Making Band Websites: Promoting and Selling Your Music

With no experience necessary, create websites for your band, album, or show!

Created byJ. Anthony Allen

Last updated 2/2023

English

What you'll learn

By the end of this course, you will have a working, gorgeous website to show off your material.
In this course you will learn how to create stunning websites without learning any tedious code.
Students will learn how to setup a hosting account, domain name, and Wordpress website.

Course content

5 sections • 50 lectures • 6h 25m total length

Welcome & Overview5:04
The Introduction & Overview - Welcome to the class!
How We Will Learn6:39
How we are going to get a website all setup for you during this class. It won't be easy, but we are going on this journey together. I'll do my best to make it fun!
My super big PDF handout for reference1:02:00
The handout I use when I teach this class in person. You can walk through the whole class with this, and it includes a vocabulary section for any extra terminology you might need to learn.

Setup Overview3:02
There are a few things we need to do to get all setup to have a website. This video is our starting point to talk about each thing you will need, and how to get it.
Mac or PC? It Doesn't Matter!2:13
It doesn't matter if you do this class on a Mac or PC. In this video, I'll explain why.
Picking a Hosting Company8:23
This can be a really daunting task - but in this video I'll tell you what do look for, and make a few recommendations.
Picking a Domain Name14:17
A few things to consider when choosing the best domain name for you, your art, and your business.
Domain Setup and Hosting Walkthrough16:49
How to actually set everything up. In this video I'll walk you through every step, and every confusing option to make sure you get setup right, and don't buy things you don't need.
Transferring a Domain Name or Hosting Plan to a New Company5:40
If you already have a domain name, but want to transfer it to a different company, watch this video. This is a walkthrough of my doing it for one of my domains.
Transferring a Domain Name, Part 212:51
Domain transferring has a few steps to it, so I broke this section into 2 videos.
Setting up Email Accounts10:34
With your new hosting plan, you have the ability to create an unlimited number of personalized email address. (Like: you@yourdomain.com). In this video I'll walk you through how to set those up, if you want them.
Installing Wordpress10:58
Wordpress will be the "framework for our house." In order to get the framework in place, we need to do a basic installation of Wordpress.
Installing a Temporary Password on Your (New) Website6:15
Some people like to hide the website they are working on so the public can't see their in-progress website. If you want to do that, this is how.
All Done with the Setup!3:00
Our setup is done, and we can now move on to putting our content into our website!

Configuring Wordpress20:07
Before we dive into Wordpress, we have a few setup things we need to get out of the way.
Finding a Theme16:03
The Theme is the template for your website. We have millions to choose from, so get some tips in this video before beginning your search.
Installing a Theme4:20
Once you've found a theme, you need to install it. Here is a walkthrough of how to do it.
Configuring a Theme8:50
Depending on your theme, you might have some extra things to setup. Here are some tips.
The Dashboard Overview10:35
The Dashboard is our main command center for Wordpress. In this video we will poke around and see what is here.
Pages Vs. Posts - Keep it Simple!6:05
Pages and Posts are both "content areas," but they work very differently.
Creating Pages17:34
We will use pages for almost everything - so it is time to get some content together!
Organizing Your Menu9:17
As artists, organizing our work into categories can be tricky. Here are some tips.
Setting up the Menu8:45
Once we have the structure figured out, we can put our menu together.
Setting up the Home Page11:51
The Home Page is the first thing people will see when they come to your site.
Using Widgets!16:49
Widgets are like extra little content nuggets. Making good use of them can give your website a lot of extra impact.
Using Plugins!4:46
Plugins add extra functionality to our site. In this video we look at how they work.
Selling Stuff! (Part 1)6:41
Installing a plugin to let us sell our work online! Includes taxes, shipping, and downloadable product info.
Selling Stuff! (Part 2)9:32
Selling stuff part 2! Installing a plugin to let us sell our work online! Includes taxes, shipping, and downloadable product info.
Selling Stuff! (Part 3)19:19
Selling Stuff part 3! Installing a plugin to let us sell our work online! Includes taxes, shipping, and downloadable product info.
Hiding Comments4:00
We've already done some work hiding the comments section on our pages, but we might need one more step.
Video! (Or, How Embedding Works)5:43
Embedding can give us access to video, audio, and some other things on our site in a very easy way. Here we will talk about how it works and what you need.
More with Video10:55
In this video we will walk through embedding some video onto your site.
Audio (Finally!)7:51
Using Soundcloud, we will embed some audio files, or whole albums into our website.
Setting the Store Link3:38
We made a dummy store page earlier when we were making our menu, so here we need to go back and hook that page to our new store.
Content Wrap-Up1:21
Content complete! But we still have more to do. The light is at the end of the tunnel!

Adding Social Media - Overview1:46
What is left to do? Plenty.
Twitter12:17
In this video I walk through the process of getting your recent Twitter tweets to show up on your website. If you don't use twitter, this might still show you some valuble information.
Facebook10:42
Incorporating Facebook into your site.
The Case Against Calendars5:45
You think you want a calendar on your site, but you don't. In this video I'll show you why you don't want one, and some better alternatives.
Caution!2:47
Be warned that incorporting your social media into your website can have consequences!
Keeping Everything up to Date2:20
Update early. Update often.
Revision History3:05
Screw up? Wish you could roll the clock back to a previous version of your page? You can. This is how.
Wrap up1:05

Overview of the Extras Here0:42
Here is what is left. Just a few things, but they could be important.
Password Protecting Pages and Scheduling Pages7:15
Keep some pages private, and schedule some to show up in the future. Easy!
Take that Password Protection Off!3:47
If you put password proctection on your site all the way back at the beginning, it is time to take it off. Here is a walkthrough.
Basic HTML For Widgets13:00
As promised in the Widget section, some basics on formatting with HTML. You don't need this, but it might be handy to just know the basics, which I cover here.
Thats All Folks!2:09
Thanks for watching this class! A few parting thoughts...
Bonus: Recurring Payments3:24
It is becoming popular for bands to let fans "subscribe" to their music, and charge them every month or year for all their tracks. This video shows how to set that up.
Bonus Lecture: Discount Offers & Mailing List5:45
There is so much more to learn!

Requirements

No experience necessary
Students will need to purchase a domain name and hosting plan (about $50) during the class if they don't already have one.
Having a domain name before starting the class is NOT required.

Description

100% Answer Rate! Every single question posted to this class is answered within 24 hours by the instructor.

As a musician, I learned how to create websites out of pure necessity. I am not a professional programmer - I learned through trial and error and studying on my own what works and what doesn't work. I've now written hundreds of websites for artists, musicians, bands, galleries, and other organizations.

In 2009 I created this class, "Web Design for Artists" as a class I teacher in-person around my area. The class has been very successful, and I'm really excited to bring it to an online platform. My goal with this class is simple: I want all musicians to have a website, be able to manage their website, and never, ever, have to pay someone to do it for them.

This is a hands-on class: I am going to make a website for myself during this class, and walk you through every step. Nearly every video is a "walk through" on how to do something. And because I'm not a technical web designer, we won't get bogged down with any abstract terminology - only what we need. Let's dive in!

Praise for other classes by J. Anthony Allen

"Dr. Allen does it again with his music theory for electronic musicians series. This course really opened up everything I learned from the 1st section and now I understand more about the composition side of things for music. I highly highly recommend this course to anyone!!! Really opened my eyes to many things I wasn't aware of."
"The Best Teacher Ever, who makes you understand the in & out Music Theory by all mean without giving what you don't want to know."
"I have never had any formal training in music at all. Trying to learn all the notes and how everything translated was a serious challenge. After going thru this class, Dr. J has totally brought down the barriers. The content was very useful and was easy to grasp for me."

Who this course is for:

Musicians
Bands
Producers
Rappers
Songwriters
Singers

Making Band Websites: Promoting and Selling Your Music

What you'll learn

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Course content

Overview3 lectures • 1hr 14min

Setting Everything Up11 lectures • 1hr 34min

General Maintenance of your Site21 lectures • 3hr 24min

Incorporating social media8 lectures • 40min

Extras!7 lectures • 36min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: