So one of the dumbest things about the Internet
is if you have ever said something in the past and then some circumstance makes you
change your mind – Someone will hold up your past statement to say that you're an absolute
moron who no one should listen to since the participants of the internet are people who
love nuance and always act in good faith. Well since I’m not a psychic (though it
seems every girl in Brooklyn I swipe on Tinder is) I cant always see changes coming and in
this video and one of my other future ones I have to do an about-face on some subjects
as the rules of the game have changed. So what I’m talking about is for years musicians
have flooded my forum, Discord and the comments of this youtube channel with questions about
what musicians should do for a website and I have mostly said DON'T WASTE TIME MONEY
OR YOUR ATTENTION ON A WEBSITE but that's no longer the case so in this video I will
discuss how musicians should see the need for a website.
Hi I'm Jesse Cannon a music marketing nerd
whos teaching musicians how to grow their fanbase from zero to 10,000 fans and this
is Musformation. Why have a website
OK so lets talk about why musicians like to make websites. Now most of the time I see a musician make
one is they want to tell their story in hopes music business types you know managers A&R
booking agents or whoever will read their story and become so enamored with the dumb
story of how the band met at AA or whatever it is they think is so cool they think the
manager will not only sign them but also shower them with compliments on the self-absorbed
story that they read at least 4 other versions of before. And listen I get this instinct but I will
tell you straight up, up to the cursed EPK these websites are everyone in the music business
least favorite way to hear an artists story. A YouTube video, vlog, Spotify bio that is
nice and to the point or even a TikTok is all more appealing than scrolling through
some website.
But another reason a musician has a website
that is actually a good reason is they are SEO challenged. And what I mean by that is that even though
they have some traction and are getting some streams if you google their name it doesn't
come up. Grabbing a domain and putting up a website
that links your spotify youtube and socials is super smart and a great way to start correcting
this problem since I know a lot of you don't consider this since I see how utterly stupid
the names you use for your music are – but if people cant find you in a google search
or a voice search on SIRI or Alexa well you're going to have a harder time building your
fanbase and if you want to go deeper on that down in the description or the screen right
now I have linked the video I made on naming your music project.
So I get if you want to have a website for
that reason. But its time to get real and this is something
I have to impress upon musicians everyday when I do consulting calls. Everything you devote your energy and money
to can be going to something more effective and especially when you're starting out having
a website isn't a sign of professionalism its a sign of that you threw money at something
and this is not where you need to devote your attention until you need to accomplish a few
things.
And in all honestly until you have a lot of
attention this is just a waste of time, attention and resources and especially money if you
are throwing a grand or more at a website instead of a music video or a better recording
of your song. Ok so to understand those few things lets
talk about the services that musicians commonly build their website on. So the worst website building platform or
as they are more professionally known a CMS I see musicians use is Wix. I just feel like these always look a lbad
and honestly if you're gonna spend the time and money to build a website if it also makes
a bad impression by looking tacky you're really fucking up. These feel cheap and at times I have looked
up musicians' websites and they have god damn google ads on these Wix sites and getting
an ad when you're looking to learn about a musician is probably one of the worst impressions
possible to make on a new fan or team members.
The next one I see people use a lot is wordpress. I’m actually a big fan of word press websites
as they are the most agile, good for seo and easy to use if you're going to do something
complex. I build all of my business websites with it. But particularly what's good about wordpress
is if you are going to do one of the only functions i think for a musicians website
which is some sort of marketing experience these are the perfect content management system
or as you probably think of them website builder to accomplish whatever you need.
Whenever I have worked marketing campaigns
and we need a place to host a page where some programmer is going to make us a script where
after 10000 people tweet Incel Hypebeast is the non fing king it unlocks their new song
I kissed my science teacher at a ska show WordPress is ideal to host it as the others
just don't have the agile capabilities.
In general if you want to do complex things
with a website theres very few people who would disagree that wordpress is where you
should build it, especially if you want to get into complex SEO or tweaking of layouts. But another popular one I see people build
on is Squarespace and look these sites look good even great sometimes but for the money
they charge theres just a better option I think which finally brings me to my recommendation. So as I said the game just changed and in
my opinion that happened when spotify announced that if you sell your merch through shopify
you can now put three designs on your spotify page and manage what designs are up instead
of having to do this with the extremely cursed partner Spotify had before – merch bar who
inflated prices to a level that was horrific and generally made everyone I know who dealt
with them miserable as this Spotify integration was just a massive easy win that failed.
Anyway so now that that Shopify has partnered
with the streaming site that has a name that's way too close for comfort this to me means
this is the choice for building a website but I know a lot of you are like WTF I thought
Shopify was a place where you sell things. You are correct there chief but its also a
CMS that works for building websites that look great, rank high on SEO and honestly
its just a great easy to use experience.
I’m decent with web design but if I am being
honest wordpress is a bit much for my skills but I have built a good looking site or 3
on squarespace and I find that Shopify gives you all of the ease of squarespace and the
functionality of wordpress. But the other real benefit of course is its
the best site online for selling merchandise and whether that's integrating in print on
demand services like Printful or printify I know people these supposed tech geniuses
who were supposed to believe have amazing brains sure aren't very creative with their
names. Anyway whether you want to fullfull your merch
orders yourself or use print on demand fulfillment all the options are there with rates similar
to what youd pay for square space or paying someone to build wordpress.
And to get into it I want to point you to
the band spiritbox whose site is built on Shopify it really is a great looking site
and functions as a website in an incredible way if you look up top they have all their
socials and streaming sites linked the table of contents is super clear so you can get
to know them if you want to go depper and find any relevant information on them.
One of the other reasons I love this is since
integrating merch sales in a website builder like WordPress squarespace or wix was always
so annoying but in shopify it is seamless and easy to get the best buying experience
on the internet. Seriously the reason everyone and their mother
has switched to shopify is the buying experience is excellent and it makes it super easy to
deal with customers unlike so many other merch sales formats. And I know I am gushing a lot here so I have
to make it clear I have never been paid by Shopify to say anything nice about them but
they have made my life easier as I have set up and run merch and marketing campaigns through
them and ever since I started using them lifes been easier and it makes me happy to endorse
it because of that.
Now I want to be clear I still think unless
you're getting some traction its probably not a good use of your time to make a merch
store BUT if merch sales are coming in and theres interest in you Shopify now seems like
the best option since its always been a great website tool and way to sell merch and with
this Spotify integration the choice is clear that this is how you can get some funding
for your music and turn fans into walking advertisements for your merch. I should also say if you do have a shopify
store connecting it to spotify is as simple as going in your spotify for artists page
clicking the profile button then merch, connecting them and choosing the 3 designs you would
like then you’re all set! OK on this channel this is the type of stuff
we discuss so if you're interested in that you should definitely like subscribe and most
of all get notified so you don't miss crucial videos I post for helping you level up building
a fanbase.
I answer every comment below that doesn't
ask why my nose is so stuffed up. So if you have a question hit the comments
on the screen now is a video on how to grow your fanbase from zero to 10,000 fans or how
to get your music noticed or how to blow up on spotify in 2022. Click and keep learning thanks for watching..
