Everything Your Musician Website Actually Needs

Mon, 16 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Quick answer: A musician website needs six things at minimum: an easy-to-browse layout that works on mobile, an up-to-date bio, a music page with a player and streaming links, a photo page with press-usable images, a show calendar, and a contact page - plus links to all your social profiles, tying everything together in one place you actually control.

Social platforms come and go, and none of them are truly yours - a website is. It’s your central hub: the one place fans, press, and industry contacts can always find you, regardless of what any platform changes next. You don’t need design skills to build one - you need to make sure it actually includes everything below.

An Easy-to-Browse Layout

Before anything else, your site needs to work: a clear menu, and a layout that renders correctly on a phone, not just a laptop screen. Music-friendly website builders (Bandzoogle is built specifically for musicians - music player, merch store, and mailing list all included; Wix and Squarespace are solid general options too) handle most of this for you. Whatever you pick, check it on your own phone before calling it done - it’s the fastest way to catch something that looks fine on a big screen and breaks on a small one.

An About Page With Current Information

This is where your bio lives - short, to the point, covering your background and what you’re currently working on. See How to Write an Artist Biography for exactly how to write one people will actually finish reading.

A Music Page With a Player and Links

Give visitors the easiest possible path to actually hearing you - an embedded Spotify or SoundCloud player, plus links out to every platform your music lives on (Apple Music, Tidal, wherever else). The fewer clicks between “landed on your site” and “heard a song,” the better.

A Photo Page With Press-Usable Images

Include quality photos of yourself or your band, and explicitly note that press and blogs are free to use them in articles and reviews. That one small detail meaningfully lowers the friction for a writer deciding whether to cover you - no photo request email required.

A Show Calendar

A simple, dated list of upcoming shows works fine if a full calendar plugin feels like overkill. Include venue links where you can - it makes life easier for fans deciding whether to go, and for venues checking your other listed dates.

A Contact Page

Make it easy for anyone - a talent agent, a manager, a journalist - to reach you once they’ve found you. A missing or buried contact page is a surprisingly common way musicians lose real opportunities simply because nobody could figure out how to get in touch.

Links to Every Relevant Profile

Put your social links somewhere they show up on every page - the footer or a sidebar - so visitors can find wherever else you’re active without hunting for it.

Your Website Ties Everything Else Together

Booking shows and recording music will always take priority, but your website is what makes every other promotion effort actually land somewhere permanent. Get the basics above right once, and it keeps working for you with almost no ongoing maintenance.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the easiest way to build a musician website without design experience? A drag-and-drop website builder aimed at musicians - Bandzoogle is built specifically for artists (music player, merch store, mailing list built in), while Wix and Squarespace are solid general-purpose options with music-friendly templates. None require coding.

What pages does a musician website actually need? At minimum: a homepage or about page with your bio, a music page with a player and streaming links, a photo page, a show/tour calendar, a contact page, and links to your social profiles - all easy to find from a simple menu.

Should photos on my website be free for press and blogs to use? Yes, if you want coverage. Note explicitly that writers are free to use your photos in articles and reviews about your music - a small detail that makes it meaningfully easier for a blog or reviewer to actually feature you.

Ready to put a complete website to work for you? Submit Your Music and let’s help more listeners find their way there.

Band Website | ArtistPR