So, I FINALLY have the website up..

[90802]

Part of me is just so happy to be started on it that I wanted to share, the other part of me wants critiques and advice. Well hell, I guess it can be both, can't it?

After putting it off for around a month, I just decided to get started where I am and work from there. I'm not exactly happy with the performance I posted, but I need to get SOMETHING up, so that's what I did. Fun fun.

Now on to the critiques and advice section of the program...

First, advice:


Search engine submission-What in the world do I need to do? I have the Google XML Sitemaps plugin. Do I set that up and it takes care of everything, or do I need to register with each individual search engine?

Direction of site-Just some suggestions on this would be nice. There's no way I can keep a lot of content coming if I only post songs. It takes a lot of work to write a song, then the filming, editing, etc. So, I need something to fill in the gaps. I have a few ideas floating around.

The first is to make it about the journey of a songwriter finding his voice. Writing songs, performing, promoting, the works. All the steps in the process.

I've also thought about using it as a songwriting hub. Tips, tricks, etc (I was doing that with an SBI site, but I could write enough original content to make it interesting).

Maybe I'll have to experiment and see what sticks. I'd much rather make money selling songs and not have advertising than have a site of songwriting tips with adverts all over it.

Shopping cart-Ugh. This is a worry for later on down the road, but is there a simple shopping cart format? Right now I"m using E-junkie. If you know something cheap and easy, lemme know!

Promoting the site-Links to any resources would be appreciated.

Ok, the critique part:

The big one I can think of right now is how I"m trying to sell an mp3. I don't know if it's a bit cheesy, or if it may work out great (I don't have any traffic right now, so I can't verify). Do you find it offensive? If you liked the song, would it make you more likely to buy, or turn you off?

General writing advice would be appreciated. This first post was a 20 minute bang-up job. Just wanted to get the first post out of the way.

Ok, enough blabbing. Here's the site:

Chris Dover Music ? I sooooooo wish I had a witty tagline to put here

Thanks for reading

[CoolBee]

Congrats on getting it up and out there

You can visit the top few search engines and manually submit your URL but don't over do it because I'm sure I read somewhere that if you submit it too many times they get in your words 'farked off' and don't include it. Otherwise it will appear in the fullness of time.

Well why don't you just play with the content and see what emerges at this stage? Even if you eventually pick one direction to go in, you will have built up a body of content for people browsing your site.
Haven't checked out the MP3 yet.

[Lauxa]

Originally Posted by 90802

The big one I can think of right now is how I"m trying to sell an mp3. I don't know if it's a bit cheesy, or if it may work out great (I don't have any traffic right now, so I can't verify). Do you find it offensive? If you liked the song, would it make you more likely to buy, or turn you off?

I thought the way you set it up was quite humorous and it would make me more likely to buy. I appreciate being able to get the free YouTube version to evaluate. One thing was it was not obvious there was a song "below the fold" and the Ticketmaster rant wasn't drawing me in to check.

Hey, look at this site, maybe similar to what you want to do:
Jonathan Coulton

[90802]

Thanks for the replies!

@CoolBee

Don't I only have to submit the sitemaps once? I thought after I did that it became an automated process. I reckon I was wrong! I'll have to look into it.

Yeah, I'm going to have to play around with content for now. Since no one is looking, I can do whatever I want I suppose

@Lauxa

Yeah, Jonathan has a great site. If I can ever figure out how to get a shopping cart set up I may go with that method. I'll have to look through his site and see what he blogged about between songs.

I'm not sure how I should set up the video/rant text part. I know I have to have some text in there for the search engines to work through. I wonder if it would hurt me to have the video posted at the top and the rest at the bottom? Maybe I wouldn't need text at all?

Anyone else care to check it out? I'll give you a killer virtual backrub if you do.