online music promotion basics #5: getting your head around your artist website

Okay Next part of our series!!!

 That’s right it was a multi part series all about getting your head around online promotion and getting a promotion campaign going for your music on the internet!

 We said it was going to a lot of work and we told you how to get ready. We talked all about why making words like on blogs is so important on the internet (because computers read words but cant see pictures) and then doing web 2.0 social networks like myspace, facebook and youtube and stuff.

 

Part 1 is here:

http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/in-digital-we-trust-getting-your-head-around-the-internet-digital-music-marketing-and-online-promotion/

And part 2 is here: Are you ready? Content you need for your digital online promotion campaign
And part 3: Google and the importance of words on the web: more “who’s going to write our blog copy” now then “who’s going to direct our video”
Part 4:  Getting your head around using social media and web 2.0 to promote your music
Part 5: Setting up a music artists website
Part 6: Music Artist Website promotion: Marketing and Sales
Part 7: Music Artist Website Promotion: Engaging, EMail and Monetizing 

 

Today we’re going to be talking about something really important. Possibly most important – well it is in my book.

 

Your official website. First we’re going to talk about setting it up, then Next time we’re going to talk about promoting and developing it.

 

So Okay. You know how I feel about your website. I tell people that because the future is online your website is now more important than your next album.

 

So I’ll repeat this gem from Micheal Rapino, the CEO of LiveNation, who have of course dropped the guts of half a billion on securing 3 of the world’s most iconic acts, Madonna, Jay Z and Nickelback.

 

” . . . And it’s all about the Website. Collecting e-mail addresses and maximizing revenue . . . “

 

 

Se we talked about Social Media and Social Networks providing an opportunity to interact with new fans and create relationships, and a major part of that was how a social network can become a gateway to further and deeper interactions, that can be maximized for profitability because ultimately . . .

Myspace is not your space and Facebook is not your book. Your website is the only place where you maintain true control of your fan interactions and position yourself to take full advantage of the options that exist now and will exist in the future to create income from your music and brand online. It’s like this. Your website is the one place on the internet where you make the rules, and you keep all the money, and you do what you like, on your own terms. You understand?

 

My business of course is centred around my website.

The very most favourite thing about my website, especially having been a musician and in a small country like New Zealand, was not having to wait for acceptance by any part of the industry establishment before being able to connect with my audience.

My website is where I can talk business, because it’s where people are coming to get what I’ve got. That’s where the unique proposition is presented to the permissive audience.

Next we’ll have an article about unique propositions, building relationships, and monetizing communities coming up to tack on the end of this series because you should know, just having a website alone is not going to mean much, especially if it’s one of those old school websites with only things to see and read and maybe hear – and nothing to actually DO.

 

 

THE SET UP

 

I’m going to tell you right now that if you don’t know what you’re doing setting up your website properly is going to be a living nightmare that made writing your Bio seem like a wet dream.

And if you don’t set things up properly, you could be heading for a disaster, either early on by stunting your websites ability to grow in presence, or once again, placing yourself in a compromised position once you’ve already worked damn hard to create conditions for online revenue.

 

Because:

You need a website designed and structured

You need hosting to store and serve your website to visitors

And you need a domain name – a sweet internet address where you can be found.

 

Now  the worrying thing about web design for me is web designers. Let me just outline a few concerns you have to be aware of when dealing with web design and web designers.

- when your designer is the one who controls and has arranged for your hosting and domain, as well as the actual design code for your site, you really haven’t made that much progress from myspace because there’s still an issue of control. If your designer is trustworthy and a friend who isn’t going to turn around on you then that’s probably not so much of an issue.

- web design is not hard work. What you’ll find with the digital revolution is that so many things that were quite hard and had to be done manually just a few years ago have a habit of becoming cheaper and easier to do, until basically a computer can do it with the press of a button. Don’t let your designer catch you living in the 90’s thinking that web design is expensive.

- web designers are not web marketers. That’s why someone such as myself, a web marketer, is not the flashest designer. A lot of amateurish web designers forget to do things like include “meta tags”

Speaking of flash design, you do not want Flash design. Flash is a graphics based platform that looks very very pretty and professional but is useless for marketing.

You also want to insist on a CMS or “content management system” – you must insist that you are able to log in to the website and use an interface – such as blogging platform such as wordpress, this is exactly why everyone loves wordpress – to post stuff up regularly and quickly to your site.

If there’s some kind of friction, how are you ever going to get into the habit of posting up content every 48 hours?

Because that’s what we’re looking at if you wanna quit your job!

 

Your website remember is your channel. It means you could have a great TV set but it doesn’t matter if there’s nothing on it.

 

WEBSITES WITH KURB @ NEW MUSI C MARKETING

So by now you should know the deal. With Kurb Promotions and New Music Marketing.

I know that if you don’t feel you can handle setting up your own website you just need a quick and cheap solution that allows you to do everything you need now to without sacrificing long term potential.

 

If you want to join the http://newmusicmarketing.com artist community and cough up $37 a month (it’s still free for now!) I’m happy to explain everything in detail. Domains, Hosting, Nameservers,  

 

but if you want the nightmare to end that’s when you’ll want to put your $100 down to step up for a next level package which includes your domain and your hosting and a kurb friend to take care of all the set up.

Though the whole idea is that we don’t want you to play the $100 game until you’re ready . . .don’t get me wrong! If you’ve GOT $100 in your pocket – email me right now – kurbpromo@gmail.com

 

Goddamnit GET yourself some description of a decent website.

Why? Because we already know one thing about Google just reading words – but there’s another thing: Google is COMPLETELY ageist. Google won’t even talk to you for the first 6 months unless you’ve got cool friends . . . Like me. See I’m lucky. I’ve had my website now for 5 years!!!!  That’s OLD.

 

Google is impressed by that.

 

It’s a tough break. But the sooner you get your site sorted at a permanent home the sooner you can get on top of it.

 

Okay! Next time, we’re talking about developing your website for marketing and sales – standby!

part 2 is here: Are you ready? Content you need for your digital online promotion campaign
And part 3: Google and the importance of words on the web: more “who’s going to write our blog copy” now then “who’s going to direct our video”
Part 4:  Getting your head around using social media and web 2.0 to promote your music
Part 5: Setting up a music artists website
Part 6: Music Artist Website promotion: Marketing and Sales
Part 7: Music Artist Website Promotion: Engaging, EMail and Monetizing