This is a guide to web marketing for artists, initially created for the Alberta Music Conference in 2003, then updated for a MacEwan College course in 2004, again in 2005 and in 2006. The purpose is to outline the basic requirements for a successful web/email strategy for artists and musicians and to recommend simple, cost-effective solutions.
I co-own a web shop. We're involved with the local arts community and we get a lot of artists - musicians, visual artists, dancers, theatre groups - coming to us for websites. Many of them have some history with web sites, and there are always one of two problems.
The goal of this page is to give you the information you need to avoid both of these situations, giving you the information you need to get the right results out of your web project.
The first thing to decide is how you will know if your website is working? What are some signs that you've got an effective website? Here are some hallmarks of a working artist website:
You can't plan a good website without knowing your audience first. And what they need. Remember, it's not a website for you, it's a website you make for other people. You need to know who they are and what they need. And here it is:
When you plan to spend money or time on your website make sure you keep these goals in mind.
Let's add it up. What are all the things you need for all the kinds of visitors to your website?
So now you know what you're aiming for. Now here are the steps to getting there.
Your domain name is your personal property. It's the one thing that you can always move, point and refer to. It's the way people can always find you.
You can change your web host, move your email accounts, get a new computer, leave town, whatever. But if you own your domain then web visitors can always follow you.
The rule of your domain name is that you need to own your Owner contact record. You can look up your information using a service called WHOIS. There are many providers including: Tucows and Network Solutions. Make sure that you are listed as the Owner of your domain.
Once you own a domain, you need to point it somewhere. Meaning you need to choose a reliable website host. There are many companies that can provide you service. If you'd like to talk to someone about it, e-mail hosting@yellowpencil.com.
Minimum features you want your host to provide:
This is a messy, opinionated area. Let me say several short points on this and we'll leave it at that for now:
There are several solutions for managing your own content. Make sure you plan one out with your website designer.
After years of building solutions, buying solutions and trying solutions, we've chosen what we think is the ideal solution for artists both in terms of features, ease-of-use and cost. We like blog tools.
quick note: if you don't know what i mean by blog, read up on it on Wikipedia
Blog tools are often free to cheap, easy to install and fully featured. They let you quickly add, edit and delete chunks of information, files and pictures from your website. Often a blog is a single series of articles.
When you hire a web designer have him/her configure a blog tool. You'll have full control of the content on your site and it will take him/her very little time to install and configure.
Many of the more popular blog tools come with pre-defined templates. These you can apply quickly and easily and they're like instant site designs. Many of the templates that come with the blog software are created by professional designers and can be used free of charge.
Three good tools that we like are TextPattern, Movable Type and WordPress. These days we tend to prefer Wordpress for speed of setup, ease of use for artists and the availability many high-quality, ready-to-go design templates.
There are 3 approaches to setting up your website.
Visit my main site for info about my own music career and for contact information
This article last updated on April 6, 2005