[Ramshackles]

Hey,
We are launching a new band website to coincide with actually having a band to play gigs :

http://ramshackles.org

I would appreciate any feedback on what is bad (good aswell ), what else could be included...

And if you want to share your own band/artist websites so I can glean ideas, that would be great


Edit: Of course, within seconds of posting this, the website server goes down :S...hopefully it will be back soon

[tone]

Hey Ram

First impressions - if I land on your site without knowing you're a band, I have no idea what I'm looking at.

Use of colour is nice, and the illustration is great.

Why are Gigs and Contact buried under 'more'? I would say gigs and contact are two of the most important elements for your site.

It's such a shame you used Wix for this site, although I understand why you did. It's a little bit awkward to use, and the website code is possibly the worst I've ever seen - not that this matters to your audience, but it does make it hard to carry out effective SEO if you decide to do so in the future.

Also it's a real shame to have those in-your-face wix adverts on your site. It cheapens your image, and provides a distraction for your audience. Do you want a potential fan (who also needs a website) to visit your site, click the wix ad and then forget to check out your music?

I also think you'd do well to have a video or audio file on the home page, to minimise the amount of work you expect visitors to do. Why make people click when you can put your music straight in front of them.

Check out the site I did for Reg Meuross - it's not the most beautiful (no budget for beauty!), but all the most important info is right there on the home page http://www.regmeuross.com

Hope that helps mate

[Ramshackles]

Thanks for that. Funny that it seems to work for you but I get a 500 server error when I try to access hmmmm...


Anyways, so or video or song on the front page? I guess I need figure out which one is best to go there then
My thinking was, though, that it would pretty unlikely that anyone would land there without knowing we are a band...it's not so often that you might happen to google 'ramshackles' without looking for us specifically I suppose!

I'm interested in your comments about Wix. I know next to nothing about website-building and my html experience is just by copy/pasting bits of code! I wanted a website 'wizard' essentially, and Wix seemed to fit the bill.

Are there any others you would recommend?
I did notice that for each part of the website you could set stuff about SEO. Without understanding precisely how to get the best out of it, I just followed the tips given by wix (filled in info on page title, page description and keywords). Is there more to SEO than that?

The wix adverts are annoying. For £3 a month I can upgrade and get rid of them, but I dont think Im ready to do that yet!

The website you've given is very helpful...although of course not at all our style! Video and CD offer on the front page is very clear and catching, so perhaps we should do something like that.
Of course, I dont want to do too much/I want to keep it a little 'cryptic' shall we say as it fits in with the tone of the band/music. Perhaps just a vid on the front page?

My other thought is whether the background is too distracting...

[Kafla]

On the first quick look RS I don't like it - sorry

It's very busy and the camouflage type background hides everything

Love the pictures of you all - get them to the front

And only 2 songs embedded  - get the ep,streaming

Good luck with it all

[Paul]

Yeah, it works for me.  It's easy to navigate and it looks professional.  I expected something quite different to the main background picture, perhaps something not so busy.  However, I think it works well and compliments the colours that are present in the band photography section.  Good luck with the site and any gigs that you might play in the future.

[Ramshackles]

Kaf & paul - I'm quite glad you dont like the background as it confirms my..ponderings.
It's actually a default background for this website 'wizard'. I kept it cause - hey, it was a ram! and the colours/tone seemed to fit.

But then having done it, I thought it was a bit busy and too dark? And I thought it's probably not that pro to use a stock background pic.

So I've changed the picture to a photo of our own that is hopefully a bit lighter and easy on the eye. Improvement?

I've put a vid on the front page...it is just a fairly dull preview vid and I wonder if it wouldn't be better to put one of the full songs there instead?

Kaf - you think it's better if people can just stream the whole thing? Maybe I should try that...

Trying to figure out how to make all pages appear in the navigation bar...

[Ramshackles]

So I've made various changes mostly based on your recommendations.
- Changed background'
- Video on front page
- Whole EP streaming
- All pages visible on the navigation bar

and I linked our tumblr blog to the site under 'stuff'...

We are considering that £36 or so required to get rid of the wix adverts...

[Boydie]

That is all looking much better!

I did see the first version of the site but was unable to comment at the time

This is looking much better

I would personally make the "Ramshackles" logo much bigger on the home page

I would also fill the calendar a bit - even if you use a little "simulation" 

Perhaps you could stick a few "private functions", "rehearsals", "recording sessions" etc. to fill it up a bit until the gigs come rolling in

There is nothing worse than seeing a blank calendar for a gigging band!

(it may be you haven't got around to filling it in yet - but if it is looking a bit bare I would definitely consider the above)

The only other thing "missing" is a bit of a bio on the band and members - as well as a bit of "sales spiel" about why we should hire you

Other than that the site is looking really slick and it is great to see you have incorporated the feedback so far - I think it has made it much more professional

[Ramshackles]

Thanks Boydie

About the gigs...we don't have any yet as it was my intention to have a month of practice under the belt before we start organising stuff. But a couple of other members said we should set up the gig page regardless...
What you say about putting in the practice sessions is a good idea...perhaps some 'private gigs' but I'd possibly rather keep it all honest...for now

I actually tried making the band logo a bit bigger, but it went all blocky...it's not a font but a little picture a friend came up with and such I cant seem to resize it much without losing it's nice smoothness. I would love to have a font based on that so I can just type in anything

Band bio...Cant ever seem to write them without seeming boring, or a arrogant ass....or just coming up with something silly. So we are going for the 'mysterious' approach . Perhaps something more in the contact page or something. I'd like to have a 'press' page where we put reviews and such. But we need reviews and such first

[jim morrison]

Just a quickie , I just looked on my mobile and seems well designed graphically but I couldn't see a contact telephone number ( maybe this is just my phone ) but if I was a venue manager etc I'd want to see this straight away

[Ramshackles]

Not sure if you get the same thing for your mobile...it seems to come with a 'mobile website app', that looked a whole lot different...no music, no video, no background pic, etc etc