Step by step to your own website

Text: Geraldine de Comtes (mdw)
 

Success on the music market today depends not only on outstanding artistic skills, but also on professional self-marketing. The most important figurehead is your own website.

Self-presentation as an artist, the opportunity to make professional contacts, reach an interested audience, obtain engagements or even attract new students: an individual Internet presence enables the artist to draw attention to him/herself, control the distance to the outside world, maintain an exchange with an interested audience and ultimately always keep his/her finger on the pulse of the times.

This guide is intended to help break down the barriers to creating your own website and encourage you to implement it quickly.
 

How do I get started - HTML? CSS? PHP? mySQL? Website YES, but HOW?

The path to your own website is less complicated than you might think. Gone are the days of programming your own web content, so-called “homepage construction kits” offer the ideal solution to achieve a prestigious web presence with the simplest operation, intuitive user interface, without prior knowledge, using little time and at extremely attractive costs.
 

Your own Internet address

Your own domain name, i.e. the address that is entered in the address bar of your Internet browser, is the figurehead on every business card. Artists often choose their own name as their domain in order to be easily found on the Internet. Important: choose a meaningful domain extension (e.g. .com, .at, .info, .ch). The Internet offers endless possibilities for free - i.e. not yet registered - domain names, usually even from the respective provider of the website construction kit (see point three).

You should therefore register your own domain (for a small annual fee) and avoid free website packages, as these do not provide for the use of your own domain.

Your Internet address should have a distinctive name such as www.MeineigenerName.com or www.meinBandname.at instead of www.meinBandname.jimdo.com or bluewin.ch/users/websites/ichbincellist_in.html.
People cannot remember such addresses, and these web contents are only found by chance in search engines.
 

Selection of the modular system

All the tools required to design a website are combined in so-called modular systems. They allow you to create a website within a few minutes with guided assistance, whereby there are providers that are specially tailored to the needs of professional musicians.

The tooltester.com platform offers the ideal basis for familiarizing yourself with various systems. It provides a clear and detailed overview of the providers of website construction kits available in German-speaking countries and the criteria that are decisive when developing a website. The systems are clearly compared, there are test reports and many of the systems on offer can be tested for an indefinite period of time.
 

The most common modular systems are: Wix, Jimdo, 1x1, Weebly, Webnode and Squarespace.

The following criteria should be considered when choosing a provider:

  • OWN DOMAIN: It should be possible to use your own Internet address.

  • NO ADVERTISING: In principle, most modular solutions also offer a free package, but we recommend choosing a paid version, as free systems display advertising.

  • SIMPLE, INTUITIVE OPERATION: The website builder should be intuitive and easy to understand without prior knowledge, the system should have an assistant-guided solution and provide comprehensible step-by-step instructions or online help.

  • DESIGN TEMPLATES: Good website builders offer a variety of aesthetic and contemporary design templates that create a professional impression and are easy to customize. Changes such as the page structure or the use of different color schemes in the selected layout are possible without any problems.

  • MAINTAINABILITY: Content and design are strictly separated in good website builders, which means that as soon as you have decided on a particular design, you can easily fill the existing structure with text, images, files, music files etc. at any time without destroying or changing the chosen layout. Good maintainability means that a website can be changed or added to with ease.

  • MULTI LANGUAGE: If you want to offer the website in several languages, this must be technically feasible.

  • OPTIMIZATION ALSO FOR MOBILE DEVICES: Your website should also look perfect on smartphones, tablets & co.
     

The system is selected...and off you go

Basically, you only need five steps to get a website up and running with modular systems:

  1. Register on the website of the modular system provider

  2. Select the design

  3. Define the structure of the website by selecting specific suggestion pages

  4. Fill/add content to the pages (text, photos, images, possibly videos and other information material)

  5. Publish the website
     

 The essential content of an artist website

  • A successful homepage (Home) as an eye-catcher - the first impression counts!

  • Biography

  • Artist photos (with credits, i.e. the name of the photographer)

  • Concert and performance dates

  • Press (if reviews, press articles and the like are available)

  • Download area (only for photos with credits!)

  • Contact us

  • Imprint (Attention: Imprint obligation!)

  • Privacy policy (every website must have a privacy policy!)

  • Optionally, the website can be extended with various “widgets” such as social media buttons, blogs, guestbook and various communication options with visitors, depending on the purpose of the support.
     

Attention copyright: Please make sure that the images are not subject to a charge!


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