Computer skills for musicians

Ten years ago, when I'd go to conferences, people would say that a website is a "good thing to have." Now, people at those same conference say that a website is an absolute necessity. I would extend this to say that computer skills are a necessity for any self-employed professional. This article will list some skills you will want to acquire to build a website as well as some other ways to increase your web presence.

Option one: build your own website from scratch

This option will allow you by far the most freedom, power and control over your web presence, but it also has the steepest learning curve. If you want to go this route (which I recommend), here are the steps you should take:

1. Purchase a domain name. Go to Godaddy.com and do a search for the name you want. If it's open, buy it. Don't procrastinate this step, because thousands of people are buying domain names every week. It'll cost you the mere pittance of $10 per year.
2. Rent hosting space. Without getting into too much technical detail, most websites are not hosted on personal computers, but on large mega-computers with super-speed and super-bandwidth. So what you're actually doing is renting hard drive space on one of these mega-computers run by hosting companies. There are many great and cheap hosting companies out there, and you shouldn't have to pay more than about $6-7/month for more space, bandwidth and features than you'll probably ever need.
3. Start building! You'll need to know something about HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to build a site. There are many great books that walk you through these relatively-easy-to-grasp technologies. Technically, all you need is a text editor like NotePad or TextEdit to make a web page. This is a slow, tedious process, however. Speeding up the process tremendously are programs like Dreamweaver that also give you a visual representation of what you're doing.
4. Websites built only with HTML usually look boring and un-professional. I spend much more time in image-editing software like Photoshop or Fireworks to get things looking the way I want them before I link them to my HTML file. For the economically-challenged, The Gimp is a decent freeware Photoshop alternative.

Option 2: have someone do it for youYou will save immensely on time with this option, but it will likely cost you more and you will lose a good deal of control over the functionality of your site. For many, though, the convenience is worth it. There are many companies out there willing to either build you a custom site (more expensive) or sell you a pre-made template (less expensive). Besides convenience, these full-time programmers can use their formidable skill sets to build amazing sites that most amateurs like us cannot rival.Option 3: try a free versionContent management systems like Wordpress, Joomla, and others save you time and money, and their sites are somewhat customizable and look fairly professional. You probably have the least amount of control over functionality with this option, however, as you're usually limited by their templates. Customizing beyond the templates is probably not an option. This is a good choice for people with no time or money, though you'll still want to pick up at least a freeware image editing program like The Gimp to make your graphics and photos look professional.What to have on your website (at minimum):

• A short bio, and possibly (if you're in academia) a full curriculum vitae
• A calendar of your upcoming gigs
• Contact information. Some people are paranoid about spam and won't put their emails online. Personally I think this is silly, since usually the same people have no problem sifting through paper junk mail, which is much more time-consuming and a greater environmental hazard. But if this is you, consider building a web contact form. There are online tutorials to teach you how, or contact me and I'll walk you through it.
• Audio samples. There's much debate on the pros and cons of having music play automatically upon entering the site vs. having a designated audio page, and although I currently have the latter, I'm sort of on the fence myself.

Other ways to increase your web presence:

• MySpace music page
• Facebook page
• Consider other networking sites, like LinkedIn and Plaxo. On all your networking sites, fill your friend accounts with people you can network with for your business.
• Twitter
• Post to as many forums on as many different subjects as you have time for, but don't be obnoxious or solicitous.
• Start a blog. I have not followed my own advice as of this writing, but I will be starting a blog soon. :)
• Consider podcasting. This is more time-consuming and equipment-dependent than blogging, but you could possibly reach more people away from their computers through their mp3 players.
• Post ads for your services on Craigslist and other classified-ad-type sites.

These days people go first to the internet to find people, goods, and services. The larger your web presence, the more people will be able to find you.