Music News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

3 Simple and Free Website Design Resources for Musicians

I’ve harked on marketing for a few posts now.

Not for nothing, because being a band in a vacuüm is pointless.

You want fans, and marketing is the thing that will get you fans.

It gets a bad rap, but marketing isn’t evil. It’s what you do every day when you talk about your music, upload a song or post a music video.

And as you all know by now, you should be doing this through your own website.

Where Do I Find a Good Website Design for My Band?

Good question.

The answer is: ALL OVER THE PLACE!

It’s actually quite frustrating because you can feel like you’re drowning in designs when you go search on Google. But let’s narrow the search parameter a little bit and focus on something that’s more budget friendly.

Or as you musicians might know it as: free.

I’m only recommending and talking about WordPress themes because that’s what I’m familiar with and confident to talk about.

There are a ton of free options out there, and even more Premium, paid themes as well.

Just a quick search on Google for “free WordPress themes for musicians” yields some good results. Obviously they won’t all be free but here are some great sites that have some good free options for you.

Premium Free WordPress Themes

PremiumFreeWordpressThemes has some good options for musicians on a budget that would like a simple and nice design.

The Retro Music and IndaClub are both cool options for wildly different genres.

Heaven Themes

Heaven Themes looks super cluttered and seems to portray itself as a massive hub for website themes. At first glance it looks like Amazon.com if they only sold website themes.

But once you get past that you can’t deny the massive amount of different themes available on their site. And they’re not only limited to WordPress so if you have different preferences for your platform(you shouldn’t) then you can choose a Joomla or a Blogger theme (don’t do it).

TightMixBlog

screenshot-sight-460x306There are some interesting choices on TightMixBlog. I guess the generic 2010 theme could work for your music, but it just lacks design and is a bit “blah…”

However, the author’s favorite theme on the site is Sight, a really cool free theme that comes with a bunch of customizability.

I actually used it a few years back as the theme for my band so I can highly recommend it to anyone who needs a simple but cool looking theme that won’t cost them a dime.

Other notable mentions are the City Dreams theme, which would come in handy if you have a really cool band photo or an awesome live shot of your band rocking out on stage.

Make it Simple

You don’t need an expensive designer to make you a website. You just need some intermediate skills in setting up your free WordPress theme and you’re good to go.

This is something anybody in your band should learn because you should always treat your website as your flagship marketing tool.

What themes are you using on your website? Did you go with something free, or did you treat yourself to a premium theme?

No comments:

Post a Comment