web site: Do you do your own?

Subject: web site: Do you do your own?
From: GUEST,Claire
Date: 23 Jul 03 - 08:00 PM

I'm wondering if musicians/bands out there generally make their own web sites or if they hire professionals to create them? Have people found having a professional looking website to be beneficial?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts,

Claire

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 23 Jul 03 - 08:07 PM

I made my own...

It's not like html is very had these days...

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: hesperis
Date: 23 Jul 03 - 08:26 PM

I made my own, and used a free php/mysql framework that I customized to be even cooler, and made the visual look for. I'd love to offer that to other musicians.

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: GUEST,jennifer
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 01:38 AM

I know of a few well known musicians who have "adopted" unofficial fan sites.
Hesperis - is it possible with this php/mysql thing for someone who knows very little about those acronyms to have a guestbook crafted for them that they can graft onto the rest of the site and look after safely? I want a feature where the website manager and musician could post replies to queries. At the moment we don't know if the other has dealt with something, and the public don't know whether we answer things at all!

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: hesperis
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 07:19 AM

For that, get the guestbook here: http://proxy2.de/scripts.php

It's free, and you can edit the header and footer to look similar to your site.

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: NicoleC
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 11:21 AM

Another good idea for fan-oriented websites is the Ikonboard software. It's free, but it has to be installed your web hosting server which will probably cost you money. You can build your own customized forums, and while it does a LOT of stuff, the managing the basic stuff is pretty easy.

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: cockney
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 11:34 AM

Yes I have made two simple websites using aol's online easy designer (no skill involved!!!) One is my personal Woodsie's World and the other for the folk club that I am involved in folkmob.co.uk These are pretty simple but they cost nothing and they do the trick.

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From:
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 12:28 PM

Claire, it would really depend on the musical group, their time, and how internet savvy they are.

If they don't have the time, or inclination to do a major job, and it IS a major undertaking, then hire someone by any means. HOWEVER, keep tabs on the site, what is being done, and what is happening with it, to keep it aligned with the interests, and tastes of the group/act.

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: GUEST,Peter from Essex
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 06:45 PM

Whoever builds the site, you MUST keep it up to date. A gig list that hasn't been updated since 2001 will leave potential customers feeling comfortable about committing themselves to a booking.

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: Mr Red
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 06:52 PM

I hand code mine in HTML &/or automate same in a spreadsheet. OK it shows, but I am not selling and pricipally major in info. There are several points to consider,
1) technology has to work for you so beware of Flash, and anything that only works on IE76.67 ot Netscape 101.3 - there are a lot of folks using old equipment so run it through old browsers before publishing. I use IE5.0 and Netscape 4.5 which covers maybe 95% of potential surfers. I personally hate Flash because it rarely yields information - it is comic strip - mass market selling to disposable income maybe it works, but business types I am not so sure.
2) Graphics add professionalism but consider the size of the images, keep em small.
3) As for do-it yourself The learning curve can be steep even with good software (You really have to want to hand code in HTML)- Good designers will nearly always have more pzazz but at a cost.
4) don't use MS products unless you have to - they bloat the code and lock you into ever newer browsers and dis-enfranchise old equipment. It is after all how Bill Gate$ got rich.
5) I asked 'catters to look at my site and I got feedback from those with strange browsers - only the catter with WebTV stumped me - I tried a few things but got little technical detail to work on.
FWIW here I am cresby.com
Oh yea - start simply, at first.

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 07:03 PM

If you are looking at the off the shelf forums, I'd go for phpbb rather than iconboard but all depends on what your ISP can run.

Other thoughts:

Yes I think looking professional is important. That is not to say you can not do the job yourself.

I'd also suggest looking at professional web hosting rather that a free site that may have banners. Hesperis offers what looks to me to be good linux based services and I also would recommend my own ISP 38h.com who have Windows packages starting at something like £25+ VAT (though that one doesn't include domain name hosting).

(Just speaking as a punter here - I mean I'm not an artist)

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: GUEST,Bograt
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 07:21 PM

Hi Claire, and all you other great folk out there.

Could I put my 2p worth in here? The thing that always puts
me off a site is the amount of flashing logo's and slow loading
graphics.
Sure, they add a lot to a site but on the other hand
(four fingers and a thumb)they do take a long time to load.
This IMHO puts people off a site more than anything else, when
we go to a site, we want the information it contains, reasonably
quickly, and if you have a slow loading site you don't visit it
anywhere near as often as you would a good one like Mudcat where
you can go on and check things out several times a day.

As Mr Red pointed out in his excellent thread above, we don't all
run super fast equipment or browsers, I'm still using I.E 4.0 for
instance.

Sorry for doing the rambling bit, I'm afraid that slow sites are
one of my pet hates.

Hope it works OK, put it on the 'cat when it's up and running.

Cheers

Bog

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: GUEST,Claire
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 07:37 PM

Thanks for the input.
We are considering going for www.rivergraphics.com. Our big problem is no expertise and no interest by a band member. We are already covering so many other things just to make our band work. We have a site for our band on geocities, but it has an out of date calendar and it is very cumbersome to update. I also hate slow sites, and the rivergraphics sites are really beautiful, but seem pretty quick to load. They specialize in music websites. I'll let you know how it goes, if we go that way.

Thanks again, Claire

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: hesperis
Date: 25 Jul 03 - 02:09 AM

Ok, if you want a calendar that's easy to update, check out my site at Between the Worlds. Then check out dragonstarnet.com

The php/mysql thing means that once it's set up, all you do is fill out some forms and hit "submit" and you have more content (news, events, images, whatever) added to your site. Then you back it up occasionally so that if any problems happen, you have the content somewhere.

Things I haven't done on this site yet: triple-checked what it looks like in netscape... and set up the cafepress store properly.

I'm sure there's a standalone calendar script out there somewhere that would be good if that's all you need.

Also, I'd recommend phpbb or invision power board for forums.

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 25 Jul 03 - 03:25 AM

What I do for a living is create web applications for the Open University's Intranet (which means you can't see them; bad luck!) so I should be able to do my own website. But I just don't have the time and the inclination simultaneously; and anyway, I can't think of anything to put in it (apart from links to Mudcat).

As everyone has said above:
* don't put in lots of graphics, as they take ages to load (I've given up many a time after a couple of minutes on a broadband connection)
* do make sure it runs in Netsacape an Internet Explorer
* do make it easy on the eye and easy to read
* do make sure all the links work and still exist
* do make sure it's up to date

Not much to ask!

Steve

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: GUEST,Peter from Essex
Date: 25 Jul 03 - 03:57 PM

If you are playing for dance in England then your gig list needs to be compatible with Webfeet. Non folkie designers will not do this for you.

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Aug 03 - 04:08 AM

More?

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: GUEST,Daisy
Date: 14 Aug 03 - 05:47 AM

I agree with most of the sentiment so far and I'd like to add my own particular rant about websites - here goes:

Your website can be as flashy as you like, but if it is badly designed in the first place, it will never be any good. I don't mean designed as in teh HTML/PHP/Javascript etc designed by the company you pay to do it for you, I mean CONCEPTUAL design - the most important part of navigation and usability.
Trouble is, this is something only YOU as the band can do... you need to decide on things like - do we have a gigs page? where is it linked from? what does it link to? etc. The most important thing is to enable people to find the info they are looking for, not some flashy gimmick. SIMPLICITY is your friend! So is CLARITY!
For this reason I am a big fan of site maps (if you want to see an example, go to my sitemap for me personal pages which would be even better if you could click on it...

To put my money where my mouth is, here's my band site Loci

Let us know when you get your site up...
Daisy

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: treewind
Date: 14 Aug 03 - 06:08 AM

Tee hee! A real map - I like it! Bet it isn't easy to change it though.

Here's mine - at least that's the part I put most effort into maintaining. All hand coded in HTML, uses CSS a lot, and this is the second version of the whole site, completely redesigned.

I do keep it up to date - the gigs page is often the firat place I put new stuff in, and sometimes I rely on it myself to know what we're supposed to be doing when! Content is king on a web site, and ease of use comes a close second.

I do sites for other people too - or usually show them how to do it so that can carry on by themselves. Once you've got started it's pretty easy. Examples here

Anahata

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: mooman
Date: 14 Aug 03 - 06:21 AM

I do my own and I'm very much a believer in what many have said here already and what Dick Gaughan, a professional web designer as well as musician and singer (and sometime visitor to the 'Cat), says, i.e. "Keep it simple and fast".

I can do Flash and other enhancements but tend to personally prefer a clean, guimmick-free and well-structured site, with good underlying graphical design.

I tend to use either Creative Page or Freeway on my Mac to do the boring stuff but do some direct HTML coding when necessary (I originally learnt the basics from Mudcat's own excellent primer guide). I'm just redoing our band's site and will post a link when its ready and published.

Peace

moo

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: songs2play
Date: 14 Aug 03 - 07:21 AM

Couldn't agree more with Mooman - Keep it simple.
There's still a lot of older pc's out there that take ages to download graphics/pictures/animation.
I do our local folk club at www.wiganfolkclub.co.uk and my own at www.songs2play.co.uk
Nothing special.
I used dreamweaver a lot in the begining, but now try to stick to html.
It's easy to get a free website on Yahoo or Lycos to start with, the ads are a bit of a pain, but if you want tp take it further there's always scope for upgrading.
Happy webbing

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: GUEST,Den
Date: 14 Aug 03 - 08:47 AM

I suppose the bottom line is what do you want to achieve with your site. I'm a professional graphic designer and although web design is not my bread and butter I have designed a number of sites. I'm a great believer in the hand drawn thumbnail approach with a pad of paper and a pencil.

Jot down all of the things that you want to achieve with your site. Just simply make a list. Think about who you are trying to talk to through your site. Then pair down your list try to keep only the things that are important to communicate to your audience. I agree with the keeping it simple approach. I still haven't even turned on the computer yet.

Next I draw a site map using pencil and paper. I figure out all my links by drawing little boxes representing pages and lines between them representing links. In this way I end up with a fairly easy to follow navigation system.

If you plan your site in this way you can avoid the one thing that separates a good site from a bad one "clutter".

There is nothing so daunting as staring at a blank computer screen wondering where to start. Try starting with a pencil and paper.

Finally, if you are professional musicians and want to look like professional musicians, then hire a professional to design your site. If you aren't don't be afraid to ask for help and try to avoid clutter. Hope this was helpful. D

Subject: RE: web site: Do you do your own?
From: GUEST,Claire
Date: 14 Aug 03 - 03:27 PM

In reading peoples discussions of how easy it is, and how you can just download this or that program and do it.... I have been convinced that doing your own website may be easy, but you have to actually want to do it. I actually don't want to do it, so I will be working with a professional to put the site together. This will hopefully take the pressure off myself and my bandmate to improve the site. I am hoping this also allows me to cut down on the number of promotional packets that I produce.

It has been very useful to look at all of your sites, so here is our current one: geocities.com/rthfiddle   I don't know how to make that a link. Our new site will be roundthehouse.com

Here are some of the things I am trying to change in our new site. Are there any other things that you have found especially useful on your site, that I might add to ours?

I hope to make the new site less about advertisement and more about information, so that the reader gets ideas about all the things we can do to make their event interesting and memorable.

I also want people that hire us to be able to get useable promotional photos, see our stage plot, and hear our music.

I want to make ordering cds easier.

I want to provide links to agencies that can give grant funding so that people can hire us at the fee we would like to become accustomed to.

I want to give information about workshops we can teach and the types of groups we can teach to.

I want to give rough ideas about our experience, sort of like a friendly vita as part of the bios.

I want to get across that we are actually a fun and flexible band (how the heck do you do that anyway?)

Gotta go,

Claire