Building a website

meoates1 · Veteran Member Joined: 19 Jun 2009 Posts: 215

Hi All-

I have finally decided to join the 21st century and put up a website... partly as personal archive but mostly as a sort of online resume with samples of playing etc. I have been looking around for inspiration at have been surprised at the number of bad websites out there!

From what I have seen most of the really well done websites are for artists who aren't marketing themselves to other musicians, so much as marketing their groups or selling tickets. And of course that isn't what I want... i want something that will appeal to other musicians... as a way of networking and finding other musicians.

So I am curious- anybody know of any websites like that they are great? Just curious?! Thanks!

Mark
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www.markedwardoates.com

1jazzyalex · Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2017 9:32 pm Post subject:

In my experience, building a web site is really freakin' hard.

The best bet is to go with blogspot/blogger and start it was a blog, or get a bit more sophisticated and go with Wordpress, again starting from the point of it being a blog. Once you get X amount of traffic, either company will offer you to change the URL to yoursitename.com instead of yoursitename.blogspot.com so it will seem a bit more professional. I know there are books on how to do pages in Wordpress. To get really pro, you pretty much have to hire someone, but you can do a ton with a blog.
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Yamaha 8335LA with Blessing 3C, 5C, Schilke 11A4A

SMrtn · Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2017 1:10 am Post subject:

First, buy a domain name. Godaddy is cheap and reliable.

Second, install a wordpress theme, then tweak the settings to suit you - voila. No coding required. Easy as ABC.

Google wordpress if you haven't heard of it. You'll be surprised how simple it is. You can use to blog, vlog, upload files, downloand files. Seriously, it couldn't be easier with a gentle learning curve, and it's free.

trumpetchops · Heavyweight Member Joined: 29 Jun 2003 Posts: 2644

I have a site designed to get wedding gigs. When I first started it was working, I got a lot of calls. For some reason, the calls from the site stopped. It must need updating or I have the wrong music on there. I have been too busy playing to fix it.

I bought the name with Go Daddy. I showed another site to my daughter and said "I want it to look like this". She did most of the work. She used a template from Go Daddy and said it was easy. They also have ways to make it seen by Google.

After I had it going I started a thread on here and Trumpet Master saying, "What do you think of my new site?" This gave me a huge number of hits and I think raised my Google spot.
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Joe Spitzer
Monroe Ct.

LaTrompeta · Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2017 10:59 am Post subject:

I work as a full-time web developer. It is not as easy as it looks, and can get quite time consuming for more in-depth websites. I would suggest that you build one with Wordpress, as that can be the most user-friendly platform for a non-developer. However, realize that you will be limited in what you can do without a developer. You can also try learning programming (PHP/Javascript/HTML/CSS) and play around with the code yourself. Good luck!

Borntobehappy · New Member Joined: 26 Jan 2017 Posts: 5

When I created my first website I started with website builder, the result was ok for the first time. But lately my friend asked me to help him with his website and suggested using of wordpress. He found Bootstrap themes , samples created for demonstration of a final look of your website. Also I was impressed by the choice of themes. It appeared to be not that much difficult in use that I thought.

gstump · Heavyweight Member Joined: 14 Nov 2006 Posts: 934

+1 for Wordpress I actually moved from my Dreamweaver designed website to an eCommerce WordPress site for my business, my music stuff.

Wordpress is free as well as many plugins. Themes are widely available and usually only require a one time fee.

Best of luck,

Gordon Stump
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Schilke B5
Couesnon Flug (1967)
Funk Brothers Horn Section/Caruso Student

bamajazzlady · Heavyweight Member Joined: 22 May 2011 Posts: 691

Find a reputable web designer where you are located or try SquareSpace.
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"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending." - Maria Robinson

colenmco · New Member Joined: 22 Jul 2017 Posts: 6

I'm a developer too. If you're not afraid to spend a little money, and you're computer savvy, checkout Adobe Muse. You can make really nice websites with that, and not really have to learn to code. I've used it before.

Otherwise, Wordpress is awesome. It's especially nice, because there are thousands of free website templates available, so you don't have to start from scratch.