I originally submitted this to helium a while back.
Okay, your band is tight, you are preforming well, nobody has thrown anything at you on stage for quite a while and you are getting rave local reviews. You’ve even got some video up on MySpace and YouTube, what now? What more can you do to get your name out there?
Why not a band website?
“Ack!” you scream “I know absolutely nothing about web design, hosting sites, or even personal hygiene!”
Well fear not my hairy half deaf friends, I’m here to show you the way. (well except the personal hygiene thing, your on your own with that)
I’ve done a few web sites over the years and contributed to more, and I found that I really hate coding with a passion , so being the lazy-ass hairless monkey that I am, I went in search of an easier way to get things done.
I found it!
Its a site called “Bandzoogle” at http://www.bandzoogle.com
This is a hosting site designed by musicians, for musicians. Its the coolest thing I’ve seen.
Here you can create your band site without having to know anything about HTML, everything is pre-coded, you just sign up, go to your personal control panel, and start setting it up the way you want. Anything you could ever need for your site is there, included a site wide mp3 player, so that people visiting your site can hear your tunes while perusing your pages.
Here are just some of the features…
Selectable page styles..
Here you can change the whole look and feel of all the pages on your site without losing any of your content, this changes the backgrounds, fonts, link styles. But leaves anything you’ve written or uploaded untouched.
Music store…
Want to sell mp3’s directly from your site? This is the tool to do it.
Merchandise store…
Sell your cd’s, hats, band logo underwear, t-shirts, jackets, sippy cups, anything
Photo albums…
Upload pictures from your latest gigs for your fans to see.
Guest book…
Let your fans give you some feedback.(without them being close enough to hit you with anything)
Coming events…
Let everyone know where and when you are playing, even links to google maps!
Forums..
Set up a discussion forum so that you and your fans can communicate with each other.
Like I said, these are just a small sampling of the features this site offers. They’ll let you try it out free for thirty days, and the pricing isn’t crazy. I took the premium package, and at 19.95/month split between the band members means a quality band site for 5 $. Well worth it.
So stomp on over to this site and check out what they have to offer. Peruse some of the sample sites that they showcase, I think you’ll be impressed. (and no, I have absolutely nothing to do with the site other than hosting my buddies band littlehead.ca there. I just think its a good thing for all you crazy musicians)
Cheers!
Keep on Rockin’
