Understanding the Importance of Website Traffic for Musicians

Website traffic is essential for musicians because it can lead to increased exposure, fan engagement, and revenue opportunities. When more people visit a your website, they have the chance to discover your music, learn more about your story, and engage with your content. This increased exposure can lead to more fans, more streams or downloads of your music, and potentially even more revenue through merchandise sales or ticket purchases.

Driving traffic to a website can be challenging, though. Musicians face competition from other artists and platforms, making it difficult to stand out and attract visitors. Additionally, the music industry is constantly evolving, with new trends and technologies emerging regularly. It’s important to stay up-to-date with these changes and adapt strategies accordingly to drive traffic to your site.

Leveraging Social Media to Drive Traffic to Your Music Website

Social media platforms can be powerful tools for musicians. When used correctly, they can help drive more traffic to your website. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X, and YouTube have millions of active users who can potentially become fans of your music. Creating engaging content on these platforms and directing fans to visit your site can significantly increase traffic and help gain new fans of your music.

To create engaging social media content, focus on providing value to your audience. Some examples might be sharing behind-the-scenes footage, exclusive content, or sneak peeks of upcoming releases. By offering something unique and valuable, you can encourage fans to visit your website for more. Is there a musician you really admire who seems to be crushing it with their online promotion? Take a few notes from their strategy as inspiration and develop your own unique content cadence.

Cross-promotion and collaboration with other musicians and influencers can also help drive more traffic to your music website. Try partnering with artists who have a similar fan base or collaborating with influencers who have a large following. These can be effective ways to tap into new audiences and attract more visitors to your site.

The Role of SEO in Boosting Your Music Website’s Visibility

Search engine optimization (SEO) is another crucial strategy for driving traffic to a music website. Obviously, when people search for music-related keywords or your name on search engines like Google, you want your website to appear at the top of the search results. Being easy to find is an important component to growing your fanbase and increasing traffic.

There are many advanced strategies for boosting your SEO, including keyword research, but these can be quite time consuming. Your best bet when starting out with optimization is to ensure that you are following best practices for basic SEO. Make sure you are incorporating your name/band’s name into your website’s content, meta tags, and URLs. Even these minor SEO improvements can increase your chances of ranking higher in search results.

On-page optimization is also important for SEO and user experience. You should ensure that your website is user-friendly, loads quickly, and has a responsive design that works well on both desktop and mobile devices.

Another important aspect of SEO is link building. By acquiring high-quality backlinks from reputable websites, you can improve your website’s authority and increase its chances of ranking higher in search results. Can you pitch local journalists for coverage? Can you ask any venues you are playing at to include a link to your website? Can you collaborate with other musicians for cross-promotion? Whenever you’re being mentioned by one of these types of sources, ask them to include a link to your website.

Best Practices for Combining Social Media and SEO to Drive Traffic to Your Music Website

Social media and SEO can work together to drive traffic to your music website. By integrating these strategies, you can maximize your online presence and attract more visitors to their website.

One way to combine social media and SEO is by using social media platforms to promote website content. Share links to your blog posts, music releases, or merchandise pages on your social profiles. By encouraging fans to visit your website for more information or exclusive content, you can drive significant traffic and increase engagement with new and existing fans alike.

You should also ensure that each of your social media profiles is optimized for search engines. Makes sure your profiles include relevant keywords in your bio (what type of music do you play? Where are you from? Etc.), descriptions, and of course, a link to your website. This can help your profiles rank higher in search results when people search for music-related keywords.

Be sure you are tracking and analyzing your website traffic to measure the effectiveness of your new social media and SEO strategies. Look at tools like Google Analytics to monitor website traffic, track referral sources, and identify which strategies are driving the most results.

Wrapping Up

Driving traffic to a music website is essential for musicians who want to increase exposure, engage with fans, and create more revenue opportunities. By leveraging social media platforms and optimizing your website for search engines, you can attract more visitors and grow your fan base.

It’s important for us as musicians to experiment with different strategies and find what works best for our unique needs and goals. And of course, remember that the most important thing is giving your fanbase an easy and enjoyable way to connect with you. Your fanbase is unique and special, so your online presence and outreach should be tailored to your unique fanbase and their wants.

The post From Social Media to SEO: Effective Strategies for Driving Traffic to Your Music Website appeared first on AudioTheme.

Keep the Connection

For a lot of musicians, live shows are not just about producing revenue. They are also about making connections with fans. When a large part of your personality is dependent upon performing in front of people, isolation can be difficult.

Some of your fans may be your best friends that you’re no longer getting a chance to see. As awful as the situation is, we are still very lucky to have the internet. Countless musicians are livestreaming concerts over Facebook, Instagram Live, and other platforms like Twitch. These concerts allow musicians to perform for an audience from the safety of their own home. Livestreams certainly do not provide as much of a connection as playing a live show. But they are better than completely losing the connection you have with your friends, family, and fans.

Livestreaming also allows you to use services like Venmo and Paypal to collect digital tips. Luckily, many people understand how difficult things are for musicians amidst this crisis. I have seen first hand how many folks want to support musicians during this time.

Musicians can also connect with fans over social media through regular posts and videos. Make sure to check in and see how your fans and followers are doing, too. Many of them find themselves in a similar amount of uncertainty and could use some kind words. It’s important to remember that we’re all facing similar circumstances. We should all be in this together.

Sell Merch Online

If you’ve always relied on an in person merch booth to sell cds and other items, now is a great time to focus on getting an ecommerce shop up and running. If you’re using one of our themes, they all have basic support for WooCommerce built right in. And, Merchato is fully integrated with WooCommerce. Try to get creative with what you’re selling. You can even think beyond music. For example, if you also happen to paint, maybe consider offering up a few pieces of artwork in addition to your cds, t-shirts, and posters.

Now is a great time to offer your music for sale if it is something you haven’t done before. It seems like many people have a strong desire to help local musicians and would gladly purchase music to do so. If you haven’t read our posts on ecommerce and selling digital music, now is a great time.

Use This Time Wisely

With everything changing by the minute, it can be hard to think about the future. But that may be the smartest thing to do right now. You know that you’re going to have several weeks at a minimum without shows. It’s tempting to sulk and feel sorry for yourself, but the reality is that you need to use this time wisely. When the crisis passes, will you be able to look back and feel like you made the most of it? Below are a few things you can do to improve the future.

Write Songs and Practice

Many of us across the world are hunkering down in our homes. That doesn’t leave a lot of daily inspiration to draw from. However, we have an unprecedented amount of time to sit down and focus on writing or bettering our musical abilities. While it may seem pointless to practice if you have no upcoming shows, you’ll be better off in the long run. If you’re livestreaming shows, you’ll want to stay sharp. Now is the perfect time to focus on finally learning to use a looper, or dust off the piano that you’ve been meaning to start playing again.

Work on Your Online Image and Promotional Materials

So many projects get pushed to the side when we’re in the middle of a fully booked schedule. We just don’t have time to update our websites, produce content for social media, or record new demo tracks. Maybe you’ve been meaning to create new posters for your shows, and just haven’t found the time. Well, now we have nothing but time. If you’ve got a list of administrative or business tasks you need to accomplish for your music career, knock them out now. When you get back to booking shows, you’ll look and feel more professional and can hit the ground running.

Consider Prospecting for New Opportunities

Try to use this time outside of your regular routine to gain new perspective. You may be able to develop some fresh new ideas for booking more shows or generating other income. It’s time to get scrappy. Spend some time researching potential new venues. This moment may not be the best time to reach out to bar owners who are also feeling this crisis. But, having a list ready to go when the time is right will save you a few steps in the future. Maybe you can focus on other ways to generate income for yourself during this time. Can you offer online video lessons? Can you organize a fundraiser? Do you have any other talents you can tap into? Can you team up with other musicians to create a livestream festival?

Music Has the Power to Heal

If you’re a musician who relies on their music to produce an income, right now is a very scary time. The beauty of music though, is that can provide an outlet and a calming presence in even the most uncertain times. We should all keep that in mind. We’ve seen the videos of folks singing from their balconies across the world. That is what hope looks like. We all should realize that music gives us the chance to bond with others. It gives us the chance to spread feelings of hope and reassure us that everything will work out in the end.

The post How to Keep Your Music Career Active During the COVID-19 Crisis appeared first on AudioTheme.

Step 1: Create a page and add the content.

I’ll be using our Ovation theme to create an EPK for this demo. You can see the final product of this tutorial here. I’ll start by creating a new page called EPK and adding the content I want. I’ll include:

• Brief bio
• One sheet download
• High quality photos
• A playlist of live recordings
• Videos of live shows
• Reviews from booking agents
• Contact form

As you can imagine, adding all of this content will make the EPK page long. So long that someone coming to visit it may not even know exactly what all is included on the page. Adding anchor links to the page and navigation will help with the page’s organization and usability.

Step 2: Create your anchor links for each section

In the demo, I’ve used a spacer block and separator block to break the sections up.
Once you’ve created your page sections in the Gutenberg editor, you can add anchors to each of them.

An anchor link allows you to hyperlink directly to that section of the page. You create an anchor link to any element with an id attribute. Usually you’ll add the id attribute to an h2 heading. If you add a heading in Gutenberg, then look in the “Advanced” panel in the Block Settings sidebar, you’ll see a field for adding an “HTML Anchor” there. There’s also a link with some useful information that’s worth exploring.

Keep in mind that anchor text and links do have some impact on SEO. Moz recommends that anchor text be succinct, relevant, not generic, and not overly keyword heavy.

For our demo, I’ll add the HTML anchor to the heading for the Band Biography section.

bio

You can do the same for each of the other sections of your EPK page.

Repeat this process until you’ve added HTML anchors to each of your page sections.

Step 3: Create links for your HTML anchors at the top of the page

Now that you’ve created the anchors, it’s time to set up the links to them. The best way to organize your links is to create a list at the top of the page.

First, we’ll create a new “jump to section” heading. Below that, we’ll list each section of the page, keeping in mind the SEO factors I mentioned earlier. I’ve centered my links and added a pipe symbol as a means of separating each of the sections. You can style your links however you’d like.

Next, we’ll add the links to each of our sections. Linking to a section on a page requires adding a hash symbol followed by the section’s anchor. For example, linking to the contact section on the EPK page would look like this:

#contact

The end result on the front end is a menu of links that allow a user to jump to a specific section of the page.

Step 4: Optional upgrades

Back to top link

If your page is really long, you may want to consider adding “back to top” links throughout. All modern browsers understand where the top of the page is, so there’s no need to add an HTML anchor for that. You simply need to add the link. At the end of each section, you could create a link that says “back to top”, and use the following for the link:

<a href="proxy.php?url=#top">Back to top<a/>

Add your anchor links to your menu

If you’re sending an EPK out for promotional purposes, you may not want to put a link to it in your menu. However, if you want visitors to find it on their own, you can add it to the main site menu. You can also add your anchor links as submenu items. Keep in mind when you are linking to an anchor from another page, you need to include the full URL to the page.

In our example, our page’s URL is https://demo.audiotheme.com/ovation/epk/, so the link to the contact section would look like this:

https://demo.audiotheme.com/ovation/epk/#contact

You can add these items to your site’s main navigation by adding custom links.

Once you’ve added all of your custom links, simply drag them underneath the main page as you would any other submenu item.

This will result in menu items that link directly to your named sections.

The final product

Our final result is a one-stop shop for everything important to an EPK. This setup allows us to combine relevant info into one page, but still keep it organized. It also allows us to send links directly to specific sections within a page.

Check out the end result live on our Ovation demo here.

The post How to Use Anchor Links to Organize Long Web Pages appeared first on AudioTheme.

1. A website gives your fans a place to find you…and all in one place

Have you ever seen a great band perform for the first time, only to be told to find them on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube? You may scramble to look them up right then, but odds are you will forget their exact handle. You can probably remember their name though. And a quick Google search would lead you to their website.

A website is the ideal place for fans to find out everything about you all in one place. Your bio, your gigs, videos, music, photos and more. Having everything all together makes it easy for fans to quickly learn about you, buy some merch, and look into your next show. Website visitors are much more likely to complete several tasks on one platform than they are to visit several different social profiles looking for information. So make sure it’s there for them to find.

2. A band website makes you look professional

When you’re submitting yourself for consideration to a new venue, agent, or label, you’ll want to put your best face forward. Having a great looking site that is well organized and packed full of quality content is the best way to do that. You’ll be miles ahead of other bands who don’t have sites.

3. A website means you have a real email address

If you’ve purchased a domain name for your site, you most likely got a few email accounts included with your hosting package. Sending emails from your own domain gives you a bit more credibility than your Yahoo or Gmail address. Your emails will also be less likely to get sent to spam folders if they come from a unique domain. That means more eyeballs on your prospecting emails and email newsletters.

4. You can sell things directly on your own site

In a past article, covered whether it makes sense to submit your music to a streaming service or sell the tracks yourself. We also covered best options for ecommerce stores. Having your own website gives you the chance to sell items directly online. You don’t have to rely on anyone else, or let another party take a cut of your sales. It’s all managed by you, directly on your own site.

5. A band website allows you to collect email addresses for your fans

Having your own site allows people to sign up for your mailing list directly on your site. You can then send newsletters about upcoming gigs, new releases or merchandise specials. While social media platforms may fizzle out over time, email is here to stay.

6. SEO can help people find you

Search Engine Optimization is a great way to help people find your band. You can optimize your site for the terms that you think people would search for most. For example, if you play a certain type of music, or are a wedding band, optimizing your site for those terms could mean more leads coming directly to you.

7. Analytics can help you uncover things you didn’t know

If you have Google Analytics installed on your website, you can see a huge amount of data. This data can be very useful in determining the demographics for your top visitors. You may discover that you are overlooking a key part of town when you are booking shows. You can also use Cue Pro’s playlist insights to determine your most popular songs and use that data to update your setlist.

8. A website allows for cross promotion

When you’re playing at a venue, your band will be listed on the upcoming events page of the venue’s site. Just like AudioTheme gives you the opportunity to add a venue’s website to your own site, most venues like to link back to the artist. Having a website gives people a chance to see if they’ll enjoy the show, and may result in more people coming out.

9. It gives you a place to host files for EPKs or special fan incentives

You can also create special pages with songs, posts, or media kits on your site. WordPress gives you the ability to set the visibility of each page. This will allow you to create special links which can be mailed to booking agents, or top fans. Create a landing page with tracks, videos, promotional photos, and availability, and you have an instant EPK. Or, imagine a video post where you are personally thanking your fans for coming out to a meet and greet. You can make your fans feel really special by creating content just for them. You could even go as far as creating an entire special portion of your site for fan club members. The possibilities are endless.

10. You will always own your website

We’ve covered the importance of data portability in the past. As more and more social media platforms are coming to market, some are sure to suffer the same fate as Vine and Rdio. Having your own site gives you complete control over the content in the event of a shutdown or suspension.

Should you only focus on your website?

It may seem as though I’m making the argument to avoid social media completely. That is definitely not the case. Social media is one of the best ways to find new fans, places to play, and inspiration. And generally speaking, being visible in as many places as possible is a good thing. In an ideal world, your band would be active on multiple channels of social media, and your website would be the always-present hub.

The post 10 Reasons Your Band Needs a Website appeared first on AudioTheme.

Why You Should Give Your Domain Name Some Thought

When you were naming your band, did you just choose the first thing that came to mind? Or did you give it some thought? Did you try to land on a name that fit well with your music and the image you wanted to portray? Your band’s domain name is equally important. On top of that, there are a few other points to consider when selecting a domain name.

Your Band’s Domain Name Should Be Easy to Hear and Spell

If you have gig cards, the ability to hear your domain name may not seem like a big priority. But consider for a moment how often you will be trying to give that information out verbally. You may be telling your audience to check you out online directly over the microphone. You may be trying to give your URL to a promoter or venue owner over the phone. If the domain name is hard to spell or too long to remember, you may lose some site traffic before it even lands on your site.

What if your name is hard to spell? Say, what if your last name is DiTommaso or something similar? You can always set up multiple domain names and have them forward to the same website. For example, my primary domain is:

annaditommaso.com

However, when I’m trying to give that URL out over the phone or in person, I direct people to:

annadito.com

Both URLs end up at the same place, but one is much easier for people to hear and understand.

Your Band’s Domain Name Should Have a Clean and Clear History

You may be thrilled to learn that your ideal domain name is available for a reasonable price. But, before you snag it, do a quick search of the domain name directly in Google. You can also take a look at the Wayback Machine. Just make sure the domain name was never used for anything you wouldn’t want your band associated with.

Your band’s domain name should have a popular extension

Did you know that you can now purchase domain names that end in .band? You didn’t, did you? Odds are no one else will know that either. And even when you instruct them to visit your .band website, they’ll probably try to visit a .com or .net site. Your best bet is to stick with the basic domain extensions, since those are most common. Don’t worry, we’ll cover some options for what to do if your preferred .com or .net domain names aren’t available.

Match Your Social Media Channels If You Can

If your band’s social media platforms are already set up, try to get a domain name that matches those. If you have yet to configure social accounts for your band, spend a little time researching the available social media handles prior to purchasing your band’s domain name. Making it easy for people to remember how to find you across all of the different channels will give you a greater chance of driving traffic.

What If the Domain Name I Want Isn’t Available?

If your band name or your actual name are pretty common, you may run into the issue of your preferred domain not being available. Don’t worry though, you still have some options. The most obvious solution is to add “music” or “band” to the end of your preferred domain. For example, if the following domain is taken:

example.com

Try:

examplemusic.com

Or:

exampleband.com

If the .com versions are taken, move on to .net. Again, as mentioned above, I’d recommend thinking hard about choosing any other kind of domain extension. You can also consider adding things like your genre or your city if you are primarily a local musician.

How to Register Your Domain Name

If you haven’t already set up a website hosting account, you’ll most likely get a domain name included with your new account. If you need to pick up a new domain name for your band’s website and tack it on to an already existing hosting account, you can purchase the domain directly from your host. Or, you can use a third party discount domain provider such as Name Cheap to purchase your new domain name. Once you’ve secured the domain name, your host should be able to explain how to point the DNS records to their server. This is what will tell the domain name to show your website.

Keep in mind that when registering for a domain name, your personal details will be available via WhoIs records. Some providers offer a free or paid service to keep those details private, which may be something you wish to look into.

Be Sure to Renew

When you purchase your domain name, either set the account up to auto-renew, or put the date on your calendar. You certainly don’t want to let the domain expire and let someone else snag it. You’ll lose all of your hard work, and confuse your site visitors. You’d hate for them to realize your website is gone and assume you’re no longer playing music, right?

Wrapping Up

Selecting your band’s domain name is an important task. Ideally you’ll choose something that is easy to hear, spell, and remember. Whatever you pick will be your home on the internet for many years to come, so be sure to give it some thought.

Do you have any thoughts or tips for bands who are trying to chose the best domain name? Let us know in the comments.

The post How to Choose a Domain Name for Your Band appeared first on AudioTheme.

What is a Call to Action?

A call to action on a website is an element that is specifically designed to entice a site visitor to take a certain action, or visit a certain page. The idea is that the page appears more enticing because it stands out from others in the menu.

If we take the DuoTones’ website for example, you’ll see that there is a booking call to action in the menu bar. When that link is clicked, a contact form loads, requesting all the details necessary to quote a show price for a private event.

How to Create a Call-to-Action Button in Your Site’s Menu

If you’re using an theme from AudioTheme, the process for creating a call-to-action button in your header is very simple. Most of our themes come with button styles built right in since they’re used for other aspects of the theme.

Let’s use Encore as an example and do a step by step walk through using the existing button styles.

Step 1

First, we’ll visit the primary menu settings under the Customize → Menus → Primary Menu.

Step 2

We’re going to add the call-to-action button to our contact page in this example, so we’ll need to expand the options related to that menu item. This can be done by clicking the triangle on the far right of the menu item.

Step 3

Once the options have been expanded, we will add the button class to the CSS Classes field for the menu item.

Step 4

Be sure to save your changes!

You’ll notice that this changes the contact page in the menu to display as a button.

If you’d prefer another type of button, you can use the theme’s alternate button style by changing the CSS Classes to button-alt. This will display a slightly more subtle button style.

What If I Don’t See the “CSS Classes” field in the Customizer?

The CSS Classes field may not display in your customizer by default. However, you can enable on that field via your WordPress dashboard. Navigate to Appearance → Menus. In the upper right corner of the screen, you should see a tab labeled “Screen Options.”

When you expand this menu, you’ll see the option to select the CSS Classes option under the Show advanced menu properties area of the drop down menu.

Clicking that tab will allow you to add CSS classes to each individual menu item.

What If I Want to Create My Own Call-to-Action Style?

Maybe you want the call-to-action button on your menu to stand out a little more than the default styles. If that’s the case, you can create a custom call-to-action button style using some CSS. Here’s how.

Step 1

Just like before, we’ll visit the primary menu settings under the Customize → Menus → Primary Menu.

Step 2

We’re still going to add the call to action button to our contact page in this example, so we’ll need to expand the options related to that menu item. This can be done by clicking the triangle on the far right of the menu item.

Step 3

Once the options have been expanded, we will add the custom-button class to the CSS Classes field for the menu item.

You’ll notice that the contact menu item doesn’t look any different at this point. This is because we need to define the CSS styles for the button.

Step 4

In order for the custom-button class to effect the contact menu item, its CSS styles must be defined. If you’re new to CSS buttons, a helpful tip is to just copy the theme’s default button as a starting point. You may also find our primer on CSS to be helpful.

You’ll want to add your custom styles to the Additional CSS area of the customizer. If we want to add some interesting elements to our button class, we may add a new background color, font weight, and font color.

.custom-button a {
	background-color: #c8596e;
	color:#ffffff;
	font-weight:600;
	border-radius: 3px;
}

You can tell that even with just a few properties added, the button is really starting to stand out.

You can of course add hover effects to your button using CSS as well. For example:

.custom-button a:hover {
	background-color: #333333;
	color:#ffffff;
	font-weight:600;
	border-radius: 3px;
}

Which would result in the following hover style:

That’s it! That’s all there is to creating custom call to action buttons in your site’s menu bar.

What Are Some Potential Uses

Simply put, anything you want site visitors to pay attention to would make a great use case for a call-to-action button. A few ideas to consider are:

• Shopping carts
• New records
• Tour dates
• Booking forms
• Electronic press kits
• Blog posts
• Mailing list sign up

Wrapping Up

Adding a call-to-action button to your site’s menu is an easy way to draw extra attention to a specific page on your site. There are many potential uses for this simple customization. Do you have any additional ideas? Please share them in the comments!

The post How to Add a Call to Action Button to Your Website’s Menu appeared first on AudioTheme.

What is Gutenberg?

Some WordPress users believe that WordPress’ biggest downfall is a lack of visual or WYSIWYG editor. There are various third party themes and plugins that have tried to fill that gap in the past. However, if you want to use only the WordPress editor, it requires some CSS and HTML knowledge to ‘design’ the layout of a page. Gutenberg is WordPress’ attempt to change that.

A nod to history

Johannes Gutenberg introduced the printing press to Europe in the 1500s. He was also the first European to use moveable type. His printing process allowed for affordable mass production of books and printed materials. A hobby that was previously reserved for the wealthy became accessible to everyone. You can see why WordPress chose to name their editor after him.

“The goal of the block editor is to make adding rich content to WordPress simple and enjoyable.”
— Gutenberg Plugin description

How does Gutenberg work?

The current WordPress editor is a basically a text editor. Though it can be greatly extended with the use of plugins, on its own, it is fairly limited.

Gutenberg aims to change that by using content blocks to build out each page. Blocks are pre-made “units” that you can drag and drop into the page. There are several blocks available including:

• paragraph
• image
• heading
• quote
• table
• custom HTML
• button
• gallery
• embeds

For more information on blocks, see the live Gutenberg demo.

In theory, you’ll be able to drag and arrange these blocks into your desired layout.

For example, if we add several blocks, in order, to a post, they will display as follows:

We can also choose to arrange them differently by dragging their order, and playing with their alignment:

How will Gutenberg integrate into WordPress?

Gutenberg is currently available as a plugin. It will soon integrate directly into WordPress core, beginning with WordPress 5.0. While there is no set date for 5.0’s release, it will most likely happen in the next month or so.

Is there a way to test Gutenberg before it becomes part of WordPress core?

You can download and install the Gutenberg plugin from the WordPress plugin repository. This will allow you to test it with your current theme and site. One nice thing about Gutenberg is that unlike many other page editors, it does not break your site when deactivated. This is due to the fact that it doesn’t rely on shortcodes to build the page layout. So, you can toggle back and forth between the Gutenberg editor, and the current page editor.

What if I don’t like Gutenberg?

A quick Google search or read of the plugin’s reviews will reveal that a lot of folks are pushing back on Gutenberg. This is part of the reason its release date is not yet final.

If you would like to prevent Gutenberg from becoming the default editor when WordPress 5.0 releases, you can download the Classic Editor. The Classic Editor is a plugin that forces the current TinyMCE editor to remain active. WordPress has recently announced that the Classic Editor plugin will be officially supported until at least 2022.

What does Gutenberg mean for AudioTheme products?

Several of you have contacted us asking if you need to do anything to prepare for Gutenberg. If you’re a fan, you won’t have any trouble using the Gutenberg editor with our themes. If you’d prefer to stick with the current editor, you just need to download the Classic Editor plugin.

We do have plans to create some custom blocks for Gutenberg as it becomes more stable. For now, we recommend you give it a whirl by using the plugin. We’re interested to hear what you think!

The post What is Gutenberg for WordPress? appeared first on AudioTheme.

A bit of history

Previously, selling merchandise was a simple way to add another revenue stream to a band’s income. A few bucks here and there was all it really promised, as CD sales were the primary way of making money. More recently, however, streaming has taken a big chunk of income straight out of artists’ pockets (while offering other benefits).

Merchandise has taken on a bigger role in recent years. Major touring artists can earn millions of dollars from merch sales! Smaller bands are also getting in on the action. Nearly every band now has a robust merch table, selling way more than simple t-shirts and posters.

If you’re performing regularly, have a decent following, and are being asked to sell merchandise, you could be leaving money on the (merch) table.

Increase your sales in person

Have you ever noticed how long the line gets at a merch booth right after the band finishes playing? There’s an impulse that most audience members experience immediately after hearing the last note. Fans are driven to get something that will remind them of how awesome the show was. You can take advantage of this, and help ensure that fans get something they’ll be glad to take home.

Be there

Let the audience know that you’ll be heading over to the merchandise table after the show. Sign items that fans have purchased, snap selfies, and and enjoy some conversation. You’ll create a positive experience your fans can look back on and enjoy every time they pick up that CD, t-shirt, or poster they bought. Don’t forget to ask your merch booth attendee to be super friendly when you’re not around.

Spend some time making your booth look cool

Select the right spot for your booth. Choose a place that is easily visible from all areas of the venue. Spend some time arranging your items to make sure that each one is visible. Lights are super cheap, easy to travel with, and can draw attention to your booth in dark venues. Fans can get caught up in the moment and completely forget that they wanted to take something home. Calling attention to your merch booth can prevent them from leaving without making a purchase.

Have something for every price range

Some fans will be able to spend a significant amount of money, and may buy several items. Some fans may be on a budget and will have to leave empty handed if you don’t consider them while stocking your booth. Selling smaller items like stickers, pins, and patches, for a few bucks can ensure that everyone can afford something. Plus, you’re still making a sale. Many bands will also offer something for free. This can be a great way to drive people to the booth.

Increase your sales online

If you have merchandise created and are already selling it at your shows, make it available online. You may find that fans want to make a purchase but need to wait until it’s possible for them. Give them the opportunity to order online. Several of the tips we discussed about in person sales also apply to online stores.

Make your online store easy to find

You don’t want fans to have to go searching for your merch booth in a dark venue, right? The same principle holds true for online sales. Make your store easy to find on your website. There should be a link in the top navigation. You may even want to call attention to featured items right on your home page. Our Merchato theme includes features that make your store stand out.

Keep it organized

Make it easy for a store visitor to find exactly what they’re looking for. Spend some time creating categories that make sense. If you’re adding new products often, you may need to update your categories.

Update your inventory

Pay attention to what is selling and make sure to order replacements as necessary. Frequently swapping out your featured items, and running sales are good ways to keep fans coming back for more. If you have enough merch to sell, you may want to add a featured item to your newsletter to drive sales.

Big quick to ship

There’s nothing more annoying than being excited about a purchase, only to wait weeks for it to arrive. As the economy is becoming more “on-demand” everyday, customers are getting used to receiving items almost instantly. Smaller operations aren’t expected to offer two day shipping, but your customers won’t want to wait for you to “feel like” shipping their items.

Offer a bonus

If someone is going to order something online, go ahead and sweeten the pot a bit. You can include a pre-printed thank you card or free sticker to say thanks. A little something extra can make a big impact with a fan.

Wrapping up

Selling merchandise can offer an additional, steady stream of income to artists. Having fans walk around wearing your name on the shirt can also increase your exposure and grow your fan base. Creating and selling merchandise in person and online is now easier than ever, and doing it the right way can result in better sales.

Do you have any tips for selling more merch in person or online? Share them in the comments!

The post Tips for Selling More Band Merchandise appeared first on AudioTheme.

Let’s start with a few basics.

Update often

Make sure your list of shows is up to date and included on your site well ahead of a show. While a few folks may land on your site, see you have a gig that night, and pile into the car, they’d probably appreciate a heads up. Give them at least a few days to plan on attending. You’ll want to make sure to leave adequate time for you to cross promote, too. Not to mention, it helps to constantly have upcoming gigs on your schedule when you’re trying to find new places to play.

Make sure your information is correct

We’ve all known the frustration of getting double booked or receiving bad intel. Make sure you’re not the reason your fans show up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Double check to make sure your dates, times, prices, and locations are accurate.

Provide as much detail as possible

Give people as much information as you have available. Some things to consider including are:

• What time the doors open
• What time you’re expected to go on
• Who else is playing
• If the venue is 18 / 21 and up
• The cost of ticket and if your fans can buy them ahead of time or at the door
• If there is a cover, drink minimum, or any other “gotchas”
• Details about parking or any other venue specific information you may have

The less information someone has to go searching for on their own, the better, and the more likely they’ll be to come out to your show. You can even give them details about the city, the venue, and special events that may be happening.

Venue specific information

If you are using AudioTheme, you can attach details to each of your venues. That way, whenever you create a new gig linked to a venue, you don’t have to input the data over and over. This includes the address, website, and phone number of the venue. All of which are helpful for someone who is unfamiliar with a particular venue.

As a bonus, you can also include private information related to each venue on your website. This can be helpful if it’s been a while since you played at a specific place, or you’ve lost the booking contact’s information.

Include details about the show

You should add details that are unique to each show to your gig listings as well. Adding compelling details can pique the interest of someone, and convince them to show up. Some things to consider adding are:

• Your set list
• Write ups and links to the other bands that are playing
• Video or photos of the last time you played the venue
• The gig poster
• Exciting announcement. Things like new songs that you’ll be trying out, or merchandise that will be available

Giving your fans a “say” in what songs you might play can make them feel included and invested in the show before it even begins. You can do this by creating a poll or request form for the gig and embedding it in the description.

Make sure to display your upcoming gigs throughout the site

Don’t just add your gigs to a “shows” page and leave it at that. Make sure you’re including them throughout your entire site. Especially in places like the homepage, the sidebar, or the footer. This will ensure your gigs are seen by everyone who lands on your site.

Cross promote with social media

Each AudioTheme gig lives at its own specific permalink. These links can be shared across multiple platforms to drive interest in an upcoming gig. Maybe you want to post on Instagram, or create a Facebook event for the show. Be sure to include the gig’s link in your social posts, and don’t be afraid to ask folks to share.

Wrapping up

While most musicians do include a list of upcoming gigs on their sites, they don’t go out of their way to market the show. Including more information about your shows can increase your professional appearance, and generate interest that leads to getting more fans in the crowd. Start using these tips today to promote upcoming gigs and increase the numbers at your next show!

Do you have any additional thoughts on what information should be included on gig listings on your website? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!

The post How to Promote Upcoming Gigs on Your Website appeared first on AudioTheme.

One of the biggest concerns of managing a website is keeping it secure. Since your website plays a major part in maintaining your reputation, it’s one of your biggest assets in growing your music career. In this post, we cover how using best practices, plugins, and other resources can improve your WordPress site’s security.

Best practices

WordPress itself is very secure. Since it’s open source and a huge collaborative project, there are hundreds of high-level developers constantly auditing its security. This is one of the greatest benefits to using WordPress. However, if you’re not using best practices, you lose out on a lot of that benefit. Below is a list of easy to follow best practices that can help increase your WordPress security.

Update login information

Changing up your login information is one of the easiest ways to increase WordPress security. The goal is to prevent someone with malicious intent from being able to access your admin panel through brute force attacks. A brute force attack is simply an instance where a hacker or automated software will attempt to “guess” your password over and over.

Rename or delete the default ‘admin’ user

It’s common knowledge that the default username for WordPress is ‘admin’. By keeping this user active, you’ve giving hackers 50% of the information they need to gain access to your WordPress dashboard. Changing this login information takes less than a minute, and might just save you the hassle of dealing with a compromised site.

If you still have an ‘admin’ user on your site, WordPress recommends the following:

• Add a new administrative user under Users in your WordPress dashboard
• Select Delete when mousing over the “admin” user
• On the confirmation screen, attribute content to another user

Use strong passwords

If your site is suffering from a brute force attack, you can bet that one of the first attempts will be “password123”. Weak passwords are a leading factor behind WordPress site compromises. If you’ve created a simple password so that it’s easy for you to remember, just keep in mind that it could be an open invitation to a hacker.

Strong passwords should:

• Include no personal information
• Not be in used on multiple sites
• Contain a mixture of letters, numbers, and symbols

One of my favorite tools for creating strong passwords is the Strong Random Password Generator.

Be cautious with your login info

Email is a great thing that has made our lives much, much easier. But, time and time again, it has proven to be much less secure than we think. We recommend that you don’t send login information via email. If you must, you should change your login details as soon as possible.

Keep your themes and plugins updated

Running updates on WordPress and any themes and plugins you have installed is essential to ensuring you’re running the most secure version.

WordPress core is frequently updated to provide patches for security or to combat new types of attacks. Keeping your WordPress software up to date is one of the most important things you should be doing for your site security.

In addition, themes and plugins that are released and maintained by third party developers are also frequently updated. You can always check on the number of pending updates on your site by navigating to Dashboard → Updates in your WordPress dashboard.

While most updates are released to improve performance or add new features, they often include security patches and new preventative measures, so be sure to keep things up to date!

Install an SSL certificate on your site

We’ve covered SSLs extensively in the past. Essentially, an SSL certificate will prevent hackers from being able to understand data that may be intercepted as it is traveling between your computer and the website.

This encryption adds an extra layer of security to your site. For example, without SSL, if your password is intercepted, it will be visible in plain text. If an SSL certificate is installed and the password is intercepted, the data will be a garbled mess.

As detailed in our previous article about SSL certificates, most hosts now include them for free, or at a minimal cost. Reach out to your hosting provider to learn more.

Security plugins

There are several products that are designed to improve your site’s security via a firewall and site scanner. The three most popular are WordFence, Sucuri, and iThemes Security. Each of these plugins has a free level of site protection that is a no-brainer to install. Each company also maintains its own database of security threats, and frequently posts articles on the state of WordPress security, including the latest threats and security improvements.

WordFence is the most widely used and well known of the three plugins, with over 2 million installs.

Installing one of these security plugins will give you additional security benefits, including:

• Firewall
• The ability to lock users out for violating custom rules you configure
• A scanner for outdated or compromised files
• Live traffic monitoring
• Email alerts when a user signs in, is locked out, or when there are potential problems with your site

Each of these plugins also offers a premium version of their plugin and service for a fee.

External resources

In addition to the best practices and plugins listed above, there are several external resources that you can take advantage of to help monitor your site.

Site Scanners

There are several tools available to check websites for Malware and other security risks. Many do not even require access to the backend of the site. Two of the most popular are Sucuri’s Site Check and WPScans’ Vulnerability Report.

Running your site through these scanners on occasion helps ensure that your site is secure.

Vulnerability Database

The WPScan Vulnerability Database is an online catalogue of reported vulnerabilities in WordPress Core, themes, and plugins. You can search for specific plugins and themes before you install them on your site to ensure that you don’t compromise your site.

Additionally you can sign up to receive email notifications as new vulnerabilities are added to the database.

WordPress backups

Keeping backups of your WordPress site is always a good idea. Several hosts will do this for you free of charge. If your hosting plan doesn’t include backups, there are several plugins available that will allow you to schedule automatic backups of your site. A few popular ones are:

• BackupBuddy
• BackWPup
• UpDrafts Plus

Having backups readily available will help reduce the amount of work necessary to remove any compromised files, as well as reducing the anxiety that you might feel when updating themes or plugins.

We highly recommend backing up your site one way or another.

What to do if your site becomes compromised

You should act quickly if your site becomes compromised. Restoring a backup from a period prior to the compromise might be enough to remove whatever altered/additional files the compromise affected. You would then need to resolve whatever vulnerability allowed for the compromise to take place.

Get Help

Reach out for help if restoring a previous version of your site doesn’t resolve the compromise. There are several companies that clean hacked sites on a daily basis, and will get yours cleaned up quickly and safely for a fee. WordFence, Sucuri, and iThemes Security all offer these services, which can be well worth the cost. Your host may offer something similar was well.

Wrapping up

Dozens of great articles already exist on WordPress Security. I recommend you read the following to learn more about WordPress security:

• The Ultimate WordPress Security Guide – Step by Step (2018)
• WordPress Security Checklist by Clef Two Factor Authentication
• How to Secure Your WordPress Website Checklist on Wordfence

You’ll need to be proactive to keep up with the ever-changing world of WordPress security. Doing a little work up front can prevent major headaches down the line. Following best practices and keeping an eye out for vulnerabilities is a great way to help make sure your site stays secure.

The post A Primer on WordPress Security appeared first on AudioTheme.