Website Design

[Bubba]

Does anyone know much about this... or have any expertise in this area?

I am really not very computer literate but I'm trying to get myself more of an online profile with my music. Just ordered a nice USB microphone to get my songs recorded properly.

I don't know whether this is something I can do cheaply myself... or whether it would better to get someone to design it for me?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

[Aulayna]

You'll hate this answer: it depends what you want your profile to be like, such as what type of features etc you want on it.

[Shiny]

Yeah there are ways you can do it cheaply and with very basic HTML and/or CSS skills. wix.com I heard was good for this, but other sites have website builders that aren't too complex as well. I use Behance's Pro Site and I started off with one of their pre-designed templates, and then customized the HTML, design, and content. The people on here who probably know the best about web design I would say probably Rantz, Shoberto, Marshall Banana, and O_o.

[Shorty]

Is it okay if I relocate this to the help forum? Did you want it in eoeo specifically?

[Loony BoB]

Don't all the singers use MySpace? I thought that was all that place was good for these days. Or you could go YouTube, you're not an ugly bastard by any means so you should be okay.

[Pete for President]

I'm your guy. Webdesign was about 50% of my uni education and I have always designed our own stuff (website, logo, merch) and also pushed the band on pretty much every platform possible. We're even on Spotify etc.

I can recommend the following:
A very basic one-page website with your artistname.com as url. Buy the domainname + hosting at whatever company sounds decent, and if you want to go DIY there are a lot of free wordpress templates you can use to build your own site, most of them even more extensive than you need. Find a template that fits your needs, adjust the colours, upload a logo and that's it. To make things really effective I recommend thinking of one main goal for your website. What do you want people to do there? Do you want to have them stream an mp3? Make that prominent. Do you want them to contact you for shows? Make a contact button prominent. Is it a YouTube video you want them to watch? MAKE THAT PROMINENT!

Youtube is your friend. MySpace is... pretty dead, I wouldn't bother. Soundcloud works for nifty and quick links to your music, and also to easily fill up that wordpress template with mp3 streams if you choose to use wordpress. Also Facebook because everyone's on it and friends and family will be the first to spread the word.

Hope that helps : )

Have a look on our website and social media pages if you feel like it:
The MAYDAYS - HQ

[Calliope]

Bandcamp is free, and I think SoundCloud is too - give those a go?

[Bubba]

Yes please, Miss Shorty. Help forum is probably better!

Thank you everyone for all your suggestions, especially Pete

It's mainly for promoting gigs but I have a lot of Youtube videos that I'd be wanting to link to it. I will definitely check out Soundcloud first of all to see what they offer. It will mainly be for promoting shows and offering services. I think links to Youtube in this respect is pretty important.

Very impressed with the Maydays page too!