serial Posted January 19, 2010 Posted January 19, 2010 Ok, new band is coming out of the blocks and yours truly gets tasked with getting the website together. Here's the problem-I don't even have the most basic sense as to how to get one started... I purchased/reserved a web address at GoDaddy.com, but frankly haven't had time or an opportunity to try to figure out how to upload content, create a page, etc. I personally find their site difficult because it seems like everything is a "for sale" item. There is a very limited budget (read zilch really) and we don't have tons of content yet, but I at least will be able to update it more than anyone else could-and I have the best ideas . Anyway-does anyone here have pointers, suggestions, links to templates, counseling referrals that can help a big dummy like Lamont here? Thanks for any assistance!
Hackubus Posted January 19, 2010 Posted January 19, 2010 I dummied my way thru with a band website that CDbaby.com offered. Was pretty easy to navigate & use their templates. That was a couple of years ago, I'm sure there are others that are better out there now.
Hardrockracer Posted January 19, 2010 Posted January 19, 2010 A lot of bands use their myspace site as a band webpage without even having a "regular" webpage. It's easy to create a design with thomas myspace editor. You can set that up for immediate promotion and work in the background on a regular website using a wysiwyg editor like Netobjects Fusion. That is not too complicated if you have computer knowledge but it will take its time to get a good result.HRR
zenmindbeginner Posted January 19, 2010 Posted January 19, 2010 The most important part of a website is basically your content. The content should be provided by you which will include any pics that you want on the site and any sound clips that you want your visitors to listen to. You're gonna want to have a folder labled "images" for your pics and "audio" for your sound clips. So your first task is to gather these materials and make them look and sound the best that you can. Your next task is to visit websites that look and operate the way that you want your site to. Keeping it simple means limiting your pages and graphics to as few as possible. One main page will do the trick with some buttons for the visitor to access your photos, sound clips, contact info etc. In addition to your "images" and "audio" folders, you will need a basic background for the pages. Some people use tiles for their background, some use simple .gifs and then some want a photo for their background.So it's basically gathering the pics, sound clips and choosing your backgrounds and menu buttons. Once you have that done and an idea for how you want it to come together, anyone with some solid web design skills can design your website pretty quickly. You can do your whole layout in photoshop and then slice it up for the web. There are templates GALORE out there on the web for the different programs what kind of software are you gonna use?Or, you can just start out simple with a flash slide show, a banner and contact info all on the same page (black background, band name up top, flash banner slideshow (there are lots of ways to make one) in the middle and contact info across the bottom). You can add sound clips and revise the site later on. As far as the flash slideshow is concerned, you could just embed a flicker or photobucket slideshow and be done with it. There has to be some whoop ass web designers on this site that would be glad to help...
FunkyE9th Posted January 19, 2010 Posted January 19, 2010 My old band used to use the web hosting offered by CD Baby. IIRC, it's called Host Baby. They have a 30-day free trial. It was pretty easy to use given that it's geared for bands. IMHO myspace will work just fine. It's free.Microsoft also offers web hosting. $15/year and it has all the tools you need. They have all kinds of templates you can use to start a page. It's geared more for business, but it should work for music also. This is what I'm using right now. I also use myspace.Check out wix.com also. They have some really cool stuff setup for flash type website. It's free.
burningyen Posted January 19, 2010 Posted January 19, 2010 Google Sites is a good free option if you really want to do your own layout and have access to site traffic stats.
sonic1974 Posted January 19, 2010 Posted January 19, 2010 Ok, new band is coming out of the blocks and yours truly gets tasked with getting the website together. Here's the problem-I don't even have the most basic sense as to how to get one started... I purchased/reserved a web address at GoDaddy.com, but frankly haven't had time or an opportunity to try to figure out how to upload content, create a page, etc. I personally find their site difficult because it seems like everything is a "for sale" item. There is a very limited budget (read zilch really) and we don't have tons of content yet, but I at least will be able to update it more than anyone else could-and I have the best ideas . Anyway-does anyone here have pointers, suggestions, links to templates, counseling referrals that can help a big dummy like Lamont here? Thanks for any assistance! I would suggest using myspace to host your music, it's free. But, the problem with myspace, is that the domain name are not easily remembered. It would be cool, for instace, if your band name is the trees, hypotheticaly. You could set up a very simple website, thetrees.com, that everyone will remember easily. Then you can link it to you myspace and they can hear your tunes. All you really need is one or two pages, and then a link to a myspace. That's what I'll most likely be doing when I get around to making a website. If you see my signature, you'll see what I mean about myspace domains being a little long and hard for people to remember.
burningyen Posted January 19, 2010 Posted January 19, 2010 If you post your music to reverbnation, you can insert reverbnation widgets on your website that lets users play your tunes from within your website.
serial Posted January 19, 2010 Author Posted January 19, 2010 Can I do something like Google Sites when my web address was done with GoDaddy? I'm really clueless about this interweb stuffs. I use a Mac if that makes a hill of chit worth of a difference.
FunkyE9th Posted January 19, 2010 Posted January 19, 2010 If you use the free google sites, your web address will be something like...http://sites.google.com/site/yoursitename. So it's no better than using myspace. You cannot use the domain name you got from Go Daddy.I think the pay version of google sites allows you to use your own domain name, but I don't know the details and do not know how that affects your godaddy account. There really is no way around it, you just have to take the time and learn the tools provided by web hosting service. If it's really that difficult to use GoDaddy's tools, just go to a different web hosting place with better tools. You should be able to take your domain name from GoDaddy and take it to a different web host.
serial Posted January 20, 2010 Author Posted January 20, 2010 If you use the free google sites, your web address will be something like...http://sites.google.com/site/yoursitename. So it's no better than using myspace. You cannot use the domain name you got from Go Daddy.I think the pay version of google sites allows you to use your own domain name, but I don't know the details and do not know how that affects your godaddy account. There really is no way around it, you just have to take the time and learn the tools provided by web hosting service. If it's really that difficult to use GoDaddy's tools, just go to a different web hosting place with better tools. You should be able to take your domain name from GoDaddy and take it to a different web host.Thanks-this is good advice. The Myspace stuff is easy enough to do, but it seems no one even looks at Myspace anymore around here-even for bands.
burningyen Posted January 20, 2010 Posted January 20, 2010 I used register.com to register my www.burningyen.com web address and then I built the site using Google Sites. So yes, you can register the address with a third party and then build it using Google Sites, so you don't have to end up with a http://sites.google.com/site/yoursitename address.
chap Posted January 20, 2010 Posted January 20, 2010 Can I do something like Google Sites when my web address was done with GoDaddy? I'm really clueless about this interweb stuffs. I use a Mac if that makes a hill of chit worth of a difference. I'm a big user of google sites for my students ... I do not mean to offend anyone but in my humble opinion, google sites is the wrong tool for a band. Since you said you're not a huge tech person, I'll keep it simple. I really think that myspace.com is your best bet. Myspace will allow your visitors to stream videos, music, leave comments ... it allows you a ton of control over how your website looks without knowing anything about HTML or CSS. Example: here is my friend's band: http://www.myspace.com/rhythmfysh Do they look like they know how to make a website? When you buy a domain name, what you are doing is very simply redirecting anyone who visits that domain name to wherever you want them to go. For instance, if you buy the domain name www.rhythmfysh.ca you can specify it to re-direct to http://www.myspace.com/rhythmfysh. My only caution of using Myspace is that when you get big ... and you have tens of thousands of people trying to stream your latest video ... you might run out of bandwidth. But that's something you can worry about when you get big.
specialk Posted January 20, 2010 Posted January 20, 2010 You have a Mac. I assume you have iWeb in the iLife suite. Do you have a MobileMe account? If so, voila!
FunkyE9th Posted January 20, 2010 Posted January 20, 2010 I used register.com to register my www.burningyen.com web address and then I built the site using Google Sites. So yes, you can register the address with a third party and then build it using Google Sites, so you don't have to end up with a http://sites.google.com/site/yoursitename address.Are you using the free version of google sites? I created a free one and I did not see any option that allows you to use your own domain name. If it's available for free, I may be interested in using some it someday, in case I end up wanting move my web address to another host.
serial Posted January 20, 2010 Author Posted January 20, 2010 You have a Mac. I assume you have iWeb in the iLife suite. Do you have a MobileMe account? If so, voila!I don't have iLife or iWeb that I'm aware of-my Mac is a late 08. I think iLife came out in 09? I have the old Garageband too. Maybe I should spring for this?
specialk Posted January 20, 2010 Posted January 20, 2010 You have a Mac. I assume you have iWeb in the iLife suite. Do you have a MobileMe account? If so, voila! I don't have iLife or iWeb that I'm aware of-my Mac is a late 08. I think iLife came out in 09? I have the old Garageband too. Maybe I should spring for this? If you have GB, you have iWeb. I have iLife 08, and it has iWeb. They're packaged together with several other apps in iLife, including iPhoto, iMovie, etc. If it's not in your dock, (it looks like a cork posterboard with a photo and paper pinned to it), go to Finder>Applications. It'll be iWeb. I'll go look for an online tutorial. On Edit: This one discusses iWeb 06, but it's very similar to 08: http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/iweb_stone.html This one is from Apple featuring 09: http://www.apple.com/ilife/tutorials/#iweb
burningyen Posted January 21, 2010 Posted January 21, 2010 I used register.com to register my www.burningyen.com web address and then I built the site using Google Sites. So yes, you can register the address with a third party and then build it using Google Sites, so you don't have to end up with a http://sites.google.com/site/yoursitename address.Are you using the free version of google sites? I created a free one and I did not see any option that allows you to use your own domain name. If it's available for free, I may be interested in using some it someday, in case I end up wanting move my web address to another host.Yes, I'm using the free version of Google Sites. Go to More Actions->Manage Site->Web Address.
FunkyE9th Posted January 21, 2010 Posted January 21, 2010 I used register.com to register my www.burningyen.com web address and then I built the site using Google Sites. So yes, you can register the address with a third party and then build it using Google Sites, so you don't have to end up with a http://sites.google.com/site/yoursitename address. Are you using the free version of google sites? I created a free one and I did not see any option that allows you to use your own domain name. If it's available for free, I may be interested in using some it someday, in case I end up wanting move my web address to another host. Yes, I'm using the free version of Google Sites. Go to More Actions->Manage Site->Web Address. Got it! Thanks! Learned something today.
geoff_hartwell Posted January 21, 2010 Posted January 21, 2010 FWIW I love HostBaby.The templates are boss, it's so easy even a moron like me can use it, and you can update/modify it from anywhere. Comes with email, a GREAT email listserver, super EASY and FLEXIBLE music hosting - And if you have any trouble, you can get a real live human being to help!Mine looks like this: http://www.geoffhartwell.com+1 on the ReverbNation widgets. I don't use it, but it seems that the functionality of being able to update one site and then have the widget (pasted on your MySpace and Facebook, etc,) automatically update is pretty cool.
silentman Posted January 21, 2010 Posted January 21, 2010 Have you asked Kiz for some help? He did all the work on mine when it was up.
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