By Mike Ippersiel
[ad#inpost]
Last week, in Band Web Site Basics Part 2, I told you how to set up your own web site for next to nothing. The only potential drawback is you only get 50 megabytes worth of storage. Right now you can purchase gigabyte thumb drives for about $10 – so in comparison, 50mb sounds like nothing, but trust me – it’s enough.
The reason why you don’t need all kinds of storage on your site is that you no longer need to host multimedia files (i.e. music or video) yourself. In the last five years there’s been a glut of companies that have come out of the woodwork that want to host them for you for free.
If you want to host hundreds of photos, shop around for the site that works best for you. For starters there’s Flickr and Photobucket. For videos there’s Youtube and Myspace. Why spend extra money to host files yourself when these sites will host for free? All you need to do is provide a link
People visit your site for the content, not the layout and design. Think about it, when’s the last time you went to a store to check out the ceiling and floor tiles? You don’t go to a store to check out the interior design – you go to make a purchase or see what’s on sale – the same applies to web sites as well.
Your site needs to look professional; this is possible without a lot of the fancy bells and whistles that professional designers will offer you. Save that money and put it towards something more important – like posters for your next show, or some merchandise.
Thanks for reading Band Web Site Basics, if you take what you’ve learned in these three articles and apply them, you’ll have your own web site fast for next to nothing. Also check out my free new 10 part video series called Band Website Secrets. Cheers!