Web Help Tips

Show a map of where you are. You may not think this is relevant to you, but think about it for a minute. Sometimes I search and find a website and they are in some town in some country, but I have no idea where in the country that is if I don't know where it is I can't even consider it, if it's near where I'm going I might consider it. Just show me a little map and I might just be a little more enticed...

If you've got an About Us or a location page (contact us) page with information put a little map of the world that shows where you are. If you're a vacation spot or restaurant or club or whatever, show a map of the country (or state) to give someone an idea of where you are. If it's a big city show a map of the city with some major landmarks (airport, visitor attractions, etc.) that might help help someone to figure out where you are.

When you are performing be sure to tell people specifically where you are going to be appearing. Be sure to list the city and state (country?) of where you are going to be. Preferably put the whole address, there are lots of "Main Streets" around the world.

Include a link to a map or a web site and tell the people who you want to come there why they should go out in the cold, rain and traffic (or why they should be inside on a nice day). Is it a bar? a cafe? Non-smoking? Free WiFi? If it's packed all the time tell them to come early and get a table. If it's always empty, tell them there is lots of space. Tell me there's free parking or that section of downtown isn't busy that time of night but it's safe in that area.

Get your fans motivated, tell them what time you're specifically going to be on. Someone might not want to be out all night but if someone knows you're on at 9 PM that might motivate them. If they just want to relax and not go out, but they see you're at a smoke free cafe with wireless internet it may entice them. I can't tell you the number of times I haven't gone out because I didn't know anything about the venue and didn't know what time the performance of who I wanted to see started.

If there are other performers that night, tell me about them too, give me a link to their site or a place where I can sample there music. Se if you can get the other performers to post the same information about you.

When listing dates for (pretty much) any reason, always list the day. The day will help people remember. If I don't know what today is (it's the 4th), I certainly don't know when the 7th is, but I do know when Saturday is. So say "Saturday, April 7th, 2007" and I'll better remember that Saturday I should come listen to you play or come get my book signed or whatever it is you're listing the date for.

You should always list the year too, you never know what old web page they may stumble onto, you'll have some sad fans if they show up for something a year late.

Don't say tomorrow or today, when they read it later, today might already be tomorrow.

You don't have a CD?!? If you've got fans that have come to see you more than a few times (especially if they've brought friends) they will buy a CD, even it's just four or five tracks for $5. Now you've got something that makes a few extra bucks and a nice demo to send out.

These aren't really web tips but they are semi-tech and common sense tips (some just from a "fan point of view") not in any particular order. It's really just details on promoting yourself and giving fans information:

Most of the above tips are free advertising for you. You want your name and ways to find out more all over the place and we want to know about you. We're your fans.

Meta-Tags are little hidden phrases on your web page that help describe it to the search engines and indexes. I'll mention how to construct them below but remember different search engines look at your pages differently. So I usually group some words together and separately:

It should be on your cards, promotional items, embedded in your photos and music and everywhere. When someone asks for your phone or e-mail always give your web address with that information. If you're in front of a group mention as often as you mention your name. Make sure it's on every flyer, handout, pencil, button, news packet, t-shirt or interview that you have. Those 10-30 characters that make up your name is like owning 1-800-your-name, people need to have it to find out more about you.

Shorter is better! Keep your website address short. Preferably without a WWW a the start, this makes the site address longer and I've seen people screw up the WWW (I've incorrectly seen WW and WWWW before). Always list the site without the WWW (someone geeky can help get your site to redirect to the shorter one).

If your website is http://mystuff.com/ use that address always but for some reason if you need to link to something else such as a calendar then make sure the address is http://mystuff.com/calendar/ not http://mystuff.com/calendar.html. There are several reasons for this.

Never list a address ending with index.html (or .htm, .php, etc) or Default.html (or .htm, .php, etc) for all of the same reasons as above.

Do not use the e-mail address that you get from your ISP (Internet Service Provider), such as AOL, Comcast, Wow, RoadRunner, etc. Once you give out that address you'll be tied to it forever and it'll be impossible to get people to correct your address. Plus you'll never be able to leave that service

Get something you can keep forever like a gMail.com account or better yet, something that comes with your web site domain so you can use an address like me@mywebspot.com that you'll always own.

You can do this for as little as $2.99 a month.

Be sure to keep your personal life separate from what it is that you are advertising. It's okay if your fans find the personal photos and personal blog but keep them at different locations on the web. Don't post your photos from the party last night where wore the lampshade on your head (i.e. got trashed) next to your new publicity photos. Get two accounts, one for your friends and one for whatever it is that you are promoting. You can have one for work and one for play, people will eventually find the personal one, but that's not the one you are promoting, it's a subtle difference but the professional address is the one that you're going to be printing on business cards and other materials.

Even if you don't want to create a whole web site at this time you really need to. You need your own web page address and a little bit of content so you can start getting linked to and located in the search engines.

The Splash Page is just an introductory page to what will be your site but contains links to everywhere you might be on the net. It should have:

You don't need to make a big fancy site to start you just want to get the best name possible before someone else gets it.

The key is to just get a domain name and stick with it, use it and promote it. This way when you give information to someone they are going to your address not someone else's. Once someone links to the "wrong" page for you it's really really hard to get them to start using the address you want. You need to make sure from day one that your address is the correct one. Plus the more they link to your address the more it helps you with search engine results.

As a minimum I really recommend you have a "splash page" that has a little information and then has some links to other sites you are using or refer to you (photos, myspace, GarageBand, any other social networking sites, reviews, newspaper/web mentions of you etc.). Sort of like a mini press kit. When you publish your address, use these web address tips.

Worst case scenario you can redirect your domain name (web address) to some other page on the net (like your MySpace page).

You might even be able to get an e-mail address at the same time you register your domain name. And have your address be something like me@mymusicsite.com

Then go submit it to the search engines.

If you want people to find your information on-line you've got to help them. You want your information to appear in Google and other major search engines. Search engines take forever to get listed in so submit them now (even if you aren't going to be fully on-line until later. This make take ages to get listed so you want them to start looking now! Please note as people link to you the search engines will follow you. But you want to get in the engines before people link to you so ones some hears of you they can find you.

So take a few minutes and submit your site to the engines. Here's a few of the easier (one click) places to submit them:

Continue reading "Submit your site to the Search Engines." »