22 Sep The Secrets behind a Successful Musician Website

There is a big gap between a talented, aspiring musician and a recording artist. You’ve probably heard just how difficult it can be to actually make a living from any form of art and particularly music. There are a lot of bands and talented artists that come and go so, you need to set yourself apart and quickly spread the word about your music if you want achieve even a modest level of success in the music business. Self-promotion is much easier nowadays, due to the fact that you can reach a lot more people through social media and a good blog. Of course, you still have to put in the effort and work on getting local gigs, creating new material and recording songs, but it can be much easier to get people excited about your work if you have a good website and an informative blog.

Plenty of easily accessible information

The main purpose of your website is to provide information about yourself (or your band) and to promote your music. This means having a fairly clear definition on what type of music you play – music can sometimes be difficult to categorize, but you need to provide your visitors with a ballpark estimation so that they know what to expect – music samples, information on previous gigs and awards, some info on band members, etc. It is best to have a section where members of the press can just click and get all the necessary info they need to write a piece on you, a section with upcoming gigs and other relevant news, a shop section where people can buy your merchandise and, of course, plenty of interesting and informative content. Just imagine some of the potential fans sitting down with you and asking you about your music, where they can hear about you and some cool adventures you had during gigs or on the road – then just write down all this information and put it on your blog.

Making your merchandise easy to buy

When you’re starting out, you need an additional source of income, since you won’t be making all that much from your music and you will need to constantly invest in yourself. Selling a variety of merchandise on your website is a good way to get some extra cash to cover the cost of hosting, equipment, recording, etc. You can sell T-shirts, hats, posters and all kinds of trinkets, but you can also offer some great downloadable content for your fans. Teach people about making good music with a series of “How to” videos which they can download for a small price, give them a chance to download your music videos or live concert footage, offer individual songs and your entire album in digital form, allow people to download a short eBook detailing some of your experiences and fun stories, etc. Some firms offer an incredibly simple way of selling digital downloads from your blog or website – you just sign up, copy/paste a few lines of code and create short product descriptions. You can offer some free downloads along with the merchandise that you charge for and it’s as simple as clicking on a “buy now” button and going through a short process, without ever leaving the page.

Regular and interesting content

If you want people to come back, share your website with their friends and become more invested in your work, then you will need to give your audience something to come back to. You don’t have to provide new content every single day, but a couple of posts a week, a monthly news update, some images from a tour or a little vlog post from the backstage area should be enough to spark interest and keep your fans happy. A few basic vocal coaching lessons or piano lessons can be shot in a single afternoon, and will give you enough material to last you a week. You can also encourage the fans to ask questions and then answer them in either blog or video form. There’s a lot you can do, just keep posting new material regularly.

For an indie artist, it is very important to spread the word and develop a fan base. With a good website, you get a chance to reach out to the fans, the press and record labels all at once. You can also promote and sell your music, either one song at a time or offer your first album via digital download. The possibilities are endless, but it will take a bit of extra work to complete it all.