IndieMat Notes
By: IndieMat's Birthday
At least online, it's been in various forms offline for quite awhile. The goal of this site stems from three loves in my life: music, php and philosophy. I've been working on musicians' sites for many years and have been fascinated watching the impact of these sites increase over time. It's pretty much a given now that an artist or band needs a web presence. This presence can take many forms on one of the many music platforms to add your music and name to the masses.
At some point, however, it becomes time to move to your very own domain. The catch there, I think, is knowing how to define that domain. It's very easy to spend thousands for little more than a flashy design. Musicians, like all other businesses, need to ask the first very important question about their very first web site: What do I expect to gain from it?
Build the greatest site ever, and spend a ton of dough to make it just like you want and who cares? It ain't going bring the masses knocking on your door. A site is only one avenue of many, and is not in itself the key to exposure. So only give enough to start seeing if it is going to give back. And only focus on those parts that may give back.
The most popular pages on musician web sites are: Home, Tour, Tickets, Music. Assuming there is not free stuff somewhere.
This will vary depending on your level of popularity. If you already a hot shot, just sit back and watch exclusive ticket packages get gobbled up. But if you are but a budding Rock Star, it's time to put on your business hat. Ask yourself exactly what any business web site would ask itself: "What do I want to project to my customers?"
Answering that question is the first step to any good web site. The rest, I'll offer up my advice and code along the way.
- early
adopters 
