What Is The Purpose Of Your Website? Part 2

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

In my previous article—part one of a series on websites—I mentioned three different types of websites for specific purposes. In this part, we'll look at how best to satisfy your online goals as a jazz musician.

Earlier, we looked at three basic types of websites: 1. The Business Card which is a static site dedicated to giving you a presence on the web, 2. The Lounge, which attracts a community of interacting visitors, and 3. The Store, which sells your music, books, courses, teaching and whatever else is your specialty.

Once you are clear on the type of website you want, the question is: what can you build and/or grow in order to achieve the results you desire, and do so within your available time and budget?

The Business Card

You want to make this showcase attractive and intuitive for visitors. If your site is dedicated to highlighting you as a performer or your band, put the most important things on the top of your home page. When you walk into a store, what are the first and most obvious products you run into? Do the same with your home or landing page.

The more effort people must take to find something, the less likely they'll find it. We are all lazy and hard-wired to avoid effort. So, your best photo, bio, and music sample should be as front and center as possible.

Making your website attractive motivates visitors to stay longer and look around. If your website is poorly structured, lacks a flow, and is splashed with garish colors, most people won't want to stick around long. In which of these two homes would you rather hang?

The Lounge

The business card objectives very much apply to this community site. But here, your job is to give people a reason not just to enter but to engage.

You are trying to build a community where people want to gather and share and/or express themselves.

All About Jazz is a great example of this type of site. It consists of articles, announcements, performance calendars, and musician profiles all appealing to a specific audience of jazz players and enthusiasts. The more engagement they attract, the more successful the site will be for everyone involved.

Strive for two things: 1. Lots of content added on a regular and predictable basis that is laser-focused and relevant to your audience, and 2. Visitors engaged with that content. Do so by providing an incentive for people to leave their name and other information so that they can be in the know of interesting new content as it becomes available to them.

We are all on a ton of mailing lists, but think about what it is about those few mass emails coming into your inbox that you actually open. They often make a clear statement about how that email or linked content will make your life better. And once you arrive, there is indeed something there front and center that is worth spending a bit of your time reading or watching.

The Store

Everything mentioned above pertains to the online store. Make it attractive and intuitive, and engage your visitors. You may think that for a site to sell stuff, you don't need to be cranking out written and video content, but you would be wrong. Repeat after me: "We are all publishers."

For new prospective buyers to find your site, you need to have lots of links on other sites that point back to your site. You also need to help Google and other search engines more easily find you. One way is to demonstrate your authority by writing, recording, producing, and posting.

Online 'authority' is a focus on your particular area of expertise using product descriptions, videos, reviews, and topical articles (blog posts). Write short descriptive compelling content. Why do Amazon and Wikipedia show up first on so many searches? Because of the sheer volume of information they've cranked out on the topic and because of the large number of people seeing and engaging with that information.

Now, as a jazz musician, you are not going to match the authority of either of those gigantic sites, but here are some practical things you can do to sell more of your albums, music, tickets, and merchandise.

• Create relevant content in the form of blog posts that answer questions that your prospective buyers have about your area of expertise.
  
  If you are an arranger or publisher of jazz arrangements, write a post about rehearsal techniques that more quickly get their band playing an arrangement really well. Write a post on what buyers should expect when buying your arrangement: things you provide that others don't. If you are selling private lessons or clinic appearances, write about your best tip for more quickly becoming a better improviser or instrumentalist. (Yes, your best tip. Don't hold back!)


• Incentivize your visitors with a compelling reason to leave their name and email for future contact. We call this incentive a 'lead magnet.' "Subscribe to our newsletter" is not a compelling incentive.
  
  Lead magnets are usually short-form pieces of content that visitors desire and are willing to trade you in exchange for their email address. Maybe it is a solo transcription of a great solo along with your analysis and practice tips for mastery of the solo. A trombone ensemble client of mine that sells their albums online offers a guide on intonation techniques and exercises to help players play more in tune. Another client selling lead sheets offers a demonstration on turning a lead sheet into a cool jazz combo arrangement.


• Find related but non-competing websites that will place a link to your site somewhere within their site. This is something that Google and other search site value: the number of sites that link back to you.
  
  That is a value you receive from All About Jazz. It allows you to put links in your personal profile back to a specific page on your site. What are some other linking possibilities? If you are a teacher, think about resource sites/pages that list teachers in your local area. These resource pages are all over the web. Find a tool for looking at backlinks of others in your area of expertise. One such tool comes from a company called SEMRUSH which can be found here. This piece of technology lets you see the backlinks others like you are connected to so that you can reach out to those sites and get them to include your links as well.

I mentioned lead magnets above. Well, to give you those backlinks, SEMRUSH requires you to give them your name and email. That is their lead magnet! Don't worry, you can easily unsubscribe if you care to.

The topic of crafting your ideal site that meets your particular needs is obviously a very broad and deep one. In the final part of this three-segment piece I will provide you with additional concrete and practical examples of things you can do to maximize the return on your site, regardless of which of the above three types it is. Even though I've provided several ideas within this article, my hope is that by brainstorming a bit with you, you might say, "Hey, that could work for me."

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