homepage or on social media. The short bio should sum up your music and what your brand is about. Ideally, your short bio should be placed above the fold or closer to the top on your homepage. This helps people know quickly if you’re an artist they have any interest in.

Your long and short bio can also include anything that adds credibility, like notable press or media coverage, higher-profile acts you worked with and major accomplishments. But don’t saturate your bio with these items so that it reads like a resume. Instead, work on balancing the information in your bio. Lastly, be sure to add a sentence on what you are currently up to or working on.
 

6. Design Elements: Logo, Graphics and Colors

 
Your website will need some basic design elements like a logo, graphics and a consistent color scheme. The absence of these items makes the website look uninteresting and boring. At the same time, you don’t want to overdo it with too many colors and photos either.

Your logo doesn’t need to be anything super fancy. For some artists, a text based graphic with a unique font can work. Some big name artists that use this approach include John Legend and Goapele.

If you need a logo or graphics, here are some options for you:

• 99designs – Freelancers compete with each other to design one for you
• Fiverr – Marketplace for freelance services like graphic design
• Canva – FREE User-Friendly Graphic Design App (This is an affiliate link for a service I personally use and recommend. Read my full disclosure here.)

For those who are on a budget, Canva literally has templates for every type of graphic you’ll ever need. Most musicians will get everything they need from their free plan, which you can sign up here. (Affiliate Link)

If you need a photo editor, try Pic Monkey.

Color schemes tools:

Your color scheme ties the branding of a site together. Some artists like to keep it simple and stick with black and white, but to make a lasting impression you will want to use a strong color scheme. Don’t just choose random colors you like; use the color scheme tools listed below to make sure there’s a good synergy between the colors while keeping the text easy to read.

• Coolors
• Paletton
• Sessions College Color Calculator
• Adobe Color Wheel
• Pictaculous

If you need examples and inspiration for color schemes, visit Website Color Schemes: The Palettes of 50 Visually Impactful Websites to Inspire You.
 

7. Contact Page

 
This is an obvious but highly important page to have on your site because you want to make it as easy as possible for people to reach you. Including a web form on your contact page will make it convenient for visitors to send you a message without having to send an email.

Don’t forget to list any contact email address on this page as well for people who may prefer to reach you that way. If you’re more established and have different people managing different functions, be sure to list all their emails and when they should be contacted (booking, management, etc).
 

8. Upcoming Shows/ Tour Dates

 
For most independent artists, live shows and performances are the main sources of income, so you need to make sure this information is easily accessible and updated.

If you use services like Bandsintown, you can embed your tour dates directly on your website. You can manage your shows on the Bandsintown platform, and it will automatically update across your website and social media accounts.

For more information: http://www.artists.bandsintown.com
 

9. Mailing List Opt-in Form

 
One of the most valuable assets a musician has is a mailing list of their fans. These can be most easily collected online since you don’t need to enter them in manually and risk typos or having to decipher handwriting. Make sure you have an opt-in form somewhere on the site so visitors can leave their email address, usually in exchange for something like free music. Learn more about how to collect fans’ email addresses.
 

10. Web Analytics and Facebook Pixel

 
Using a free tool, like Google Analytics, is extremely valuable for musicians and relatively easy to install. If you don’t want to use Google Analytics, there are other web analytics available to collect data about your web traffic. Most website building platforms will have their own web traffic analytics as well, but it won’t be as powerful as Google Analytics.

You can learn a lot of things such as:

• How are people finding your website?
• What channels are people coming from?
• Are sites referring a lot of traffic to your website?
• Are your visitors having a good experience on your website?
• How much revenue is your website generating through leads?
• What channels or referring sites are giving you the most leads?
• Are visitors finding the information they are looking for?
• Is your website causing issues for mobile or tablet users?

One of the best online advertising tools for musicians to grow their fan base is Facebook and Instagram Ads. A Facebook Pixel is a small snippet of code that you add to your website so you can track website visitors for ad-related purposes. One of the most valuable uses of their pixel is the ability to create a custom audience based on specific user behaviors and push ads to them or retarget them. I won’t go much deeper since this is a bit more advanced and technical for the average artist, but you want to least install the pixel on your website first. Depending on the website platform you use, they should offer support on how to add a Facebook Pixel to all of your web pages.
 

11. Links to Buy Music and Merch

 
You have the option to have an online merch store on your website as long as your platform has the functionality for people to place orders and pay online. Paypal and Stripe make this process easier and are the common payment processing options for online stores. However, they do charge fees for processing payments.

For WordPress websites, WooCommerce is a popular plugin option to create an online store.

I like Squarespace as an option because the e-commerce functionality is built into the platform so it’s easier to manage. You will need to have a business or commerce plan though. Squarespace charges a transaction fee of 3% on sales in the Business plan on top of payment processing fees. There are no Squarespace transaction fees for the Squarespace Commerce plans (Basic and Advanced).

If you don’t want to build this functionality into your site, you can sell your merch and music using a third party. For this option, you would provide links to other sites where fans can buy or stream your music. You can successfully market to your fans if you know what sites and platforms your audience uses the most and place your music and merch for sale there.

For selling digital downloads, try Bandcamp. To use their service, they take a cut of your sales, 15% for digital and 10% for merch.

For merch, try Big Cartel. It’s a free service for up to 5 items.
 

Bonus Website Tips

 
In order to create the best experience for your site visitors, incorporate as many of these tips as possible:

• Keep your site up to date. Keep content and contact info current. You could even change your site layout with new pictures or colors to match branding updates and new album releases.
• Include a page for press or an easy to find Electronic Press Kit (EPK).. Your fans are not the only ones visiting your site. Make it easier for bookers, promoters and writers to find all the relevant information and assets they need in one central location. At a minimum, you should include a bio (short and long), embedded music player, videos, hi-res photos and contact information.
• Create a ‘News’ section. This will give fans a central location to visit to receive updates. It also increases the probability that they will return to your site to find out what’s new. If you add a ‘News’ section, make sure you commit to making updates consistently. If this is too much of a time commitment, use your social media to inform fans of new happenings.
• Make sure your site is mobile optimized. More people use the internet on their mobile devices than they do on a desktop or laptop now. In this mobile dominated world, people expect to have the same experience whether they are on a PC, Mac, desktop, laptop, phone, or tablet.
• Ensure navigation is intuitive and straightforward. Don’t get overly creative with page names, so that it becomes ambiguous and confusing. Most sites will have the following: Home, Bio, Music, Video, Contact, Shop. Feel free to jazz up standard pages so that it reflects your personality, but also remember who you are trying to attract to this site.
• Don’t use popups to collect emails. Google may rank your site lower in the search results if you use popups for mobile devices. Popups are also annoying to many people and may turn them off of your site, so stick with the mail opt-in form to avoid these consequences.

Conclusion

 
Putting together a website can be a complicated endeavor, and a lot goes into ensuring the site looks good, is easy for visitors to navigate and provides meaningful content. By employing the elements discussed in this blog, you will have an effective marketing tool to help further your music career and cultivate long-lasting relationships with your fans.

If you plan to make the website yourself, I personally would use and recommend Squarespace (Affiliate Link) over platforms like Wix and Weebly. Although most of my website design experience has been with WordPress, I’ve grown to like Squarespace for how smooth the user experience is, their e-commerce integration and clean template designs. They do offer a free 14 day trial with no credit card required if you wanted to try it out. Use my affiliate link with code D4MUSIC10 to save 10% off your first subscription of a website or domain.

Here’s a website I designed for Amy D (Amy Dabalos) on Squarespace. I originally created a WordPress site for her (the website you see in the photo up top), but she wanted a platform where she can easily manage on her own so we switched over.

The post 11 Things Musicians Need On Their Website (Plus Bonus Tips) appeared first on D4 Music Marketing.

Getting started in the music business as an independent can be an overwhelming experience. There’s a lot to do and think about. Where do you start?

One thing you need is a solid online foundation that serves as a central location for people to learn more about you and your music. This should be your website. It is your own personal online space you have full control over to tell your story and narrative the way you want.

Before you dive in though, be sure to think about who your target market is or who you hope to attract through your music. It is crucial for your branding and what is reflected on your website.

Side Note: Branding is something gets commonly misunderstood but is really important to help musicians separate themselves in an over-saturated music industry. Your brand is your reputation. It’s what you stand for and what makes you special. Read up on these common branding myths so you don’t limit your potential as an artist.

Unless you know others who have been down this path, chances are you will have to figure it out for yourself. The good thing about this blog is everything linked here is free. This can be helpful early on, but you’re going to need to start paying for certain services to grow your career at some point. One of the first things will be your own website and custom domain name.

Here’s a quick list of free online tools and resources to get you started on your path as an independent artist:
 

Website

 
A website is such an essential part of your online presence that there’s no excuse for not having at least a decent one. Yet, there are many artists out there that just depend on social media. For most artists, it’s not good enough. The problem with just having social media followers is you don’t own the fan relationship nor do you have full control on those platforms. If you want to be taken seriously as an artist, then having a website will help others see that you are a professional and take your music career seriously.

People think websites are expensive, and that can be true if you have someone else create one for you. Luckily, there are several services that allow you to create one for FREE (or at a low monthly cost) and technical skills are not required.

It should be noted that there are drawbacks to using these free services:

• You have to use their sub-domain (Example – http://yourusername.wixsite.com)
• You have to pay to use a custom domain name such as http://yourartistname.com.
• There’s branding and ads that show it is a free site.
• The design templates are limited.

Note about domain names: Another important thing you need to do is buy a domain name for your artist or band name. As mentioned, you will have to pay for a monthly plan in order to use a custom domain (http://yourartistname.com) with one of the services above. If you don’t want to pay, I would at least spend the $15 dollars a year to own the domain name so no one else can take it.

Social Media

 
Social media provides a platform to gain exposure for your music, but also to engage and connect with your fans.

You may already have some of these social media accounts for your own personal use. I would still recommend signing up for all the big ones under your artist or band name even if you don’t plan on posting on them. Why? Although you won’t use them all, you prevent others from creating accounts using those names and pretending to be you.

• Facebook Business Page – facebook.com/pages/create/
• Twitter – twitter.com
• Instagram (Sign up in app)
• Snapchat (Sign up in app)
• TikTok (Sign up in app)
• Youtube / Gmail – gmail.com
• Soundcloud – soundcloud.com
• Bandsintown – bandsintown.com
• Songkick – songkick.com
• Pinterest – pinterest.com
• Reddit – reddit.com
• Bandcamp – bandcamp.com

A note about email: You will also need a separate email address for music related purposes. I highly recommend getting a Gmail account so that you can link your Youtube and Google Analytics (explained below) together in one convenient account.
 

Email List Building

 
One of the best services for new independent artists to collect and send emails to fans is Mailchimp. The big reason why is you can use their service for free for up to 500 subscribers and send up to 1,000 emails in a month. You are able to reach a lot of fans for free this way, and for someone just starting, you may not need to pay for a while.

The best part is Mailchimp recently announced that automation will now be an included feature as a part of the free plan (before you had to pay as low $10 a month to use). One function of email automation allows you to send someone an email automatically when someone subscribes to your email list.

Another great option is ConvertKit. Unlike Mailchimp, you get up to 1,000 subscribers for free.

A great free tool that goes with Mailchimp is Mailmunch. It’s a list building tool that can link up to Mailchimp so you can grow your list on Mailchimp.

The reason why you want this is for its ability to capture emails on your website, specially on platforms like WordPress. You can create pop-up and embedded forms for your website with Mailchimp. However, I find that the pop-up function for Mailchimp is really bad because you can’t close the window on mobile.

Just like Mailchimp, you can use Mailmunch for free with some limitations. You create as many forms as you want but you cannot use them for more than one site. It also displays their logo.

Music Marketing / Promotion

 
When it comes to marketing your music, promotion is arguably just as important as making the music itself. You have to properly promote it to the right people to grow your fanbase. Here are some free tools to help aid you in the promotion process.

Blog and Playlist Submissions

Getting your songs to music blogs, curators and Spotify playlists is a great starting point for new artists, especially if you don’t have the budget to pay for Facebook, Instagram, Spotify or YouTube ads. Don’t expect to go viral, but it can help give you a feel of where you are musically. The honest fact is not every new musician is going to make good music right off the bat, so submitting to blogs and playlists can serve as a feedback tool. The problem is there are tons of music blogs and Spotify playlists out there.

One type of playlist that can have a bit more of an impact on reaching new potential fans and increasing streams is getting on Spotify’s editorial playlist. It’s 100% free to submit to Spotify, but the song has to be unreleased. There are also algorithmic playlists where Spotify recommends your songs to other Spotify users. I cover everything about Spotify playlists here.

Instagram Links

Instagram only allows you 3 ways to link out of their app: your profile link, Instagram Stories (when you have over 10k followers) and in the description of IGTV. The most accessible and visible one is the URL in your profile, but it can be challenging when you want to link out to your website, mailing list sign up form, YouTube channel, online store and Spotify.

I personally use it. Here’s an example of my Linktree page: https://linktr.ee/deefur
 

Music Smart Links / Pivot Pages

Not everyone listens to music on the same platform. When you release new music, where do you direct fans? A useful tool to fix this problem is a smart link (or landing/pivot page) where it displays links to all the different platforms your music is available on.

If you distribute your music through DistroKid, they have their own pivot page called Hyperfollow that is automatically created for your release. Here are some of the benefits they list on their website for using their pivot page:

More followers – Anyone who clicks the button will automatically follow you on Spotify.
More listeners – Your music will be automatically added to their Spotify library.
More contacts – You will be given each fan’s email address.
More outreach – We’ll automatically email your fans when your album goes live.
More research – You will have access to the geographic location of your fans.
More insight – You will be able to see the other music that your fans are listening to.
More stats – You will know how many people visited your HyperFollow page, and how many fans you’ve added.

Graphic Design

 
When you want to be taken seriously as a professional, visual presentation is important. You want things, like your logo, flyers and graphics, to be stylistically representative of your brand.

Web Analytics

 
Last but not least, you will need an analytics tool. I recommend Google Analytics because it is powerful and free. For those who don’t know, Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic.

What important information can you learn from having analytics on your website? Although you can get much more in depth with the data and analytics, here are some examples of information that you can learn from Google Analytics:

• How many people visit your site?
• What are the demographics of your visitors?
• Where do your visitors come from?
• Is there another website driving traffic to your page?
• What pages get looked at the most?
• Are people leaving the site before looking around?
• Is there a problem with the site design or navigation that causes people to leave?

Please note: If you use one of the two options, here are instructions on how to install Google Analytics for each platform:

Wix

Weebly
 

Conclusion

 
There you have it. All the fundamental pieces you need to establish a solid online foundation for your music at little to no cost. You might eventually grow out of the free website options mentioned above, but the email, social media and analytics will stay the same. If you are comfortable with the free website based platforms mentioned, the first thing to do is to pay enough to get rid of the platform branding and move into your own domain name.

In an ideal situation, where money is not a concern, I would pay someone to design a website on your own web hosting account with a platform like WordPress. For web hosting options, Go Daddy is popular but I personally use InMotion Hosting or SiteGround. This way you have much more control and use your own domain name right off the bat. I’m not a fan of Wix or Weebly as long term website options.

If you plan to do it yourself, my top preferred website builder is Squarespace. Although they are an affiliate (read my full disclose), which means I do get a commission for paid sign ups, I love the overall experience and designs they offer. Here’s an artist website that I manage that uses Squarespace. The good news is you can try them for 14 days without a credit card to see how you like it. Use my affiliate link with code D4MUSIC10 to save 10% off your first subscription of a website or domain.

There are other tools you will eventually need as you develop your brand and grow your fan base. Those tools will be covered in another blog. In the meantime, here are some apps you may find useful.

I know setting all this up does require some technical skill and knowledge. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me and I will be more than glad to help.

The post FREE Essential Marketing Tools for New Independent Artists Getting Started appeared first on D4 Music Marketing.