Yesterday was the day that the self-proclaimed ‘best panel EVER’ wrapped up at SXSW: Website Demolition Derby featuring David Dufresne, Emily White, Brian Felsen, Michael Schneider, and yours truly.
The panel was a fun hour of informal dialogue between the panelists and audience members who volunteered to have their websites critiqued. The variety in the submissions provided a perfect mix that allowed us panelists to provide advice to those of all shapes and sizes to improve their website for each unique case. Whether the subject was an artist, session player, blogger, or entertainment company, the crowd certainly got a solid hour of practical and candid advice.
If you were unable to attend SXSW, or got lost on the 1,001 other events going on throughout the day, here is a brief overview of just a few of the topics covered:
KNOW YOUR PURPOSE
It’s important to know that not all websites fit under one umbrella. While many of our clients for our respective companies look to us to attain fans for their music or their blog, attaining fans may not be the #1 priority if you are a session player looking for work. The important thing to note about websites is that you must know what resources are most relevant to your particular case. A session player’s LinkedIn profile may be a high priority, whereas a band probably won’t have one at all. One piece of advice is to reference somebody who you compare yourself to, and note what they emphasize on their site.
Speaking of Social Media Links…
LESS SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS IS MORE
Are you actively posting on all of these social media sites? When was the last time you posted on Google+? Has anyone interacted with your MySpace page lately? The only sites that should be included in this list are the ones that you actively maintain. Otherwise, you are driving fans to sites that are either barren, or dead. Not a good look for you!
DRIVE YOUR SALES TO ONE SITE
All artists are selling their music digitally through distributors like CD Baby, TuneCore, The Orchard, etc. We don’t need to see all of the stores which we can buy your music from. We already assume that it’s there. The best way to sell your music is to embed a BandCamp page on your website, or another direct-to-fan platform where you can a) retain traffic on your website, b) get an email address for your mailing list, and c) retain 100% of your sale, while skipping the 30% distribution fee.
MAKE YOUR MUSIC AVAILABLE ON YOUR HOME PAGE
Your website should be resourceful for all who visit your site. For the new visitor, a music player in the top left is a great place to allow them to hear your music for the first time. Why the top-left? View this website heat-map (via http://www.seoconsultingkenya.com/):
The red area is where the visitor’s eyes gravitate when they visit a website, which makes perfect sense if you think about reading a page from top-down, left to right. The lesson here is that you’re primary call-to-action should be in the top-left region of your site.
MAKE YOUR WEBSITE RESPONSIVE
Have you ever looked at your website on someone else’s browser? Are placeholders misaligned or out of place? Are images viewed completely out of context? Depending on the aspect ratio of the visitor’s computer screen, and the size of their browser window, your website may look very different than what you see. Make sure you test your website in multiple scenarios, and across several browsers to make sure that your HTML is accepted across all platforms.
MAKE SURE YOUR WEBSITE IS MOBILE OPTIMIZED
The user interface on your smartphone or tablet should make the visitor’s experience seamless and easy to navigate. Limiting the user’s need to pinch to zoom in to read your text or to navigate the page is a crucial element to your mobile site. Also, DO NOT USE FLASH! Flash does not work on iOS devices, so if the user is on an iPhone or iPad, they won’t see your media. HTML5 should be used wide-spread across your website.
We crammed in a lot of information on this panel, and we came across some very interesting cases and were asked some great questions from our audience. We had a blast doing this panel, and we want to thank everyone who came out and participated, and volunteered to put their websites on display for us to work with. I’d also like to thank SXSW and David Dufresne for being kick-ass hosts and for allowing me the opportunity to speak on this amazing panel and join an amazing group of people on this stage.
Related Articles:
Cyber PR’s 2014 SXSW Survival Guide
Nagivating #SXSW: Advice from the Streets of Austin – RECAP + More
Create a Perfect Music Section for Your Website – Free eBook from Bandzoogle