5 reasons every musician needs a website
It’s 2022, and with streaming sites, aggregator sites, and social media, you may be thinking a website isn’t necessary. Here are five reasons to rethink that strategy.
A guest Bobby Borg from the Disc Makers Blog.
Your fans are probably going to discover your music on Spotify or Bandcamp, then they’re going to go over to your Facebook or Instagram pages and follow you, and maybe they’ll check out a YouTube video. So why do you need a music artist website in 2022?
There are many workarounds to having an artist website, and you may think they’ll do the job promoting you and introducing you to fans and media, but here are five strong benefits that might persuade you to build, maintain, and drive people to your music artist website.
1. More money
Building your personalized music artist website creates a direct-to-fan distribution channel for selling music and merchandise that cuts out the middle person and any commission they take. This means that you’re going to have a higher gross profit margin, which will ultimately mean more money in your pocket. So if you are all about making more money with your music, then building your own personal website is for you.
2. Take control of your branding
Building your own personal website gives you complete control to brand your band exactly as you see fit — from the colors to the fonts to the layout to the narrative and every word posted. This is something that social media cannot do because, as you know, social media is essentially a one-size-fits-all brand identity that includes ads and distractions and other elements vying for your attention. If you really want to convey who you are as an artist and have complete control in the process, building an artist website is the way to go.
3. Your information hub
Building an artist website allows you to put all your marketing communications in one place, from an electronic press kit that music journalists can download to tour dates that music promoters can access to your music videos, pictures, bios, and essentially everything you have to deliver to fans and press. You can house it all in one place and update as necessary, making it convenient for you and the people you’re trying to deliver your content to.
4. Legitimize yourself
The other day, I was helping an artist get booked and, of course, the promoter asked the artist for his website URL. What are you going to say? You don’t have one? With so many options (Bandzoogle, Squarespace, Wix, WordPress, and others), you can get a pro website made without a lot of investment. The way I look at it, a music artist website totally legitimizes you and makes a statement about your professionalism. If being a true professional is important to you, then building a website is a necessary move.
5. You own it
When you host an artist website, you essentially own a piece of real estate on the web that is not going anywhere. Your fans are always going to be able to find you and you’re always going to be able to find your fans because you can collect emails and own that contact info and relationship. We don’t know what’s gonna happen to any given social media platform. Think of MySpace or Vine. I don’t remember those platforms sending me an email with the data from my fans when things tanked. That info just vanished. Build a website and own the information.
Want more music career advice? Don’t just read it… watch the videos on Bobby Borg’s YouTube channel.
Bobby Borg is the author of Music Marketing For The DIY Musician (Second Edition), Business Basics For Musicians (Second Edition), and The Five Star Music Makeover (published by Hal Leonard Books). Get these books at any fine online store in physical or digital format. Learn more at www.bobbyborg.com.
