For the above reasons, choosing a good hosting provider is very important for your band’s success, as it can have a profound impact on your band’s popularity.

What do you need to look out for when choosing a hosting provider for your band’s new site? Here are the most important things.

Qualities of a Good Band Website Hosting Provider

The below list of information and checkpoints relate not just to band websites, but all websites in general.

Types of hosting accounts

First of all, let’s have a look at your options for hosting your band’s website:

• Share hosting accounts: Your site is hosted on the same server as many other websites. This is the cheapest way to go, and generally a good option while you don’t have that much traffic.
  Average price for shared hosting: $5-$20 / month
• Virtual private servers: You get your own slice of a server, which makes it more reliable, customizable and robust than shared hosting. This is usually an upgrade option from shared hosting accounts.
  Average price for VPS hosting: $40-$100 / month
• Dedicated servers: This is the top of the line solution, but is generally unneeded for band websites, as the amount of traffic and server scripts will not reach this threshold.
  Average price for dedicated servers: $100+ / month

We recommend shared hosting for most band websites.

Server uptime

Server uptime means the amount of time the server hosting your band’s website is available. Server uptime is expressed as a percentage.

An accepted standard for shared hosting uptime is 99.9%.

It is important to realize that 100% uptime is not achievable via shared hosting accounts, as servers have loads of scripts running on them, which will fail at times. You can only achieve 100% uptime if your site is hosted in “the cloud” on several servers at once, since if one goes down, another one will replace it.

Server speed

The speed of your server is critical to the quality of your site visitors’ experience on your band’s website.

A good way to test the speed of a server is to ping a website which you know is hosted on the server. To do this, access your command prompt, and write “ping hostgator.com” (or any other website you want to test for speed. Compare the values you get with that of other servers.

24-7 support

Good hosting providers offer unlimited support around the clock. You should be able to contact them via email, chat, or telephone. This is very important, as you will have issues that will need to be solved.

Backup system

Quality shared hosting providers will make automatic backups of your band’s website and SQL tables daily.

Administration panel

Make sure your chosen hosting provider gives you a cPanel interface. cPanel is a server administration panel, which makes it easy to set up your domains, new mail accounts, access your server statistics, and many more important features.

Recommended Band Website Hosting Service

During our years in the Internet business, we’ve had a chance to try and test a number of hosting providers.

The ones we’ve found to be the most reliable in terms of server uptime, support and speed are undoubtedly Bluehost.com and Hostgator.com.

Bluehost.com

Hostgator.com

If you choose either of the above hosting providers, you won’t be disappointed. Your account and server space will be create in a few hours after signing up, so you can get started creating your band’s new website ASAP.

To give you an example on the reliability of these service providers, this site, MyBandTheme.com, runs on a Hostgator shared hosting account server.

IMPORTANT: Hostgator was kind enough to give the customers of MyBandTheme.com an exclusive 25% off coupon code, which will give you a 25% discount on whatever package you sign up for.

Hostgator Coupon Code:
25OFFMYBANDTHEME

Click the images above to find out the details of both Hostgator and Bluehost.

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This is not a major update, so it’s best just to overwrite the changed files via FTP. But of course, feel free to overwrite the entire myband theme directory if you are more comfortable doing that.

You’ll find a detailed changelog in the downloadable zip file, but here are the changes that we’ve carried out for v2.5:

New features

• Added option to album player widget to open playlist by default
• Updated album player widget’s album ID selection with dropdown options instead of having to enter IDs manually

Bug fixes

• Removed Google Maps API tab on General Options screen
• Updated play counter to increase counts on individual song plays

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Think of Justin Bieber, who became famous because of his YouTube videos…

The single most important thing a person as a band member, or any musical artist can do is to have a well-built, attractive internet site, which is easy to create thanks to existing music themes for WordPress, like MyBandTheme.

Your site is definitely the converging point of your on-line existence, it is the place many people will come across your records, it is where you can increase your fan base, in fact it is where you are can cash in on your music, songs and merchandise.

Creating an awesome site is actually easy these days, plus it won’t have to be expensive. Gone are the days where a webpage cost you $2000, and say hi to professionally built, feature loaded WordPress music templates!

There are several premium and free music templates on the net, some much better than others of course, but they will save you a small fortune as well as head aches, simply because plenty of important functions will be part of the website template. Additionally, these web templates run using established CMSs, such as WordPress, which makes them simple to use plus reliable.

Are you ready for most significant features you’ll need to consider when searching for music website templates?

CD Listing Feature

It doesn’t matter if you’re a vocalist or a rockband, you’ll have albums in which you present your tunes. Your website ought to help make the display of your albums simple for you, and beautiful to your site viewers. Should the band web page template you are considering won’t make this a reality, move elsewhere.

Putting records and music onto the site should be made easy, and be sure the web template also has an audio tracks player bundled.

MP3 Sales

If you do not want to shell out commission fees to 3rd party music and songs syndication businesses, than offering the band’s music on your band’s web site is a hassle-free solution to generating revenue from your music. Eventually, it is advisable to be included on Napster for instance, but right now, look for a band website theme with a internal cd sales plugin.

Your website visitors will be able to pay for, as well as download your songs through your website any time of the day, therefore you won’t need to bother about sending your band’s albums and other logistics duties. This can be a superb part of selling records online, and your music template needs to be ready to carry this out automatically, without requiring your involvement after the initial configuration.

The music file sales module is important if you want your website visitors to have the ability to purchase your tracks and CDs within your internet site. Needless to say, if you’re already registered in Napster, or some other music distribution service, than this unique feature might not be that important for you.

Beautiful Style and Design

Your band’s new site needs to be eye-catching, I’m sure you can all agree on this. This is very significant for the success of any kind of site online, not just band sites.

When choosing the band site design template, be sure the style is everything you expect it to be. Don’t settle for 2nd bests. In case it is not really all that good, look elsewhere, until you locate the suitable style and design theme. And of course, consider that your music group has it’s unique style, thus you’ll want to be able to integrate it into your site. I’m particularly referring to your group’s logo design, but you will want to be sure that the style and image of the band website template you choose matches your image as well.

Have a look at the beautiful designs included in MyBandTheme.

Event Management

Need to let your website visitors know when your band is giving concerts? Than you’ll require some kind of gig administration plugin on your site.

These sort of modules make the posting of your shows simple, since you’ll simply type in the details of your gig, and it will auto-magically be added onto your event list. And naturally, your prior shows will have to be stored as well, where your enthusiasts may talk plus share their stories.

Have a look at MyBandTheme’s built-in event management module.

Social Reach, Twitter, YouTube, iTunes, LinedIn, Napster, etc.

So many people are on social media sites these days, and your music group ought to be as well. For those who are not, than just do it: set up profiles on Facebook, iTunes, LinedIn, Napster, etc. right now!

Your site theme preferably should be able to link directly to your band’s social network profiles, thereby building a hub of minisites focused around you and your music. As the minimum, Twitter and FaceBook buttons should be included on the site. Make sure that your web template has this function!

And naturally, if your music group is on Dailymotion, MySpace, itunes, or some other popular online social network, make sure you are able to place web links on your site leading to your user profile on those webpages as well.

Contents Administration

Websites are nothing without content, and writing content and articles, so new pages and posts for instance, is made easy using CMSs, such as WordPress. Creating web pages will be very easy, no coding necessary.

Using a suitable music theme in WordPress is a great option for creating a modern, unique website for any aspiring music artist or band. In fact, there are several world famous artist who use WordPress powered websites.

Have a look at the details of MyBandTheme to learn about how you’ll be able to use it to quickly create a great website.

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This is a recommended update that includes security fixes to timthumb.php.

Updating the tumthumb.php file is highly recommended, as the old version poses a security risk.

Here is a list of changes that are released with v2.4:

New features:

• Added CDBaby, Soundcloud, Bandcamp, SonicBids and Spotify to the list of Social Networks
• Added option to reset number of downloads on purchased files to 0 for a given sale
• Added event entry fee and event age restriction fields to Events

Bug fixes:

• Classic 4 theme meta box right corner missing
• Fixed some spelling mistakes on admin area
• Updated timthumb.php to latest version
• Fixed issue so song title shows up correctly on PayPal if it contains apostrophes
• Cropped event venue if too long to 18 characters
• Fixed text wrap around meta box and social buttons

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Flash intro pages, also known as doorway pages, serve the purpose of having a pretty animation appear to the user, before they are finally taken to the content filled part of the website. These doorway pages were popular in the early 2000′s, when lots of sites were built on purely Flash.

Things change though, technology advances, and trends die off.

We generally don’t really recommend having Flash doorway pages for a number of reasons:

• It’s not advantageous from an SEO point of view, since the first page a search engine spider sees of your site, is an empty page. Search engine spiders can’t index animations, and thus view the page as empty.
• Mobile browsing is the mainstream trend nowadays. Flash does not render at all on iPhones and iPads, and inconsistently and very slowly on Android based smart-phones.
• Flash doorway pages have no added benefit to the user, and they usually just press the Skip intro link anyway. Why have something programmed that your visitors aren’t even interested in?
• Flash can load slowly on PCs, which can greatly worsen the user experience of your visitor while on your site.

Alternative to a Flash doorway page

The home page of MyBandTheme powered sites was designed to give a great first impression to the user, without the need for any Flash. The oversized featured slider is key in getting the WOW factor from your visitor, which means that you have to choose the big slider images very carefully.

If you can place great images onto the featured slider, you’ll get the first impression you’re looking for, without the need for any Flash.

We’ve been thinking more and more about whether it would be a good idea to create a mobile optimized version of MyBandTheme. As you probably know, more and more people are browsing the net from their smartphones. This has some implications on both the design and content of websites due the the small screen, slower processor, and slower bandwidth of smartphones.

The way people browse the web from their smartphones is also important. When browsing on cell phones, most people are looking for something very specific, like an address, phone number, or a very specific piece of information. Mobile optimization of standard information oriented sites is a no brainer.

But with bands and artist websites, the design of the site communicates the image of the band. The full image of a band cannot be conveyed on mobile optimized versions of sites on smartphones.

We would like to ask your opinion on the subject, so please
read this post carefully, leave a comment  and vote on the poll.

Smartphone display of MyBandTheme

To get an understanding of what we are talking about exactly, check out the images below. On the first image, you can see how MyBandTheme powered sites appear on cell phone at present, and the 2nd and 3rd images depict how a mobile optimized version might appear (naturally the logo would the your band’s logo , not the theme logo ).

Full site render

As you can see on the image below, presently MyBandTheme sites are displayed on mobile devices exactly the same as on PCs. All elements of the sites work, since we don’t use any Flash in the theme.

Mobile optimized render

These are just sample mobile mockups to give you an idea of what a mobile optimized version of your site would look like. Notice that with the exception of the logo, all design elements are stripped to optimize for the small screen, smaller processor, and smaller bandwidth of mobile devices. You can see how the full site version is more graphic, and the mobile version is more phone app-ish.

Pros and cons of both worlds

Where does the music industry stand?

While some artists have created mobile optimized versions of their websites (here is a list), it is still not the norm. Most of the biggest bands and artists do not have a mobile optimized site.

I’m not sure whether this is due the management teams not dealing with this subject, or a concrete decision not to create a mobile optimized version. Does anyone know the marketing guy for Metallica so we can ask?

You can optionally turn off all comments throughout your site by going to your WP dashboard -> Settings -> Discussion, but this tutorial will deal with disabling comments on a per post/page basis.

You can disable, than later enable the ability for your visitors to leave comments at any time, without losing any of the existing comments left on any given post.

Here are the steps to removing the comments area, have a look at the screenshot below as well:

1. Make sure the Discussion option is checked on the Screen Options panel on the top right of the post/page edit screen.
2. The Discussion options tab should appear, and you just need to simple check/uncheck “Allow comments” and “Allow pingbacks”, depending on whether you want to allow comments or not.

Removing comments from WP posts and pages

While updating is not mandatory, it is recommended. If you are satisfied with how your installation operates, and don’t want to add any of the new features released with the update, you may opt not to update at all, which is perfectly OK as well.

Standard Update Procedure

Being a WordPress theme, MyBandTheme is relatively easy to update, and requires a few simple steps.

1. Enable a different theme, for example the standard Twenty-20 theme that comes with WordPress.
2. Log in to your server’s file system via the cPanel file manager or an FTP program.
3. Delete the old “myband” directory from your WordPress installation (usually located at: /public_html/YOURDOMAINNAMEGOESHERE.COM/wp-content/themes/)
4. Upload the new version of the theme to that exact location. Make sure you leave the file and directory structure unchanged, otherwise the theme will not function correctly.
5. Reactivate the theme within WordPress.

The disable-reactivate part is generally not mandatory, it is only needed if we introduce new database elements, which we’ll call your attention to specifically if that be the case.)

Updating a Customized Copy of MyBandTheme

If you carried out any sort of PHP or CSS customization on your copy of MyBandTheme, the above install procedure is not recommended for you, as you’ll lose the changes you’ve already carried out.

This is what you should do, if the update does not introduce new database elements:

1. Download the updated theme, and find the changelog.txt file within the root folder.
2. The changelog file will let you know which files have been changed for the given update.
3. Find the changed files, and replace them on your live website via FTP. Make sure you replace every file that is listed, and put them in the correct sub-directories, otherwise your website might break.

If your modifications included files which were affect by an update, than for those files, you’ll have to find your modified code, and replace it directly in the updated version of the file.

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V2.0 introduces many new features, making the theme more versatile and powerful than ever. Leaving the v1.x series behind also means that we’ve changed some fundamental things and rewritten much of the theme’s code, making it faster, more compatible with 3rd party plugins, and packed with more features and functions.

Below you’ll find a list of changes we’ve carried out with v2.0. After downloading the updated theme folder, you might want to check the changelog.txt file for the exact files that have been changed.

New features:

• Font chooser for both Cufon and normal content fonts, supports non-latin character sets.
• Featured image slider hover text “always active” button in admin panel.
• Running blog on homepage, which can be turned on/off in the admin panel.
• RSS feed for events.
• Cart66 shopping cart compatibility
• Redesigned and recoded audio player on album pages, added iTunes, Amazon mp3 links, lyrics option, play counter
• Added Google +1 button to posts, pages, events, albums

New widgets:

• Album listing widget
• Audio player widget

Enhancements:

• Considerable recoding to ensure better compatibility with 3rd party plugins which use JavaScript
• Added date to event details page
• Added extra code for better control of post/page metadata
• Changed “Released on:” to “Released:” on album pages

Bug fix:

• IE fixes
• Facebook like button not appearing at end of pages

MyBandTheme V2.0 is a major update from the previous v1.x series, so it is recommended that you update all files. Please check the last item on the FAQ page for info on how to update.

As we mentioned above, this version of MyBandTheme propels the theme to a totally new level. We hope you will like the new functions, and that your decision to run your website using WordPress and our band theme can once again be reinforced.

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