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"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." Dr. Hunter S. Thompson  "It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it." David Stanowski To find older articles; use Search or Site Map |
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Monday 17 July 2006 More, On Band Web Sites! Every band should have its own web site! You can personally deliver your Promotion Package to those club owners that you approach for bookings, but your web site IS your Promotion Package for those club owners who are trying to find you, and for the general public! There are very inexpensive ways to build web sites. In fact, some are free!! 1. One of the best deals available is from Godaddy.com. I just switched this web site to GoDaddy, and I use them for another one of my sites. If you register your domain name for one year, and sign up for one year of Economy Hosting, at the same time, the TOTAL COST is $45, for the entire year!! You get 5 GB storage, 250 GB bandwidth/month, 500 email addresses and 24/7 telephone support! 2. If you want something cheaper, there is the $0 hosting plan from Doteasy.com. They charge $25/year to register your domain name, and $0/year for basic hosting. This means that for a TOTAL COST of $25/year, you can have a stand-alone web site with your own URL. They do NOT have telephone support; you have to send them an email, and wait several hours for a reply. Doteasy.com is the company that we use for two of our websites. You get 100 MB of storage space, 1 GB of bandwidth each month, and 10 Email addresses using your chosen URL. This package will NOT handle PHP, MSQL, and other more sophisticated functions, but for a basic web site, you can't beat the price! 3. Don't want to spend $45, or $25 per year? How about a free web site? You won't get your own top level domain name, but you will get a unique URL, and it even includes a page builder, to help you build your web site. This free web site is available from Google! Just go to http://pages.google.com, and follow the sign up procedure. You will get a free domain name that looks like this: http://yourbandname.googlepages.com. Your free Google site offers up to 100 individual pages, and 100 MB of storage. I'm not sure how much bandwidth you get with Google Pages. I haven't used it myself. There are also other free web sites available from places like Angelfire.com and Bravenet.com. If you're not familiar with building web pages, using HTML, you can find free, or inexpensive templates at many locations on the Internet, to use with any of these hosting services. MYSPACE.COM Many people seem to believe that setting up a personal page on MySpace.com is the same thing, or even better than, having a "real" web site! I strongly disagree! MySpace was set up as a personal diary, and chat room, for high-school kids, where they use the fill-in-the-blank forms to tell the world their favorite movie star, who they'd like to meet, their likes and dislikes, etc. This is why it is so popular with child molesters, and other criminals who need to get a lot of personal information on people who are foolish enough to put it on their page! MySpace was not designed to be a real web site for bands, or for any other use! I have been to dozens of MySpace band sites, and what I see over and over again are lots of pictures from gigs, and from their MySpace friends, but usually no phone numbers, or email addresses. They often have little information about the band, either. They all have 2-3 MP3s to play, but if you want to book them, good luck; no phone number or email address! I saw a posting, on a musician's forum, today asking how to contact this guy. They had seen him do a gig and wanted to book him, but guess what; no contact info: http://www.myspace.com/BrittsMusiqq. How typical! Some bands seem to think that they can't build a real web site, unless they pay a web designer, and opt to "throw something up" on MySpace instead. I believe that MySpace sites are NOT nearly as effective, and many of our local bands have built good web sites, all by themselves. All of these Galveston County bands have web sites that very effectively promote their band. Some are more complex than others, but they all get the job done! If you don't have a web site, take a look at these and get some ideas. I apologize if I have overlooked anyone! 3 Peace Bare Necessity Bert Wills Billy Bourbon Band Brunette Sky The Drive Freerain Funksion J.D. Richards Lawst Dogz The Line Up Mike Kelly Group Radio London Shark Attack The Skinnies The Skip Devlin Band SquishyPeach Texas After Dark Tomz Katz Wiseguy There are three basic ways that people find your site on the Internet. You can give them your URL; you get a link to your site from another site, and through the search engines. At least 60-80% of new visitors are going to find your band site through the search engines. How well does MySpace work in the SEs? To test MySpace, I put up http://www.myspace.com/galvestonmusicscene, 3 months ago. As of today, it is NOT indexed in the three major SEs!! OK, you say, but all the MySpace traffic is internal. It is one MySpace member connecting with another on MySpace member. You think so? Type in "Galveston Music Scene" in the MySpace SE. It's not indexed there, either!! So what good is it? That is why I have gotten all of about 12 hits on this site in 3 months! So, go ahead and use MySpace as an auxillary site, if you must, but put up a real web site, with all of the information that is in your Promotion Package, that will get indexed by the SEs, and then send me your URL, and I will put up a link to it on my "Bands" page, that will drive some traffic your way, too! You can never get listed in too many places, on the Internet, so try listings at these sites, too. PureVolume.com offers a basic mini site at no cost! You get a home page, a music page where you can host 3 MP3s, a photo page for up to 8 pictures, and a bio and contact page. FindTexasBands.com allows you to list your band for free until September! RootsMusicAssociation.com free listing. Singer-Songerwriter.com free listing. Keep in mind that none of these free listings are very effective unless you include a link on them to your real web site. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
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