Your Band Website: What Information Should be Included?
Band To-Do List:
1) Reserve the domain names (e.g., *.com, *.net, *.org) for your band and the name of your album(s) – CHECK
2) Create band website – Um….check?
If that second task has you a bit stymied, following are some ideas regarding the type of content you should include on your website. As you determine what you should include for your band’s website, remember your audience. Strive to provide content that your audience (e.g., fans, booking agents, members of the press, other musicians, your mom) is interested in reading, listening to, and viewing.
Keep in mind that your audience may have a different perspective regarding what band information they desire you provide vs. what the band desires to share. For example: you may be enamored with the latest piece of cool equipment you just purchased, but that may not be of interest to your readers. Each band’s fans will desire some unique information, but there are also a lot of common denominators. Following are some categories of information that you should consider including on your band’s website:
- About the Band – Basic information about your band including a brief history, the names and a little information about each band member, hometown, genre, and a list of well-known musician(s) your music resembles.
- Music – Clips or full versions of your music that can either be streamed or downloaded, chronological discography of all of your albums, and lyrics for all your songs.
- Photos – Candid pictures of band members and audience participants at past events.
- Videos – Embedded YouTube videos of the band performing, providing instruction on a music-related topic, or creative music videos.
- Blog – At least weekly posts on topics that complement your band and your brand identity.
- Events – List of upcoming gigs with detailed information (e.g., cost, location, time) to enable your fans to attend.
- Store – Maintain either an independent store or provide a link or embed a widget to the third-party site(s) where your music and merchandise can be purchased.
- Press Kit – Reviews, Press Releases, Professional Band Photo(s), Fact Sheet, Band Biographies, Band Logo (color and black/white), and Performance Stageplot.
- Booking Information – Types of performances, testimonials, band representative’s name, e-mail, and phone number.
- (General) Contact Info – web contact form, e-mail and postal address for your fans to contact the band.
- Newsletter Sign-up – On-line mechanism to gather name and e-mail address of fans to send regular information about the band.
- Legal – Copyright, Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Do you agree with my list? What have I left out? Do you disagree with some of the content I have suggested? Please share your feedback. If you found this information useful, please retweet.
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Thanks for reading and commenting on our post, Jim.
I recommend an original band blog, similar to our “Eclectic Blog”. Some bands only write about themselves, which is interesting while on tour, but can be tiresome to read on a regular basis. Regular blogging needs to focus on the audience. We try to write blogs on a variety of topics, that will appeal to people like us who are business owners, musicians, learning new things / DIY, etc.
If others are writing about your band, you may want to add a “press” or “fan feedback” or other captioned page to your website to showcase comments from others, but in my opinion, that type of content shouldn’t be captioned as a “blog”. People assume a blog is content written by the website’s author/authors.
Thanks for the comment, Margo. I’m glad our post was useful to you.