|
WEBSITES |
||
Your website is your internet presence, a way of reaching literally millions of people. For that reason make sure you leave the right impression. There is not necessarily a right way and a wrong way to construct your website although there are plenty of things you should not do. If any of the members of the band have the time and resources, then it is normally better you do the website yourself. The purpose of the site is to promote your band and your music and not as part of a portfolio of a web design company. You more than anyone know in which direction you want to go. Naturally enough your website should be heading in the same direction. It is there as a tool to help you, not as an independant entity. It is tempting sometimes to put all the effects you know on a website thinking it looks good. Well it may well do - to you! But bear in mind many people are surfing the web without top of the range computers. Too much flash animation and the site will load too slowly. Think about it - if you come across a site and it takes too long to load, you leave. You will get visitors to your site because they are interested in your band. You want to keep them there for as long as possible and have them come back time and again. Make their visit enjoyable and you have more chance. Navigation should be simple and don't shy away from basic text menus. They may look simple but they make navigation a whole heap easier than fancy buttons or graphics that no one is sure what they do until they click on them. If you have links to external sites, have them open in a separate window. Your site is still open then and the visitors can easily go back to it. Being a band, you want to publicise your music. Well hopefully you do! Put a few MP3s on your site with links to them so they are easy to find. Always put the artist name and song title on the file. It may be obvious who the artist is when someone is on your site but when they come to listen again after downloading your music it will not be so obvious. The chances are a lot of people who download your music will have drives packed full of tracks. Getting and keeping visitors... This is the most important part of any website and deserves, in fact needs, a whole page to itself. So click here for the all important information What's in a name... Always try to have your domain name at least containing your band name, preferably in the format bandname.co.uk, .com or whichever sufix is relevant to your country. If the domain is taken, be imaginative with the name. theband.co.uk may not be available, but the-band, thebanduk etc may be. The prices for registering domains and yearly hosting are relatively low these days and around £40 will give you good hosting with lots of space and e-mail. Setup e-mail addresses for band members using the domain name rather than your internet provider address. Try to avoid hosting with an internet provider where your web address is several sub directories deep. For one, it makes the site harder to find for search engines and to put it bluntly, looks unprofessional. |
||
|
© Copyright 2006. Music and guitar |
||
|
Free Stuff: Wallpaper - Screensaver - Ringtone - Animation - Game - Clip art - Theme - Template - Font |
||