One of the services I would like to provide is affordable websites for musician that encompass digital distribution of materials. Being a musician myself, and a musician who is finally coming up with recordable ideas again, I figured I would have a first run at this service with myself as the guinea pig. So over the next few weeks I’m going to document my research and efforts in setting up the ultimate site for a musician/band. Hopefully this will be a great resource for other people wanting to make a band/musician website and you can learn from my inevitable mistakes.

Getting Started

First things first. Before the site can even begin we need to know what features it is going to have. I could jump in and start building a nice design but if the pieces don’t fit then you just make more work for yourself. Here are the features I think are the bare minimum that any musician site should have.

News/Blog: This is obvious. A news/blog section that tell of current events, releases etc. This is one of the most important aspects of the site and needs to be updated constantly. Blogging is a great way to keep in touch with your fans and let them know what you think.

About/Bio: A good bio is essential. It is usually one of the first stops for people visiting the site to get a better idea of what the artist is about. I personally like the mini-interview style bio with quotes from the artist interspersed with the rest of the content.

Calender: Now I don’t think just a gig calendar as such. Put other events on there as well, such as new releases, promotional events, other artists you know or are involved with.

Free Downloads: People always want something. So give it to them. Don’t want to give away your music for nothing. Well you need to change your thinking a little here. Give away one or two tracks from your album, and stream the rest (more on this elsewhere). But don’t forget other things like desktop wallpapers, MySpace banners etc. These things are just as important.

Audio Store:This is possible the most important. This is so important I will give this an post all of it’s own. But in brief you need somewhere for people to actually buy your music. Wether directly through your site, or from the online places such as iTunes, Broadjam etc, there needs to be a purchase portal. For the purposes of my site, I will be using an online sales system via another site, some direct downloads from my site of older “not really retail quality demo’s” at a cheap price using PayPal, and getting my music on the big boys like iTunes/Rhapsody etc. with the aid of additional service providers.

Merch Store: Keep it simple to begin with. Stickers, posters make great merch. From there once you build up some fan numbers go for more items like shirts, caps, hoodies, whatever.

Fan Club (for lack of a better name): As you build fans, you need a away to stay in touch with them. Have a membership section they can join for additional benefits, such as special downloads, free tickets to gigs, and anything else you can think of. Have a discussion forum so they can talk with each other and also with you. The number one objective of

Image Gallery: People want to know what you look like. A gallery is a great idea for posting pictures of your latest gig, of you hard at work in the studio, or playing with your pets in your down time. Add a twist though. Get your fans to post pictures as well. There photos of you with gigs, or pictures of themselves digging your music. Make a contest out of it for members only - see above - and give stuff away.

Links: Links to other bands, links to your fan’s personal sites, links to your MySpace site, your music store and any other site that you may have had some affiliation or passing reference to. Does that pub you played at last week have a website? Link it.

Now for my personal site I’m going to add a little extra. If you are a “performance” musician, as in play live or have the ability too, be it a singer songwriter or a live DJ/mixer, then this could be the best thing that you do. Think about doing a semi-regular podcast. This is one way of getting people back to your site and also a way of getting more exposure. My take is that every few weeks, do an acoustic performance of a new song I’m working on, maybe share a new finished or near finished track, do a few covers of songs I like and invite in friends to jam with. I know that if I found more sites for artists that had this sort of contest I’d be listening to podcasts all the time.

Well that is a start. Now that these main ideas are down and documented, it’s time to see what services and and technology is required to make this happen. That will be the subject of the next instalment.