The 21st century is, in many ways, the best of times and the worst of times for those who want to succeed in music business online. Whether you are a music producer, a musician, or a talent agent, there are more opportunities now than ever. However, that also means there’s more competition now than ever. In the past, a musician would have to travel around the country to promote their music; that severely limited how many musicians could gain enough publicity to succeed. That’s no longer the case. Now, a musician or a band can promote themselves online through their own website as well as through different audio hosting sites. That makes it possible for anyone from London to Los Angeles to Leipzig to become famous all over the world.
To succeed in music in 2019 and beyond, you need a great website that stands out from all of the rest. A great website has a great theme, good sound quality, and dynamic music.
Dynamic Music
So much about the music industry has been changed by the internet and social media, but one thing remains the same: you need skills. To succeed, you have to be able to play music well. If you are just getting started or need brushing up on your skills, you should consider guitar lessons. Much like the music industry as a whole, guitar lessons have been modernized by the internet. Many teachers offer online guitar lessons. You can learn and improve right from the privacy of your own home. However, just about anyone can create a website and purport to be a guitar expert. Learning guitar well enough to teach it and then teaching well online are both rare talents. Only a few will be able to offer you the help you need. You can consult with a site such as guitarfella to find reviews of different teachers.
Once you’ve developed your music skills to a point that you feel comfortable to produce music for public consumption, you need to put together a website.
Great Music Website
The great website is key to being successful in 2019. In fact, it’s probably more important than touring. When you tour to different bars and small venues, you might perform for 50 to 100 people on a decent night. You might be paid in free drinks if you’re paid at all. Considering the cost to get to each venue, you’ll likely lose money. They’re great additions to your resume and great contacts for the future, but they’re not the sole path to success anymore. Many musicians are surprised when they talk to producers or venue managers who then ask for your website and social media accounts. You’ll need somewhere to direct them that showcases your talent.
The site will also help draw in new fans, spread your music, and inform fans about different shows you’ll be playing. To accomplish that, the site needs to be easy to navigate. When building a site from the ground up for ease of navigation, you need to first choose a theme to organize the site.
Specifically, you need a perfect Music WordPress theme designed for musicians. Those themes are designed to spotlight music and reduce what business people call friction. In e-commerce, friction is anything that gets in the way of a site visitor converting into a customer. For a music website, friction would be anything that gets in the way of a site visitor converting into a listener.
Music-specific themes are often minimal in their design with large spaces for images and video. They’ll have less space for text; after all, the visitors aren’t on a music site to read. You need a music-specific theme for that because search engine optimization (SEO) is often geared towards the ext. To compensate for that, a music site needs to be embedded the SEO information in photos and videos.
Unique shortcodes in the music WordPress template are specific to WordPress and can greatly improve your site SEO. That will make it easier for potential fans to find you; more fans means more success.
Finally, you need to make sure the theme you choose is designed for mobile use as well as desktop use. If you’re making a website in WordPress, they will all scale down for mobile use; however, only the best themes are specifically designed for use in mobile as well. Working with a website on a phone or tablet is different than on a desktop in more than just size. The placement of buttons and features should be optimized for touchscreens.
Sound Quality
Finally, you need to put together a website that has great sound quality. The sound quality of your site will be determined by a few features. Some themes allow you to upload your own videos directly onto your website where they are hosted by your web hosting service. That will provide you with greater speed and control in many cases. Embedding video hosted by a video hosting service is a quick way to put quality videos on your site, but you’ll lose some control.
You need to get potential viewers to your website and encourage them to click on your songs. When they play, the quality needs to be great.
Conclusion
The music business has changed in ways that would make it unrecognizable to a musician getting her start ten or twenty years ago. However, a few things remain the same. You need to get people to listen to your music, and your music needs to be good. That used to involve driving around from dive bar to dive bar. Now, it involves a good website optimized for search engines and quality videos. It also might involve driving from dive bar to dive bar still; you’ll be advertising those dive bars on your site, though. Once you’re done, post the video of the dive bar show and watch your clicks climb.
