Bandzoogle is a website building platform made with musicians in mind. Our support team is also made up of musicians from all different genres, backgrounds, and even countries, and we love taking the time to review what our members have been creating.
One way we do this is by offering free website reviews. Bandzoogle website reviews include an assessment of your content, a look at your navigation, and some design tips. It’s also a way to set aside some time to thoroughly go through what our members have been working on, and to make sure that they’re making the most of the tools we have available.
Here’s a list of what we usually look for in a website review. Hopefully you’ll find this helpful if you want to give your website an objective review.
CONTENT
1. Add a Call-to-action
This is a great tool to help direct your visitors’ focus and promote your new music, pre-sales, crowdfunding campaign, or to collect emails directly from your Homepage. It’s a fairly powerful tool, and we almost always recommend it if it’s not being used on a site.
2. Write out a Bio
Writing a musician bio is important as it shares your story with your visitors and fans. This is a place to highlight your journey and make a more personal connection with people browsing your website. Each musician or band’s musical journey is unique so don’t be afraid to embrace it and share it with the world.
3. Use a Mailing List Sign-Up Form
This is such a great direct-to-fan tool for musicians that we cannot recommend enough. The mailing list tool aiss a free way to stay in touch with your fans. Many of our members likely run ads on social media to promote a new release - ads cost money and emailing your fans does not. You’re also in touch with your fans directly, so you can use this tool and think of creative ways to get these members more involved with your release campaigns.
4. Add your Music
While your website is not the only place to feature or sell your music, you can sell your music 100% commission free with your website here at Bandzoogle, allowing your fans to support you directly by purchasing your music. Streaming has definitely taken over in 2021, but there are always DJ’s looking for new music to add to their repertoire and fans that still want to buy music directly to support their favourite artists. Take advantage of that by adding your music for sale to your website.
Build a website that showcases your music, content, and more in a professional way. Try Bandzoogle today!
5. Sell Merch
Be sure to add some merch options to your website to give fans another way to support you online. We’ve seen some really creative band merch ideas recently, everything from custom cassettes, to patches, mugs, and more. We also integrated print-on-demand service Printful, where you can design your merch, and Printful will fulfill and ship the order with no upfront costs to you.
6. EPK
Setting up a press kit has never been easier with our page templates. Electronic Press Kits are a great way to highlight your project, showcasing your best material to send off to industry professionals. Side note - you can set your EPK to ‘Not in Menu’ so it’s not available to the passing visitor and you can still email the direct link to your contacts.
7. Add a clear Contact option
It’s important to have a place on your site where your fans can reach out and contact you. Whether it’s about an order they placed, or if they can meet you before your set at the next show, it’s an important tool to have available. Plus, you never know if a booking agent may be browsing your site and may want to reach out.
ORGANIZATION
8. Think about the first impression
It’s so important to create a lasting first impression when someone visits your site, so try not to pack all your information onto one page. Use your Homepage to highlight your most recent work, and if your visitors/fans like it, they’ll be more keen to check out the other pages on your site.
9. Use a clear menu
Try not to crowd your menu with too many options. We usually recommend having somewhere between 6-9 menu options. Having too many could make your menu look a little messy and confusing to navigate.
10. Each page should have its purpose
Allow your site to breathe and for each page to serve its purpose. If you have a page set for videos, don’t worry too much about trying to place your new video on each page of your site. Trust that your visitors will navigate there naturally, and use the Call-to-Action feature if there’s something you really want to highlight.
DESIGN
11. Colours and fonts
Be conscious of the colours and fonts you decide to apply to your website. Make sure to choose fonts that aren’t difficult to read, and to use colours that are on brand with what your project has going on.
12. Mobile view
All of Bandzoogle’s website templates are responsive, meaning that they adapt automatically to smaller screens such as mobile devices. Being selective with your content and placing it in a breathable manner will allow your site to adapt more cohesively on smaller screens. You can also preview the mobile view by clicking View Site and selecting the mobile icon at the top right.
SEO
We’ve seen an increase in requests for SEO focused site reviews, so here are a few things that we look at. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and helps your website rank in search engines. You can also find a great help article here: SEO and Google Listing for your Website.
13. Custom SEO
Our custom SEO option is a great way to update the text that is seen below your domain name in Google searches. You can highlight your genre, location, new releases, and more to pop out right there in your Google search result.
You can update this text by clicking Edit Content > Pages > click on the pencil icon next to your home page > click Navigational Display and SEO Settings > Custom SEO, and enter your text.
14. Keywords
Keywords are effective, and quick and easy to add to your site. You can find this option by clicking Edit Content > Pages > Site Wide Settings > Headers & Metadata, and there you will see a Keywords section. You can add about 15-20 keywords that are related to your site, all separated by a comma. For example; singer, songwriter, folk, Montreal, etc.
15. Domain
Choosing a custom domain name for your website is important, and we have a great article that can guide you through choosing one that best fits your project: How to choose a custom domain name for your music website
Once you have your domain name, verifying it with Google is a great way to help your SEO. It’s a fairly easy process that you can find in the Site Maps section under the Site Wide Settings section of your site, then you can follow the instructions we have listed there to verify your domain name in Google’s Search Console.
For more SEO tips, check out our Complete SEO checklist for musicians
If you’re just starting to build a website, or have used one for years and need a fresh look, website reviews are one of the ways we can help you get the most out of your website. Whether it’s recommending a feature you may not have known existed, or taking a closer look to see how your content is organized throughout your site, we are happy to do it, so please reach out. And, for more inspiration on creating a stunning band website, check out Bandzoogle member reviews to see examples.
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