Written by Michel Fortin
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Even Rock Band Websites Use WordPress

Ottawa Rock Band Digging For HoffaI recently joined a new band. It’s not a professional band by any stretch (I mean, not one in the sense of gigging all the time). It’s a hobby of mine. I’m the drummer, and I love classic rock.

And like most of the bands I join, I love designing their websites. And this one, Diggin’ For Hoffa, is no exception. Just like my main site at SuccessDoctor.com, this site is entirely WordPress-driven, even though it’s not a blog.

But I’d like to ask you a favor, too…

The site contains members’ bios, a few audio samples, band photos, and some gig listings, and you can go and take a look right now.

I used a pre-designed template, modified it to fit WordPress, and completely customized the look and feel through CSS and Adobe PhotoShop. (For example, check out some of the “effects” like the lightning effect on the top banner.)

Here’s my question:

What do you think? What do you think a band site needs to make it better, and what would be nice to have on this site specifically? What would you recommend? Please comment, below. Thanks!

Click here to check out my band Diggin’ For Hoffa.

Last 5 Posts by Michel Fortin

About the Author

Michel Fortin is a direct response copywriter, author, speaker, and consultant. Visit his blog and signup free to get tested conversion strategies and response-boosting tips by email, along with blog updates, news, and more! Go now to http://www.michelfortin.com. While you're at it, follow him on Twitter.

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Category: Personal / Questions
Tags: band, blues, design, drummer, hobby, music, photoshop, rock, top 40, wordpress
This post was written on Friday, June 29th, 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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  • Wow I think it looks awesome, doesn't look like a blog in the least! Do you have a section on there for where you'll be playing? Will you ever play in the Toronto area? I'm just an hour from T.O. and my boyfriend lives there so if you do play there we'll have to come out and listen :)

    Angela Wills
    http://www.StarVA.com
  • Wow, nice work Michael. I honestly thing you have integrated the site well with Wp and have captured most of the essential elements for a band site - only suggestion I would make, is possibly have a small box near the fold with latest gig details. You could possibly even offer a free full length audio track upon optin - then you'll know who is really keen on following your band!
  • Good work. Very good work.

    I would put a player right on the home page, most people when visiting a musician, when they see that "play" button they tend to press it just to hear what this band is all about.. when you hide it under an "audio samples".. it's not like you are not pushing it enough. Samples is a bad word anyway.. samples.. its the music, it can be a 30 second preview.. but sample.. makes it look less than it is.. Audio Clips is even better.

    With love,

    Oriya
  • Socrates
    i usually prefer myspace than band websites when checking out bands. why? it tells me: where are you from? what do you sound like? what do you look like? and where are you playing? all within 30 seconds. thats all i want to know if i've never heard of your band before.
  • Wordpress certainly is useful and very customisable. I have recently started using it. I realy could do with some help from some of you experts out there.

    If you click on any of Michael's posts and then look at the very first line at the top of the browser you will notice that the title of the post appears before the name of the Blog. Can anyone here tell me how to achieve this?

    Whatever I do with my Blog the name insists on appearing before the title of the post. If you are into "the art of the understatement" you might simply say "Errol is frustrated" by the above. Hope you can help.
    Warmly

    Errol Blackburn
    http://www.wealth-coach.biz
  • @Errol;

    It's a WordPress Plugin called "SEO Title Tag". Here it is...

    http://www.johntp.com/2006/09/11/wordpress-plug...
  • Thanks Michael. Greatly appreciated.
    I will install in now.

    By the way, I was at a conference here in the UK recently where one of the presenters was Armand Morin. He had a lot of good things to say about you and your copywriting service. Hopefully one day I will be able to afford your service. I am of course assuming that high quality comes at a high price. :-)

    Warmly

    Errol
  • Vinny
    I'm pretty amazed this is a word press driven site. I need to learn how to make word press sites look good like that. Is there a way you could do a flash video clip of one of your shows? Or maybe you could post it on youtube, then embed the html on your site. Video is always good.

    Vinny
    Business networking group in Dallas
  • So how many free tracks to download to your ipod do you get for signing up to the newsletter? ;)

    Unfortunately the one drawback of Feedburner is no control of the page after subscription, though their delivery rates seem to be superb.
  • Tom
    Yeah, Vinny, great request! Me also, I'd love to learn how to customize a WP site that way. Are there any tutorials out there for the non-geeks? Thanks.
  • sebastian cielenski
    I have a question... I am thinking about using wordpress for my membership sites, but I was just wandering if it is possible to create standard one page, no link, typical salesletters with wordpress.

    I don't wanna buy website creation software if I don't have to...

    I know thecopydoctor.com is made with wordpress and I have 2 questions relating to that:

    1. Michael, did you make the salespage for that website using wordpress, or anything else (any recomendations)?

    2. I don't really know how to use wordpress. Anything I can do to learn how to create a stunning membership site with it?
  • Very nice graphical design! The only feedback I'd add - the pics on the home page are too "distant" - should be closer up to the faces of the band members, to gain more expression and personality.
  • Sam Smiler
    I noticed some people here have questions about HOW TO USE WORDPRESS AS A NON-BLOG WEBSITE.

    Here's a great introduction how to do it:
    http://bloghelper.is-there.net/using-wordpress-...
  • Hey Mike, the site looks Great, IMHO its a little off center. My eyes sorta strain to read the font.,I find it small, but thats just me. While my eyes are scanning the page the left side bar fades out out of view (sounds weird i know) Holy Schmoly Theres no tags?Rockin’ ‘Til The 9th Round Mike you silly goose. I think the banging drums has shell shocked you !!!:-P. Maybe wanna one of those.
    The side appears before the content. in the source code.
    Im not sure what keywords your optimizing the page for Ottawa Rock band? the keywords: event, round, ninth, songs, list, dance, check, mailing appear most frequently.
    Maybe place the Rss subscription form top left?
    On a lighter note.. It looks just wicked !! Looking forward to checking you out at golden lake on labour day weekend.The family used to cottage there,sadly we dont anylonger. Nothing better than Rockin it out in the great out doors My girlfriend and I are always going to the locals acts. Have you heard of disco inferno?, a friend of mine Luc is a drummer for that band, is or was not too sure on that at this point :-P
  • Hi Michel, I'm an LA-based musician who's used WP for more than a year now to host my site. I started it 1 year ago, and via the various WP plugins and the storyline I created for myself, garnered more than 120,000 hits.

    Some tips for your band page are:
    - Integrate with Twitter. This may or may not apply for you guys, but die-hard fans would like to know what you're doing 24/7. Alex King made a nice plugin to integrate the two Web2.0 Tools.
    - Videos and more videos! I started with YouTube, and found several nice plugins to embed them into my blog posts, but Revver seems to have much higher quality and I don't need any plugins. Just drop the www.Revver.com code right into your posts!

    Hope this helps. Feel free to come visit my page and see what I've done with my WP Music site. www.NickDaugherty.com
  • Michael,
    You have done a fantastic job on this site. It really brings the reader in. The content is superb. The theme rocks. I like how you blend the sepia like photos in the center with the dramatic theme in the background. You are artistic.

    Congratulations on doing something and havin fun. I have bookmarked your site and will come back for more. Thanks for the copywriting tips. I am always looking to brush up on mine, being that I have to write for a living now. Thanks again.... and may you have much success in all of your ventures. They must keep you busy....

    Juliet

    P.S. Check out my two blogs: www.labovickinjurylaw.com and www.whistleblowerlawblog.com . I would love to get your feedback. My corporate website is under redesign... So please do not judge me on that one. It is a work in progress.

    Take care...
  • Hi Michael!

    Really nice header graphics. Two ideas from me:
    * Put some "music" directly on the home page.
    * The 'inbetween' size of images is missing. You have the thumbnails and the full sized images in the gallery. For most people 600 pixel wide images work fine in detail view. You can embed the image in the page then, and have a previous and next link. This makes it easier.

    Happy rocking.
    Adios John
  • What is the best plugin to use to play the songs? And keep them protected.
  • Mark,
    For all of my music sites, I use a WP plugin called Audio Player by 1 Pixel Out. You can get it here.

    Want to see it in action? Check out my music page. Cheers!

    -nd
  • So Nick, is this a safe way to play tracks without any way that a smart user can grab the files?
  • If you're smart enough, you can potentially grab the files using that plugin, yes. However, it streams your mp3 files with a flash player that throws most people off.

    If that's not good enough for you, I would browse around the wordpress.org site for streaming audio plugins.

    -nd
  • Yeah, you just need to view the source of the page, even with the option to have the URL scrambled. But, I do like the plugin because it's so easy to use. I might go for it anyway, despite the risk.
  • Well, your safest bet is to use a service like AudioGenerator.com, where you upload your file and it streams from their servers using Flash and encrypts the location.
  • Micheal - I like what you did with Wordpress on your bands site. I am working with some indie bands and I am looking to find some good resources related to internet marketing for the music industry. I know that folks are trying a lot of things, but I have yet to find some trustworthy experts on what really works for using the internet and web 2.0 for promoting indie artists. Most of what I see concerns making sites that are cool and look good, but not the nitty-gritty, real-world, tested concepts that I would like to find.
  • Tom -- There's great material on that very subject put out by a guy named Bob Baker. His website is www.TheBuzzFactor.com.

    Also, you might check out the Musician's Cooler Podcast. You can find it at www.MusiciansCooler.com.

    I have gotten lots of great music marketing tips from both of these guys.
  • Nick - thanks for the information. Looks like some good stuff there, as well as on your website.
  • Hey Michael,

    That's a cool looking site. I'm a musician from Barrie, Ontario, and have started developing my own site just last night. I am right now trying to come up with a way to get events listed on a separate "tour" page. But, otherwise I feel fairly aligned with what you're trying to do on the wordpress site.

    Let me know what you come up with for posting audio on your site.

    Thanks man,

    Pat
  • Stephane
    Hi Michel, I found your site because I have been continously admonished by my brother to re-do our band website in WordPress. However I've always found the basic templates that he shows me not suitable for a band context. Your site looks great, and incorporates many elements I thought I would have to lose by moving to WP (and hence for that reason did not). If there are any tips or templates you can share I would be greatly appreciated!! I don't really know alot about WP but am willing to learn if it helps us promote.

    Also, does a WP site have any impact on how well search engines pick up your site?
  • Stephane,

    WP is by far the best content management system there is (for me, anyway). It has tons of SEO built-in benefits. (Sites get indexed a lot faster because of WP's internal structure and functions.)

    That said, you don't have to use a WP template. (Most of these are for blogs, and I use WP for websites, and not just blogs. For example, my flagship site, at http://www.successdoctor.com/ uses a WP base.)

    Your best bet is to design it yourself in Photoshop, or get/buy a site template from the many template sites out there. And then use a service like http://www.codeyourdesign.com/ to have them transform the photoshop design into a WP blog.

    I also use http://www.designoutpost.com where designers compete for your business by designing a variety of mockups you can choose from, built on YOUR specs.

    Hope this helps!
  • Mark
    Great article. My son had a regular "fancy" website so I built him a new Wordpress site to replace it after explaining why changing content and blogging would help him in search engines, plus he could make changes on his own when needed.. You can see it at http://www.chaseemery.com. I think it turned out real nice.

    There is also another thing that works well for musicians, in conjunction with having a WP site. It's called MeVu.com (http://www.mevu.com). As you know, musicians often have tons of pages on the net, like Myspace, Youtube, itunes, etc. Letting all their fans know about all of them all is a chore--you have to keep every website updated with all the links. Mevu.com lets a musician (or anybody) enter, describe and organize all their links on one very customizable profile page. Once you set up the Mevu page, you get a button that you can place on your own sites and page. You can see one his WP site. I think it's pretty cool.
  • Oh, and did not know about it. Thanks for the information ...
  • we're using wordpress as well for our band's page.
    www.cameraheadshark.com

    any suggestions?
  • Jeff
    Looks great.. some small detail I would fix...
    Front page says: "...by joining our email notification list on the right" - The email notification is on the left.
    Event list on contact page should be alphabetical. People don't like to search through long lists.. and.. out of all the event types, you don't have "nightclub", which would probably be the most popular selection.

    Great looking site and header!
  • Jeff
    Hey... I am wondering what widget you are using for the email updates? It looks perfect, but I've searched all the 'subscribe' widgets and all I find is the 'subscribe to rss feeds' type widgets. I love that yours has both subscribe and unsubscribe. Could you share where you got that? Thanks!
  • Wordpress is amazing for band web sites, and you can't beat WOrdpress for SEO.

    I just finished this one for Toronto band<a href="http://porkbellys.com" rel="nofollow">http://porkbellys.com


    and found the Gigpress plugin and TanTan's flickr plugin super for bands. Also am using a Twitter plugin to post tweets to home page.

    There's lots of great resources now on this page. Going to check out some other recommendations.

    thanks
  • @Irene - Irene, this is an old post. In fact, I recently changed bands and designed their new site as well, using WordPress. Check out Diggin' For Hoffa.
  • Christian
    I think the site looks great! A friend of mine is looking for help with her new band site - I'm trying to decide whether to use Drupal or Wordpress. You may have pushed me toward WP. Thanks!
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Secrets of a 10% Conversion Rate

Secrets of a 10% Conversion Rate

New! Paul Hancox combines direct selling and copywriting techniques to produce online conversion rates as high as 10%. His 127-page report shows you how. Click for more »