Goldenplec

There is an old adage that says
“in business they say it’s 10 times harder to get a new customer than to keep an existing one”.

This same rule can be applied to your band website in keeping your fans interested in your website.
There are a few ways of doing this but in short some quick golden rules to bear in mind are:

1: Keep your website design as clear and concise as possible.
2: Present important information as clearly as possible.
3: Regularly update your website with new information
4: Provide the ability to allow visitors to interact with the site
5: Setup an email list (some people forget about your site and the odd email once a month with some band updates will remind them to pop by your website)
6: Avoid flash if possible (flash websites look nice but some of them tend to be slow loading and over the top which can “turn off” a visitor just as quick as a bad or plainly designed website can)

Rules 1 & 2 - Keeping Things Clear & Concise

Keeping things as clear as possible in both website design and content is an important factor when your building your wesbsite (if you are hiring a professional designer this is something he will know all about)

Something worth bearing in mind is that the average internet users attention span ranges between 10 - 90 seconds (depending on site content , layout and design)

So what you need to sit down and have a good think about is how you can present as much information about your band and music as possible with the most important information first in that time.

If you do not have the funds to get a professional web designer another worthwhile option would be to visit a site like Template Monster who offer high qaulity professional looking templates for an average of €100

Rule 3 - Regular Updates

If you want visitors to return to your website you have to make it as interesting as possible.

One very easy way to do this is with regular updates to your website. While alot of bands would have enough regular news / gig updates to put on their website their is an easy way around this and that is “blogging”. All you have to do is call your blog something such as “my band name’s tour/gig diary” or “my band name’s diary”.

Then all you have to do is post up a quick story about your bands rehearsal , funny goings on and general gig experience etc.

The great thing about blogs these days is, most sites offer such a feature, normally free for you to use. Getting Profiles on bebo.com and myspace.com allows you to upload music and pictures of the band, kit it out with information on the band and some tour dates and start blogging. These kind of sites make it very easy for a band to have a place on the web, free! and still convey what they want to the fans.

It might not be the most exciting of content but it certainly is fresh content thus preventing your website looking stale or out of date. This is a problem a lot of bands fall into. Having a Bebo, a Myspace, a Facebook, a Custom Website. There is just too many to update comfortably and one or two invariably get ignored or forgotten about, and whilst it is true to say that having the profiles on those sites for people to come across is a good thing. Its of no use if the last time the page was updated was 2

years ago and they arnt sure if your still around.

My Advice would be to sign up to these sites but utilise your page cleverly to link to your website or the social network you use the most so that people can visit your myspace and click a link bringing them to say your bebo where your always up to date, or even better your actual band website www.yourband.com which they then might bookmark as the best place for news on your band.

Remember these social networks are great if you use them and interact and update, but ultimately useless if you dont.

Rule 4 - Visitor Interaction

Visitor interaction is the BIGGEST part of generating repeat traffic and helping to maintain a fans interest in your music. Altough some band websites have tried variations the two most widely used and robust tools for the job are either the messageboard or a forum.

Though some people don’t realise it there is a difference between the two and generally a messageboard lets a visitor post up a message quickly and without having to register. Sometimes these messageboards are referred to as shoutboxes or guestbooks.

A forum on the other hand is a much better option as it allows users to sign up with their own unqiue username and post in certain categories and usually has the added benefit of being able to email all of your users at once. One of the best PHP based open source forums around is called phpBB this is an easily customisable forum system and you can add plenty of different featues (such as free downloads after a certain amount of forum posts) by using “hacks” from sites such as phpBBHacks.com

The problems with forums is that when they first start they can seem very bare and it is difficult to instigate conversations. If your finding this is the case you could perhaps do some of the following to help things along:

- talk about the show you played the night before
- talk about the progress of your new studio recording.
- don’t limit messages to your band. Use your site to promote regional events, shows by other bands you like and general music
- like to your bands site in your signature of other forums when posting, forums like goldenplec.com, thumped.com, cluas.com, cpu.ie, Irish Unsigned, Irish Music Central, Drop-d.ie, Irish Bands List. These are all great irish sites about music whom in general ALL want to help promote your band and bands site.

Rule 5 - Running A Mailing List

Alot of bands make one of two mistakes when it comes to mailing lists. They either do not use them at all

OR they overuse their mailing llist causing people to unsubscribe which defeats the purpose in the first place.

However, if used correctly in both the real and virtual world mailing lists can be one of the most cost effective tools for direct promotion of your band you could have at your disposal.

You can download simple mailing list software such PHP List or you can also get them hosted for you by websites such as Your Mailing List Provider both of which are easy to integrate into your existing website with little thought.

IMPORTANT: When you are running your mailing list YOU MUST RESIST the temptation to send out constant emails every few days with next to no information. What will happen is that either people will begin to ignore the emails or they will unsubscribe and either way you look at it you lose out.

Rule 6 - Pro’s & Cons Of Flash

More and more bands are looking for flash sites to be designed for them as they see other bands with a flash site and they want to have it too.

But (this is a BIG but by the way). A flash website does not always necessarily mean a better website in terms of getting more users and here is why:

- not everyone has broadband (remember the average attention span of an internet user)
- they are slower to load than a normal website
- they can often appear over produced and complicated
- they are usually more expensive
- they are not as easily updated by the band
- they are not picked up and read by seach engines such as Google easily
- they do not allow visitors to save images such as band shots or band logo’s (and that includes people who write for webzines / print media too)
- text readers (for disabled surfers) cannot read your site (a large enough proportion

The above is a few reasons not to have a flash site but if you want to have a flash site it would be highly advisable to offer your visitors a “splash” page with the option to view a non flash version of your site as well.

Damien Gill for Goldenplec
UN-AUTHORISED REPRODUCTION, COPYING, RE-POSTING PROHIBITED WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION
DISCLAIMER: While the author (Damien Gill) has written this article from professional experiences as well as taking all reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of this article, such information is not guaranteed. Therefore the author and Mantra Music will not be held responsible for any individual decisions taken as a direct / in-direct result of this article or any information contained within this article which is intended for general information purposes only.