Ready for a website

[DJKLEEN]

I know nothing about building a website! If it costs or is it free, are the free ones sucky? Are the pay ones easier to set up. All that I know right now is that I looked up sounddoctrinedj.com. And ther is none! So do I have to buy that site? I might be better off paying this kid that I know, or is it easy? I am tech savvy and have a lot of experience in software for some of the most complicated equipment (class 5 and 6 soft switching) I have been working for AT&T for 30 years, but not much on Website creation! We leave that for the corporate web guys. As a matter of fact we cannot even load software or apps on our company PC's or iPads without IT doing it for us!

I need a site to show some of my equipment and my business statements.

I know I have a lot to learn from you guys, maybe I can avoid some of the past mistakes from some of you.

Also welcome some tips from your websites that worked or failed.

Thanks for all of your ideas and info.

 

[djtaso]

Content is everything!! No matter how little or much you pay to have one made, it wont be effective without high quality content. Make sure you have beautiful, high quality, aesthetically pleasing, pictures and/or videos on your site, as that will utlimately determine it's potential

I don't know the answers to many of the technicalities you may come across, so I suggest paying someone to do this if you don't have good knowledge on this. Your time can be better spent growing your business and researching music or just having a life in general, as opposed to trying to figure out how to do things and running into issues. Your website is your storefront, and you want it to be the best representation of your brand, so pay a professional if you can.

I personally prefer wordpress sites so that afterwards I can make changes on my own (for rewording things or changing a picture) rather than having to contact a web designer all the time and paying for tiny changes.

 

[rickryan.com]

Squarespace is where I'd point you. Their designs are really sleek and they strike a great balance at using their predefined templates versus giving you too much control, which often ends up with a crappy-looking site. You can also look at wix.com or websitebuilder.com, if you want more control. I would not recommend paying someone to "roll your own". It's very important to be mobile-friendly and the sites I mentioned all create sites that have great cross-platform support, right out of the box.

 

[steve149]

I think a lot of it has to do with how you intend to market yourself going forward. Taso has a "brand" and a few others are working on building theirs. In that case, a consistent message is key and having outside talent do it makes a lot of sense.

If you are simply using a website as a landing page to offer contact and simple pricing info, then rolling your own is a definite option.

Sometimes we need to understand what we're good at and where we're not.

 

[DJ TJ]

Just keep in mind if you do roll your own, whatever theme/template you choose, make sure it's responsive (mobile friendly) otherwise it will be downgraded in google search rankings.

Responsive means the view of the pages and the layout of the menus auto adapt to become smartphone/tablet friendly .

 

[DJ Not Applicable]

A really good site to go to is Wix. You can create pretty websites and host them for a small fee.

This is all from tidbits I've picked up, but yea.

 

[SEDJ]

Just keep in mind if you do roll your own, whatever theme/template you choose, make sure it's responsive (mobile friendly) otherwise it will be downgraded in google search rankings.

Responsive means the view of the pages and the layout of the menus auto adapt to become smartphone/tablet friendly .

This is probably the second most important thing , having responsive website .

 

[DJ Not Applicable]

The last 3 months of my stats for my website shows that less than 5% of my visitors are using a mobile device. I think that when you are looking to book a DJ, maybe just use a laptop/desktop.

I am still working on converting my site to be responsive.

 

[steve149]

The last 3 months of my stats for my website shows that less than 5% of my visitors are using a mobile device. I think that when you are looking to book a DJ, maybe just use a laptop/desktop.

I am still working on converting my site to be responsive.

I think it depends on the audience you've marketed to. Millenials will be most apt to use mobile.

 

[rickryan.com]

The last 3 months of my stats for my website shows that less than 5% of my visitors are using a mobile device. I think that when you are looking to book a DJ, maybe just use a laptop/desktop.

I am still working on converting my site to be responsive.

Mine are more like 50/50. Don't make the mistake of using a tool that only works on one platform. Wix and Websitebuilder both have mobile-ready, right out of the box. The problem I have with those is you almost have too much control. I step on myself and end up with an ugly(ish) website. SquareSpace fixed that for me. It gives me enough control but it protects me from screwing up my own site.

 

[Ausumm]