YES MUSICIANS - You Definitely Need a Website!
If you spend enough time around musicians you will almost certainly hear one of them say how pointless it feels to make a website. It’s wrong but it’s not hard to understand. Building a good site takes work. But many feel social media provides easier ways to track engagement. Further, social media provides the rush of instant gratification and validation that our beautifully-designed-but-static-webpage does not.
So why then do musicians need a webpage? There are many reasons why having a website is common sense. We’re going to outline the most relevant examples and then provide some tools for musicians who feel in over their head.
Why do musicians need their own website?
Reason #1 – Real estate. Anyone trying to get attention for a product or service needs their own digital real estate. The internet is notoriously trend-driven and social media services come and go all the time. Remember Ello? That was supposed to be the alternative to Facebook in 2015 that quickly flamed out and is now inhabited primarily by digital artists. Sure, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook have stood the test of time but they make changes to their terms of service often that could impact musicians negatively. Don’t believe us? Last year, at the beginning of the pandemic, Facebook issued an order that musicians could not livestream from their own artist pages due to pending legal issues with the RIAA. If you were a musician used to streaming on Facebook to make tips, that was a major blow to your income.
Having your own digital space to promote your work gives you an advantage. Rather than sharing links to music streaming sites constantly, you can share links to your own webpage with those same links. With enough time and preparation you can also create content to keep people on your page once they’ve clicked a link.
You don’t make the rules on social media! But on your own website, you are the boss! Aside from the very general rules laid down by your website provider, it’s all up to you. You can speak freely without being buried in an algorithm, you can write for as long as you want when you post, and you can share parts of yourself that might not be as easy to reveal on social media.
LESSON: Having a website gives you freedom to promote your music the way you choose. It also keeps you from being punished by the algorithms of social media.
Reason #2 – Build Community for your brand. By utilizing your blog to share news or even a collection of social posts on a regular schedule, you create a sense of impending importance amongst your fans. You don’t have to tell them you post every Tuesday at 10am, if you do it consistently they will learn to expect it. As you gather more people with interest in your work, this will slowly create a sense of community among those who regularly engage.
LESSON: Regular communication through your blog will slowly begin to create community and anticipation.
Reason #3 – SEO. So earlier, we talked about the advantages of social media. Your followers, fans and friends are on those platforms already, just waiting to be marketed to….right? Kinda. Algorithms and paid ads have kicked the legs out of much of the genuine viral potential of social media. You can rest assured that a tiny percentage of the people who follow your page will see your posts unless you pay to promote them. So why pay to promote something that is already on Facebook? Pay to promote your blog posts instead! Drive people to your real estate. And furthermore, including your website in your “About” section of each social media profile will generate SEO in Google. Sites that are frequently linked to perform much better in search engines than those that don’t.
LESSON: Use your social channels to drive people to your website, NOT the opposite.
So those are the three biggest reasons why it’s so important to have your own website. There are many more and we’ll examine those at a later time. But now that you know you NEED a website, how do you MAKE a website?
Easy Website Resources
Currently, both Squarespace and Wix seem to have the market cornered on beautiful web design with drag and drop functionality. Both sites have a bit of a learning curve but offer all the premium tools you’ll need to design a beautiful and engaging website.
