Musician and Artist Website Essentials

Social platforms come and go and change their rules. Your own website is the one place you control, and for a musician or visual artist it has four jobs: let a stranger hear or see the work within seconds, give a booker or press contact what they need without writing back and forth, give fans a way to buy and follow, and collect an email address you own. If the site does those four things on a phone, it is doing its work.

The first screen

A visitor should know within seconds who you are, what you make, and what to do next. For a band or solo musician, that means your name, a one-line description (genre and place are enough), a player or latest release, and three links: listen, book, join the list. For a visual artist, it means a strong image of the work, your name, the medium, and links to the portfolio and to inquiries.

Skip the splash screen that makes people click to enter. It adds a step and hides your content from search.

The press and booking page (your EPK)

Bookers and journalists look for the same few things. Put them on one page, with downloads, so nobody has to ask. Our EPK guide goes deeper on what to include. For the web page, cover these:

• Bio in a short and a long version, in the third person, plain text that can be copied.
• Photos in print resolution, with credit lines, as downloads.
• Music or video in one or two clips, with links to full pieces.
• Press quotes and highlights, only ones you can source.
• Live details: typical set length, lineup size, and technical needs. A tech rider and stage plot as PDFs are standard for bands.
• Booking contact, with a name, an email and a form.

For artists, the equivalent is a CV, an artist statement, a short bio, images of recent work with captions (title, year, medium, dimensions) and a clear route for gallery and commission inquiries.

The booking form

A form that asks the right questions saves days of email. Ask for:

1. 1Name and contact details.
2. 2Event type, date, city and venue.
3. 3Capacity or audience size.
4. 4Set length and load-in time, or commission scope.
5. 5Budget or offer, if you are willing to ask.
6. 6Anything else they want you to know.

Send the form to an inbox you check, and add the email address as plain text for people who prefer it.

Streaming embeds without a slow page

Embedding Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud, Bandcamp or YouTube lets people listen without leaving your site. Spotify says you copy a few lines of HTML from the Spotify app and place them on your page, and you can adjust the color, height and width. Each embed loads another company's code, so a page with twelve players is slow, and a slow page loses visitors.

• Use one embed per page for the thing you most want played, such as your latest release.
• Link to the others with plain buttons.
• Ask your developer to load embeds only when they come into view, and reserve their space so the page does not jump. See Core Web Vitals in plain English.
• Keep your own link list, so you are not dependent on any one service.

If you want to show video, link to the platform or use a click-to-load thumbnail instead of autoplaying clips.

Merch and sales

• A handful of items: link to a hosted shop such as Bandcamp or a simple store on a platform you already use.
• A real catalog, variants and shipping: use a proper store. Our guide to Shopify or a custom store explains the choices.
• For artists selling originals: list size, medium, price or "inquire," and availability. Do not leave a sold piece looking available.
• Keep checkout on a trusted payment system rather than building your own.

The mailing list

An email list is the only audience you own. Put the sign-up on the home page and on every page where someone might care, with a clear promise: how often you write and what they get. Tell people what they will receive.

Rules apply once you send commercial email. The FTC's CAN-SPAM requirements include a truthful sender and subject line, a clear indication when a message is an advertisement, a valid physical postal address, a working opt-out that you honor within 10 business days, and responsibility for anyone who sends on your behalf. Use an email service that handles unsubscribe links and addresses for you. That is general information, not legal advice.

Tour dates and events

Keep a clear list of upcoming shows with date, venue, city, doors time and a ticket link. Remove past dates. If you want Google to understand them, event structured data is available. Google's documentation requires a name, start date and location, and says events must take place in a physical location and be bookable by the general public. The ticket link should go to a page that clearly offers the opportunity to buy tickets for that event. Private or invitation-only gigs do not qualify.

Schema.org also has a MusicGroup type with fields for albums, tracks and genre, which some sites use for the band page. It is optional, and not a substitute for good content.

Own your name

Register your name as a domain, and keep it in your own account. If a manager, label or developer registers it for you, make sure you are the registrant. See domain names and DNS explained for business owners, and use our domain name finder to see what is free.

What to leave out

• Autoplay music on load.
• A home page that is only a video background.
• Tiny gray text on black.
• Dead social links and a calendar from two years ago.
• Outdated press quotes.

Want a person to look at it?

We build sites for working musicians and artists, with booking pages and players that load quickly. See how we work with musicians and artists, or start a quote and tell us what you need the site to do.