But... is it cost effective
to have my own web site as an artiste ?
In other words ,' is
it just a gimmick which is going to cost you more
money that you will make out of it...'
Well all right, let's
face it. How many artistes are making enough
money to afford the cost of a web site designer?
HOW MUCH DO 'CHEAP WEB SITE DESIGNERS'
USUALLY CHARGE?:
I recently used the search engine 'Google' and
entered 'web site designers'.
It found 601 000 related web pages (in 0.08 seconds!)
I then asked for 'cheap web site designers' and it come out with 44
000
answers of related web pages.
One of the sites stated that they were extremely cheap... they charge
US$ 127 for one page (£89) This is very cheap ! But you see, we
give you the same thing for £35 !!!
Another warns that you should be careful
with the 'suspiciously cheap' web site designers.
But then go on to describe just how cheap they really are (!). They
give an example of a page for one of their clients... It looks crap.
No, sincerely, I don't like to be like that but...
Now, you can't find a price for their work. They send you a quote once
you have spent hours filling out their form, at the end of which you
don't know
whether you can afford their 'cheap' web site or not so...
well it's difficult to waste an hour in these conditions.
Many web site designers do not state their
precise prices, but will send you
a quote... I find THIS rather unnerving
And it goes on.
I found a cheap one. The cheapest I found
was charging $19.79 ONLY !
But then you must 'host' your site with them. It is the design of your
page
plus the hosting that you receive for $19.79.... per month !!!!
At the end of the year you have spent about US$240.00. This is £168.00
for one year.
And compared to the others who do that,
this is extremely cheap.
We charge you £20 (US$28) instead for
this one web page!
THE VARIOUS TYPES OF
WEB SITE
You can have loads of things happening in your
web site. Music when the page appears, animation, little butterflies
following you mouse pointer when it moves on the page, fancy graphics,
snow falling down a black screen, photo in the background... loads of
things to make it attractive, pretty, captivating, etc.
But you see, when a band leader, a producer, a film director looks for
someone... he doesn't give a damn about the butterflies. ~ he wants
to see your photo, read what you have to say about your experience and
yourself, listen to your music, or at least be able to e-mail or telephone
you and ask for a demo, and above all, he WILL NOT wait 1-2 min. for
your page to appear on the screen.
He wants to click on your address, and instantly see everything about
you.
S/he is a busy person. S/he will go to someone else's web site if yours
takes more than 15-30 sec. to appear.
See comments &
statistics from Web Guru Peter Thiruselvam here.
Our pages are 'raw' and efficient.
They are extremely fast to appear
(usually less than 6 sec.), and contain only the essentials required
to create an impact.
THE INVESTMENT NECESSARY TO MAKE YOUR
WEB SITE WORK.
You must have a domain name (www.myname.com)
The cheapest domain name I've found costs around £12.00 per year.
Other companies can charge up to £150+.
You need a 'host' i.e.. the place on the web where your page is 'hosted'.
It can cost from a few pounds per month up to £10...50... etc.
depending on the company, the size of the web space they provide,
and the services they offer.
You can spend a lot of money to make your site work.
The first 'cheap web site designer' above for example,
charges US$127.00 PER HOUR WHEN HE IS MAINTAINING YOUR SIT
~ it is cheap compared to others.
Or... or... well, you can have a free Internet
Service Provider, with free
unlimited e-mail addresses, free hosting of your web site, and free
domain name (but it will not be www.myname.com or .co.uk;
it will be www.myname.blablanet.com for example).
You can have unlimited web space with some of them, or 5-10-15-
20-50 MB. You really need 5-10 maximum for your artiste web site,
and this gives you plenty of room for upgrade! unless you want to turn
it into a big thing.
It means that when you deal with us, we can
advise you
on a free ISP, free web space etc.
You pay nothing and we'll tell you where to go to get it all for nothing!
If you are too busy to do it yourself, we will do it for you and in
this case you would be charged £20 an hour (that is US$28 instead
of the $127 as of the guys above!). But if you have time ahead of you,
just do it yourself!!!
THE MAINTENANCE OF YOUR WEB SITE
You
now know the lowest prices on the market for this type of service
. They don't tell you that you can do it yourself. They may do it better
because they are professionals (hopefully)
We tell you that you can. You need to submit your web site to search
engines and directories i.e.. the 'robots' or 'engines' that will search
your web page when someone asks for it.
Without them, nobody would find you. These guys will own and direct
the economy of this planet soon!
We give you access to free 'search engine submitters' and web sites
that will do the work for you free of charge (to a certain extent) and
you pay what you want if you like them.
So, you can do it all yourself free of charge!
If you don't
have the time, we will do it for £20 (US$28)
an hour, instead of the US$127.00 charged by the cheapest
of our respected competitors !
This is 450% cheaper than the cheapest we have found
on the web !!!!
We prefer that you do it yourself...
SO IS IT COST EFFECTIVE?
The only way for it to be cost effective for 80%
of the artistes who are gig starved is that it costs you close to nothing
to begin with!
And £20 (US$28) is really close to nothing.
Actually if we put you on the web, it will cost you £35 (US$50),
and if we submit to the search engines for you if would top
at £55 (US$80) for your first page!!
But remember that you can do this yourself and we can tell
you
where to do it.
Well... lets say that
you want to spend £55 for us to do it all..
This is a gig.
A musician
we hired for a gig last New Years Eve via
his web site has earned-
if I remember well - a total
of
£380 (US$550) in the four gigs we hired him for during the 3 months
following our initial contact. It is not a lot of money, but realise
that he is now one of our reliable dep. whom we call upon to work
with us from time to time.
And this is only
with us! Other bands have access to his web site...
All the bands in the world can have access to his web
site!!!!
HOW COST EFFECTIVE COULD IT REALLY BE?
Well if you are good at your art, it can make
you known to so many people,
that it will change your life, your whole standard of living.
Can it multiply your income by 100- 500-1000%?
This I cannot guarantee but understand that you are offered an incredible
opportunity by
Musician Site : you can have world
wide web exposure for £20!
After this, it is up to you to make sure that your site is well maintained
and regularly.
A web site if efficient, it is like a big 'power ad' in the best Music
magazines
in your country. But remember that nothing will happen unless you have
people visiting your site.
It can take several months before it begins to really be effective If
you rely only on search engines and directories submissions. This is
only because it takes time (not for all of them though) to be able to
add you to their listings. However there are ways to speed up the process.
WOULD IT BE COST EFFECTIVE FOR A BAND
AS WELL ?
Oh Yes !
But with the same remarks as above, of course!
WHY DON'T YOU DESIGN WEB
SITES FOR BANDS?
We do design web sites for bands, and other businesses too...
The reason why we do not advertise
heavily on web sites for bands is that it takes much more time and we
have a lot to do with sites for single artists already. There is more
to show and say about a band in order to make it convincing and stand
out from the competition.
We can create web sites for bands; we built
Freespirit's
and
10 Foot Tall's
and maintain them.
They work very well. The point here again, is that the people who want
to hire a band (or a musician, or a dancer, or to buy a painting etc...)...
well, you see they are NOT web site designers. They will not think 'Oh
my God, this web site does not even have any flash animation or streaming
audio !...These guys must be crap!!!'.
No, they just want to know what you are all about. You need good photos
as well as high quality sound files as much as is possible, the best
CV you can, and you want it TO DOWNLOAD RAPIDLY!
But, here again:....
'Is it cost effective?'
The answer is
YES! definitely and absolutely,
providing you make sure that your
site is attractive enough, well done. Well maintained and comes in a
good ranking on the search engines.
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO HAVE A GOOD RANKING
IN THE SEARCH ENGINE?
Very good keywords,
well built pages and hours of submitting your web site to the maximum
of these search engines,
directories etc. (Without 'over-submitting'!).
You can do it (we tell you where), or you can pay a company which will
do it for you (but it is difficult to be sure that they do it properly
and cheaply) - starting at about £17.00 ($21.00) a month.
Or we can do it for you ~ at £40 an hour
for a band or half price for a solo artiste. Which is still terribly
cheap...
WHY DO YOU CHARGE MORE FOR A BAND?
Because although we are happy to give a hand to as many artistes as
possible, it does not mean that we are the Salvation Army. A Band should
share the expenses between the musicians unless it is working a lot
and the band leader takes all the management expenses - in which case
he can afford a more decent billing from us.
But as you see we still stay in accordance with
our philosophy which is to give AFFORDABLE access to the World Wide
Wed to artistes. Hence even if we charge more we are still waaaay cheaper
than the rest.
HOW MUCH DOES A BAND WEB SITE COST?
Musician Site would do it for £50 per page basic fee. You would
need to e-mail
exactly what you require directly to us and we will give you a quote.
Let's say a 4 page web site with a thumbnail
photo gallery, 8 music files,
plus repertoire,
CV,
references, etc. would only cost between £300-£500 (your
specifications can vary a lot and some can require time to execute if
we want to deliver a professional product of a high standard - and we
WANT a professional standard).
This is with Musician Site, of course.
