Band Websites

[geoff_in_nc]

I apologize if this has been hashed out before - searching both with the search engine, and just going thru the forum found me nothing.

I'm in a cover band that's getting close to where we want to start gigging. We realize we'll need to promote ourselves, and of course everyone needs a website these days. Of course we're cheap and would like to see if we can do this for free. I know that will make it so we're not www.<insertbandnamehere>.com, but that's OK for now. Has anyone dealt with any free webhosting arrangements? If so, who was it and how did it work out?

Thanks!!

[Joeykun]

I would start out with the usual My Space and Facebook sites so you can build a fan base. Once the band starts playing out and making money a pay account only runs about $20. bucks a month or so.

Good Luck!

Hey I can tell you exactly how to do that.

Here's one I made with google sites (it's extremely basic, and we've only just started using it so lots of information has yet to be updated).

www.safesaxbristol.co.uk

I used google sites on my google account, which is completely free. On that system you design it all using an on-screen editor which is very easy to use. They have templates and colour schemes etc, but as you can see from the one I've done, I've adapted it a lot by changing the colours manually, adjusting the layout by getting rid of the side bar and title and search bar, and adding my own background image.

Then, go to 123reg or a similar service and register a URL. You can get a cheap one for about 6 quid for two years. This is the only expense. By this I mean www.(your band name here).com/.us/co.uk./.org/ etc You don't have to do this because google supplies you with a url, but it's quite long and unwieldy and considering it's so cheap to just buy one you might as well.

After you've done this, you go to 'manage DNS settings' and add 'ghs.google.com' (or something) into one of the boxes there, and then you go to the settings on the google site and add in your URL that you've bought. Within about half an hour it'll be working and up online.

Any questions hit me back, but I'd really recommend google sites, because you can update it so easily. I also designed my teaching site using google sites.

www.guitarlessonsbristol.org.uk

Then you have the whole topic of SEO to learn about, but basically you need to find out what people in your area search for on google when they're looking for a covers band, and 'optimize' your page so that it's more likely to come up in a search with those keywords. You use google keyword search to find this information.

If you type in SEO on google, there are tonnes of resources for it.

[geoff_in_nc]

Afromoose, thanks for the pointer to google. I had no idea. I mocked something up pretty quickly and emailed a link out to the band to see what they thought of the overall design. Very cool, thanks again.

No problem! Aren't google great?

[dsdev]

Hey there,

Try out www.sayvee.com. You can try out the site for 30 days and mess around with it. After that, it is $14.99 per month.

It is pretty flexible and lets you update and manage all your content, along with the ability to sell your mp3's, which can help you start making money right away as well.

[shadow_FIX]

Things may have changed with free hosting since I did it for a band about 5-6 years ago, but my experience included hoards and hoards of ads plastered on 3 of the 4 sides of my computer screen. Some places might not do that, but that was what I ran in to.

Do the Myspace/Facebook thing so you can invite all of your friends to shows and promote yourself that way, make some money, then pay for a site.

[mrpackerguy]

We use Hostmonster which has been very reliable for us. Nothing like having your own website. I hate those Myspace/facebook pages - tough to navigate and you never get all the info you might need as a potential hirer'er of music.I then bought Web Page Maker software for $50 and I did our website. Nothing fancy or flashy, but it imparts to people the info they need, and mostl importantly, it gets us bookings.

[agreatheight]

If you are going to use your site to market your band to bars & clubs, go the extra mile and pay a designer. If you want to appear pro, you should look pro. A simple website should run you less than or about a couple hundred bucks, and you will make the money back. If you are just using the website for getting fans to shows, you could just start with facebook / myspace / twitter.

[mrpackerguy]

Originally Posted by agreatheight

If you are going to use your site to market your band to bars & clubs, go the extra mile and pay a designer. If you want to appear pro, you should look pro. A simple website should run you less than or about a couple hundred bucks, and you will make the money back. If you are just using the website for getting fans to shows, you could just start with facebook / myspace / twitter.

Hopefully you can find a web designer cheap. When we were looking, we couldn't find one for less than a grand and as expensive as $2500 for just a basic design. If you are handy at all on a computer, lots of website building software has good looking templates to give you a professional look. Ours may not be fancy with flash or any of that new-fangled stuff, but people who have hired us for their weddings have complimented how easy it was to find out the info they need and thought it was a good website. Just sayin....it can be done depending on your goals and how much you want to spend.