If you’ve even done a cursory online search for a website builder suitable for creating a musician or band website, you’ve most likely been inundated with remarketing ads from some of the major subscription website builders. And you’re unlikely to see a music video (or any video) on YouTube without first seeing an ad for Wix or Squarespace. These companies have massive marketing budgets, and their advertisements clearly work, as thousands of people use this type of website builder.
Those in the know; those with even a passing interest in or knowledge of web design, know that there is another website builder that, while not spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on omnipresent ads and other marketing, has been in operation for much longer than Wix and Squarespace. But, rather than being ‘old hat,’ yesterday’s news, or formerly glorious, this platform is thriving; it powers a staggering 40% of all websites worldwide (well, worldwide on the internet). So, where exactly is the internet based? We’ll never know, I suppose).
Furthermore, even if you’ve heard of it, which is probable, you probably didn’t think of it as a website builder competing with the likes of Wix or Squarespace. If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m talking about WordPress.
An old dog with a plethora of new tricks
What exactly is WordPress? Or, more specifically, what was WordPress? WordPress began as a blogging platform in 2003 but has now expanded into much, much more. It is now a full-fledged website creation tool (or website builder, to use the current vernacular). And, as previously said, it is the most popular platform for building a website.
Self-hosted WordPress, informally known as WordPress.org after the website HQ of the same name, is a free and open-source website builder designed to be used in conjunction with WordPress ‘themes’ (basically a bundle of files that govern the overall style and functionality of your site). This means you’ll own your site and have complete control over its design and functioning.
WordPress as a platform for creating music websites
Unlike subscription website builders, which always include hosting (allocating space on a web server – a machine for physically storing and serving webpages – for a website’s data), WordPress requires you to sign up for web hosting separately. Unless you’re a computer genius with your own server. However, finding a hosting provider is not a tough endeavour. If you’re looking for some great WordPress hosting, WPButler is one of the best around. WPButler provides WordPress hosting and WordPress support to anyone looking to get started with a WordPress website. Not only that but they’re also able to build you a WordPress website for cheap. Check them out for some great deals.
Furthermore, specialised music business firms such as Band Theme, which provides you with all of the tools you need to develop a music website in one easy-to-install package, frequently provide gratis hosting services. So you may make things easy by purchasing a WordPress theme and hosting from the same seller, or you can shop around and discover the best hosting for your unique desires and needs. But, just to brag, the hosting that we provide here at Band Theme is simply great. Of course, we’d say that. Excellent hosting implies dependability, maximum uptime, and quick loading times.
Is WordPress both the first and finest website builder?
One of the key reasons WordPress is one of the finest website builders for music websites (or any website, for that matter) is its flexibility. You can do almost everything you want your website to do, give, or display. And with thousands of themes to choose from, ranging from free no-frills themes to all-singing all-dancing premium themes, you have the whole world at your fingertips.
Because WordPress is open-source, there are literally tens of thousands of third-party ‘plugins’ that you can use to handle everything from monitoring visitor location to selling merch and tickets for your live events. Again, they are available in both free and paid versions. The sheer number of plugins available, many of which perform identical functions (with varying degrees of ability), might be overwhelming for newcomers. That’s another advantage of Band Theme: while you may instal more suitable plugins to your Band Theme theme, we preload all theme designs with the greatest plugins a music artist, band, record label, or other music business institution might require.
So how does WordPress compare to other popular website builders for music?
Wix
As much as we love eye-catching theme designs and appreciate the value of being able to alter them if you change your mind about how you want your site to appear, one of the biggest drawbacks of the Wix website builder is that you have to stick with one theme for your site. Wix has made it extremely difficult to move between templates (their equivalent of themes), as you do with WordPress. Pages in Wix templates must be modified individually rather than using smart blocks of content that may be transferred from one base theme design to another if you want to switch themes.
Music template on Wix
Wix has a lot of capabilities, but the UI is rather finicky, becoming more vast and complicated as you progress through your design. Getting it to do what you want can be difficult (and even impossible, depending on what you want). It’s not as simple as the slick marketing videos make it appear! Furthermore, Wix isn’t really suited for users who expect to need to develop huge websites with many pages, because its basic page navigation mechanism doesn’t support sophisticated website architectures. So, if you’re building a record label website or a thorough band website with several pages dedicated to different releases, music videos, artwork, lyrics, blog posts, and so on, Wix may be a challenge.
Squarespace
Squarespace is a popular website builder geared largely towards small businesses, sole proprietors, and aspiring entrepreneurs. Though it isn’t especially feature-rich, it does give everything you really need to establish a website. Is it appropriate for bands and musicians? You could create a music website using Squarespace, but it would lack the customizability and limitless potential of WordPress as a platform, as well as the functionality and design credentials of music-specific themes. It includes a number of templates with a similar, minimalist design and feels, generally with a heavy emphasis on whitespace and typography, which delivers a clean and professional look but isn’t especially rock n roll…
Music Template for Squarespace
That’s not to imply it’s unsuited for all creative people; freelance photographers and videographers, for example, may use Squarespace to create professional-looking, straightforward portfolio sites. However, as a website builder for artists and bands, it falls short of WordPress. Squarespace’s eCommerce capabilities are likewise rather limited. Despite being simple to set up, you cannot do anything particularly sophisticated, like you can with WordPress eCommerce plugins such as WooCommerce (which comes pre-loaded with Band Theme, incidentally).
As you may have guessed, we love WordPress as a platform and as a website builder. And, sure, we believe it is both the original and the finest. We believed in it so passionately that we founded a company to transform the finest website builder in the industry into the greatest website builder for bands, artists, DJs, producers, studios, record labels, and others.