Don’t Lose Your Fans Before They Listen: Tips On Building A Better Band Website

The average amount of time someone is going to spend on a website they’re visiting is decided in five seconds, and if you have a sloppy interface with a boring look, chances are your website is going to be ignored. These days, websites are the forefront of most businesses, products, anything really. It’s not the end of the world if you know nothing about websites, but whatever it is that you do, you need to know who your customers are and you need to make sure those customers like what they see.
First and foremost, websites should be cost effective, don’t let someone overcharge you, look around and you will see more than enough proof that affordable website design exists.

Make sure that you’re dealing with a good hosting site.
You need around the clock service, and I recommend a good hosting site like GoDaddy or Hostgator to fulfill your hosting needs. If you go with the big box names you get unlimited customer support, and trust me, even the seasoned web-developing pros use this valued service. Chances are, if you have a question about the theme you are working with, they can help you with almost anything over the phone or through a very convenient online chat.

From the get go, your website needs its purpose right out in front. “What is this? Oh it’s a website for a band…maybe I should listen to a song…so where are the songs?” And just like that, Johnny ADD has left your site and gone back to trolling on Reddit. A few seconds of looking for something and people become disinterested too quickly, but having your important stuff right out in front, that is key to keeping the viewer engaged in your site.
Videos, song samples, crisp HD images. Have all your buttons that move people around your site big and visible. Please don’t make the experience to find the “buy now” button as confusing and boring as my first sexual experience in a bank line; so keep it clean and boldly on the front page.

People on the web want they’re information quickly and clearly, and why not? That is what the all-powerful GOOGLE has offered us for many years now, we are used to this quick and easy experience, and your ands website should honor that tradition. Have your information easy to read and simple to mentally digest. Use headlines, sub headlines, bullet points and large font (not too large though, it is a fine line between professional and a kids drawing). Use stylish typefonts to dance the eyes around the page your making, but keep your font choices down to a maximum of three different ones (I would personally suggest two), and don’t forget colours and images play the biggest role on any website. People read less than they used to, and they often look to images and videos to feed them their information. Keep the videos in HD and don’t go too wild with colours or your webpage might look like a cheesy 80’s video (the intent is not to Rick-Roll your fan base). If you are a bit confused on colours, simply look up colour palettes and colour wheels online and you will come up with many colour schemes pleasing to the eye.

Now what about content for that site? Well, you are an independent and or musician right? Chances are you want the works. On the front page you need to have a great looking banner to show off your band name, and you will need an exciting image to entice the viewer to look a little longer.
Social media buttons are a must, and a Facebook like widget on your front page is a truly useful tool to have.
Lastly, you need a crisp, clean, and concise menu bar. This means that you want your viewers to clearly see where they can hear your music, see your video, buy the album or contact the musician.
It is far better to have a nice clean look with less information, than to fill your page with too many words and clutter.
Keep it clean, keep it concise, and keep your audience!

Lastly, and probably most important for any musicians that have media to share on their websites, is to make sure that you have a mobile friendly website. Ever go to a site and it’s the pc version, but really tiny on the phone? Today, website designers are using programs to make the mobile and desktop site different. All the bells and whistles should stay on the computer. That’s where you have more creative freedom. Keep the mobile website SIMPLE. Phones are an amazing invention, but none the less, they are too tiny for awesome media, but you can still have all the important information on a phone without the extra clutter.

As long as it’s not movie length, I recommend having your landing page contain a crisp looping video that advertises your strengths or an appealing image slider with no more than four pictures.
And for the love of all things irritating, please do not have any audio that you can’t put on mute!

Article written by Chris Allen, Founder of Webpagefreak (http://www.webpagefreak.com/)

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