Do you need a band website?

You’ll need to supply all the content you want on the EPK and home page. The best way to do this is by using Dropbox or Google Drive, but email is ok.

At the very least you should have:

• Your logo in a high resolution format
• One band or artist photo in a high resolution format
• Packshot of your latest album cover in a high resolution format
• A text file (Word doc, Google doc, .txt) containing
  • Your latest biography
  • Your lineup
  • Your best quote from a review if possible
  • A link to your latest album on Spotify, Apple Music, or a song on Soundcloud
  • A link to your latest music video or pro shot live video on YouTube
  • Basic information about your latest release
  • Links to your social media accounts

Yes you can! With basic computer knowledge, it’s easy to add, edit, and delete sections of your content. We’ll show you how.

The best way is to upload them to your YouTube account and embed them straight on the EPK or home page.

If your music is on Apple Music, Spotify, or Bandcamp, you can embed your music on your site using their embed codes.

It’s a good idea to keep your EPK page as simple and easy to use as possible so visitors can find your most important info quickly.

See first FAQ above for the recommended content.

Let us know if there’s anything else you would like and we’ll let you know what’s possible.

This package includes a simple home page and an EPK page.

It doesn’t include a full website structure with a header and footer, and navigation menu which is needed for multiple page sites, so adding extra pages is not included.

Feel free to get in touch if you would like to discuss building a full website.

WordPress powers 34% of all websites on the internet, is open source, and widely supported so you’ll never need to worry about finding someone who knows how to use it or fix it.

It’s super flexible, extremely customisable, and search engine friendly out of the box with loads of add-ons available to take it to the next level.

You could totally build yourself a basic website using a website builder like SquareSpace or Wix, or any of the other lesser known systems.

It depends how much time you want to spend figuring it out and doing it yourself.

SwiftSites isn’t a DIY platform so you don’t have to do it all yourself.

You send us what you want on the site, then we set everything up and design and build your home page and EPK for you.

In our experience, a self hosted WordPress site is much more flexible when it comes to adding features down the track and has the option of making technical changes that can help with search engine optimisation (SEO) and other performance improvements.

These are much more difficult to do, or often cannot be done with Wix, SquareSpace, or other all-in-one website builders as their platforms are closed, proprietary systems. We know because we’ve tried!

This also comes from a lot of well respected experts and colleagues in the web design and SEO spaces.

The band website and EPK package is a full ‘done for you’ service which includes designing and building your home page and EPK.

If you want to do it yourself, there are plenty of DIY options out there.

You’re free to use your own hosting once the site is built.

If you choose to use your own hosting, you would be responsible for moving the site there, and ongoing website care and support such as regular backups and software updates, security, and performance of your site.

You would also need to contact your hosting company directly with any hosting related issues that may arise in future.

Looking after your own hosting isn’t recommended unless you’re prepared to spend some time learning how hosting works and managing it – and pulling some hair out!

Simple! Your site will be switched off until your payments start again.

If you don’t continue to pay for the domain name after 12 months, it will expire, our domain provider will put it back onto the market, and someone else could potentially buy it.

We understand cash-flow in a band can be tight so there are monthly payment options for website care, hosting, and domain.

If you pay up front for 12 months, you’ll get a discount of $198

Alternatively you may be able to find your own hosting for less and look after it all yourself (see above).

If you decide to move the hosting you will need to do it after 12 months, or you will need to pay out the difference.

After 12 months, we’ll happily provide you with all the the website files and database and you can transfer the domain name to your own management.

No. You would need to upgrade the hosting and website care plan for a full website.

If you go with our website care and support package your site is covered as long as you’re with SwiftSites.

If you decide to use your own hosting, your site will no longer be covered, and any support will be an hourly cost.

If your band or artist name is unique, it’s highly likely you will appear at the top of Google a few weeks after the site is launched when people search for ’yourartistname’ or ’yourartistname band’, although nobody can guarantee this.

Search results depend on what people search for, where they are located, how unique your band name is, how much competition you have, how many quality backlinks you have, and many more factors that are constantly changing, such as voice search.

It can also take some time before search engines recognise your website in their index.

Advanced search engine optimisation (SEO) is a separate and ongoing service that can become quite costly depending on how much time and effort is put into it.

It’s a good idea to integrate Google Analytics and Search Console with your new site so you can can track your website visitors and make informed decisions about your internet marketing.

The best way to do this is using your Google account. Don’t worry, we’ll show you how it’s done.

I also recommend adding a Facebook pixel that can be used down the track for ads. We’ll also show you how to set that up.

Mailerlite and Mailchimp are both great options and are the cheapest. 

There are other better options for more serious email marketing, but these are fine for a small list and can be moved later if needed.

Contact SwiftSites if you have any questions!