Hey Steve,

I agree that a blog is definitely a must - just way too many opportunities to stumble upon long tail search phrases while generating cool content that separates you from everyone else and helps you define your voice. Can you say zero downside?

As for the listening area - I get what you're saying about having people opt in. There's also plenty of websites out there like Bandcamp and Reverbnation where people can listen to your tunes without it having to be on your dime bandwidth-wise.

On the other hand - why potentially send traffic from your site to another site just so they can hear your tunes? This was something I commented on last year when I went to visit the Stone Temple Pilots website and wanted to hear some of their new tunes - I couldn't access anything on their site so I promptly left and ended up on Myspace or something to listen to their music.

None of us here are The Stone Temple Pilots (as far as I know), but it's probably a good idea to have some music on the site since that's what we're all about right? Better to keep the potential fans on our site for as long as possible then send them elsewhere.

So maybe the happy compromise is free streams on the website and web 2.0 profiles and save the opt-ins for the downloadable stuff?

I also love your angle on the fan-generated content; always cool if you can make that happen!

Greg Parke said:

Hmmm, I guess the content of your website really depends on what you are using it for. As far as building my fan list and driving people into my sales funnel....that is what my squeeze page is for. Nothing else.

 Once I have them though, I want to make them comfortable, almost like inviting them into my home for dinner, and that is what my website is for. For me, not giving fans access to being able to listen to your music on your website seems kind of like inviting someone to dinner, and then when it is time to eat, sending them down the road to McDonalds, and then expecting them to come back with dessert!

  I also use my website when trying to book gigs. When I make a phone or email contact, sooner or later they alway ask the same question: Where can I hear some of your music? What better place to send them than a website full of info, including current and past dates, a bio, photos, comments from fans, press, videos, not to mention a place to by CD's and downloads, sign up for your mailing list.......Then hit them with another punch by sending them a separate press kit via email, and then really sweeten the deal by sending them an actual CD by mail. If they are viewing your website, they are only using one of their senses, sight. If they are viewing your website , and at the same time, hearing your music, they are now using two senses to remember you by. Also, if they can hear your music, and it is not  what they are looking for, it might save you the problems that come with being booked into the wrong gig, and I think we've all been there a time or two!

Just my 2 cents worth.

I'm with you Greg. However, is incorporating all of those elements you mention beyond the reach of the typical band or musician? I think some people will get intimidated by it all and either stick with their Facebook/Myspace/Bandcamp/Reverbnation - whatever type sites instead.

That's part of why I'm wondering about what the industry standard should be. It should be attainable for most any band and to launch with it and they'd have all the vital elements in place. From there they can upgrade or introduce new elements down the road.

At the risk of being too obvious, I think said site will require at the very minimum:

• Their own custom domain name (www.bandname.com)
• Their own band email with their domain name (for branding and because it's more professional looking)
• A blog, or the ability to create as many pages as they want (for the long tail benefits)
• Zero third party advertising
• A customized site that features the name of their band or a logo or something at the top - again, looks more professional and helps to brand the site.
• Auto responder optin on the site somewhere - either on a sidebar or a dedicated page.

We all know that this is easily possible for $10/year domain name registration, and $3 to $10 bucks/month for webhosting account with cpanel (for easy self-hosted Wordpress install) and a little bit of time messing around with some graphics software.

However, there seems to be a fair amount of bands that are willing to pay more for a Bandzoogle or Hostbaby style site that either costs more, has branding or limitations of some kind involved (if I recall at one time Bandzoogle had a page limit as well as their branding on their lowest hosted package). They see this as much easier than tackling the website themselves...even though they end up having to use some sort of a template or 'site building' software that can handcuff them down the road.

With a wordpress site in place there are no limitations (that I'm aware of) - they can have the best aspects of a blog and a website plus a content management system at the same time. I'm sure that most of us are using Wordpress for our main content sites - are there any alternatives out there?

Am I on the mark with the bare minimum that band websites need to have to 'launch' with?

Greg Parke said:

Hey Steve, I'm liking your prediction! What do you think, Mike????

It's funny that you bring up Hostbaby Mike. I have been a Hostbaby customer for about 10 years, and have been very happy with them. I was paying $20 per month for my site, there were no start up fees, I was able to build my first website that I had with them in about 30 minutes with no prior experience, and did not have to pay any extra for any website design. There is no limit on pages, and all the basic needs are there, with all the kinks worked out....custom domain name, custom header, blog, gig calendar, mp3 player, photo page, fan feedback, mailing list sign up, mass email, the ability to use outside webforms (like Aweber) very detailed tracking broken down by month, day, and hour. You can easily edit, upload, add, modify or create any kind of page you want. They also have excellent phone support, no Hostbaby branding on your site, and have been very good at fixing what few problems I have had.

Bands seem to come and go, or at least go through personnel changes pretty often, and for the average band out there, that needs a website quickly, Hostbaby is great! It is pretty risky for a new band to spend $500 or more for a website designer, when chances are 6 months down the road the band will be composed of different members or disbanded completely. (This probably doesn't apply to any members of this forum....I'm talking about the more typical hobby type musicians....almost everybody it seems has a guitar somewhere and can strum a few chords!) Hostbaby fills this niche very well, and also does quite well for musicians like myself, before I connected with MMM2.0 and this forum, and found that I needed more internet presence than just a website could provide. It's quick, easy, and relatively inexpensive.

I'm not going to bore everyone with all the details about why and how I am now moving my squeeze page, new website, and future websites away from Hostbaby other than the cost. I already did that in other posts! Unlimited hosting is available everywhere for 10 bucks a month. Now that I can muddle my way through building a website, I don't need to pay extra for Hostbaby's website building tools, and I don't want to pay extra for havingnmore than one site. That's the only reason I left Hostbaby. 

Now, back to Steve's prediction. If somebody (Mike??) were to come up with the "musicians website in a box", and it was at least as user friendly and complete as what Hostbaby offers as far as building your site goes (not talking about hosting here) I have no doubt there would be a lot of interest!

Greg,

Thanks for sharing your Hostbaby experience. It certainly sounds like they are a 'stand up' company that provides a lot of value for a lot of musicians out there. However, there does seem to be a niche that they're not serving - which is why you left and perhaps why some of the other artists they feature on their site have since setup Wordpress sites...

But lets not derail the topic of this thread. Have we established the minimum requirements of a website for musicians? Is there anything missing from the list I included a few posts back?

Greg Parke said:

Your right Mike, and I apologize. I tend to get pretty wordy, especially when I am tired. And all of this stuff is still bouncing around in my skull after just spending days building a new website!

 I think I do see Steve's reasons for not wanting a music page….I think his goal is to drive people to his sales funnel with his website, which is certainly a good point. My gut feeling is that if they are digging into your website, they are already there, and being able to hear your music will help keep them there, and maybe even keep them coming back to see what else you come up with. It would be interesting to see some comparison as to how those two approaches work.

I also think a place for fans to leave comments is pretty important, as long as you can moderate the comments to keep spammers and jerks (and long winded writers!) from ruining the page.

Comments and comment moderation - good points Greg. Wordpress + Akismet and some other plugins (plus the site owner's attention) does a good job of this from my experience. Definitely worthwhile adding to the list; also being able to disable comments is desirable for certain pages.

I completely agree with wanting to keep people on your site once they're there. The squeeze page is for grabbing the 'cold prospects' and the content site are geared to those who have already opted in, are sufficient 'warmed up' to you to be able to search for your band name and find you themselves, or they're coming directly to your site because they are promoters, agents or other bands that you're looking to work with - at that point you want them to be able to find out more about your act to allow them to 'qualify' themselves as to whether there's a good fit to work together (without having to waste your time).

Steve Rodgers said:

Also,

Mike, you bring up a great point about shiny object syndrome.  I was thinking of it from the standpoint that to a large number of us, this techy shit is a bit of a drag.

I am an admitted marketing junky, but because I don't suffer from shiny object syndrome, I find myself spending too much time figuring out tech stuff.  I do like solutions, but one-size-fits all doesn't really work.

Not sure if you are familiar with Kajabi, Mike, but that was sort of a all in one for product launchers.  I took the free trial and found it was not for me at all.  In fact there was not anything about it I found to be useful.

Hey Steve,

I'm well acquainted with shiny object syndrome, and I've outlasted it for the most part because I had zero money to spend on anything. Then my affiliate cheques started rolling in this year and I've made purchases - most of which I can say are legit, but I've had to fight temptation a few times to not spend it just because I have the money burning a hole in my Paypal account...

I was around for the Kajabi launch and didn't bite. I think it was the price tag, plus there was a little bit of backlash against it from others who pointed out that you can get similar results using optimize press and saving heaps o' cash at the same time.

There was one internet marketing (can't recall his name at the moment) who I was following who was blind. He actually described it as a blessing when it came to internet marketing because he knew right from the beginning that there are some jobs that he'd have to outsource and automate as much as possible. He subsequently built up a profitable online business where most of us 'lucky' people with sight get distracted by the shiny stuff.

Being a jack of all trades can really hurt you, because we insist on 'figuring it out ourselves' whether it's due to pride or thrift (save a few bucks) and then we lose the time that should be spent on product (music) and marketing so that money comes in and we don't have to be as worried about where the next buck is coming from.

We do need to start out doing it ourselves when the money is not there - that's just the realty that we face, but as soon as money comes - if we can avoid blowing it on 'one-size-fits-all' solutions and instead invest it into outsourcing the stuff we're not that great at (tech stuff) then the business will grow at a faster pace and the money will flow more constantly.

I forget who said it, but it's not about how cheaply you can afford to outsource something, but instead figuring out what the maximum is that you can spend to outsource (ie. a one-time freelancer or a regular outsource employee). Maybe it was Rich Shefferin?

Doh - thread derailed yet again!!!

Greg Parke said:

Something else I just thought of. I don't know if this really applies to the actual website, or if it comes from the hosting company, but the ability to track traffic to your website is pretty important. Even before I started learning and applying all these new (to me) marketing techniques, I would often go to my website tracking stats and see where my hits came from, and when. Then I could compare my traffic with what gigs I had done, what emails I had sent out, changes in my website, press, advertising, etc so I could see what was working, and what wasn't. 

Yep - that's definitely something that is crucial to the musicians who are marketing their music online. To be able to see where the traffic is coming on and then put more emphasis on the activities/websites that are producing results.

Okay - lets add stat tracking to the list...good stuff Greg!