Creating an online presence for your band / label PARTS 1,2

One of the most important things now adays is to have an online presence for your musical venture. Why? Because for many people its the easiest and best way to get yourself some exposure and get your music/message out to as many people as possible, without limiting yourself geographically.

I'm going to tell you, from my own experience with the UGS, the best ways that i found for starting up a site and progressing it to a popular, well visited and appreciated resource for your project.

I'll split this up into sections, with an essay on each section and depending on how much time i have on my hands i'll try and write one section every few days... a serialisation if you will.

The articles will be as follows

• registering your domain name
• looking for some virtual real estate to host your site
• considerations when building your site / accessibility and useability
• do's and dont's of building your website
• building your website / tools required
• promoting your site
• the importance of link exchanges
• the truth behind search engines
• discussion boards and reaching out to your audience
• protecting the content on your website
• some random bits and pieces

Part 1 - Registering your domain name

The first thing you need to do is to come up with a domain name that best suits your project. The internet has gotten so huge over the past decade that the main problem facing most people is trying to distinguish their sites from the millions of irrelevant web sites out there.

Good ways to do this include making your domain name relevant to what you are doing... branding if you will. Then there is association, making your domain name relevant to the content held within your site. Finally you have memorability... how easy is it to remember your domain name? Some memorable names have nothing to do with whats inside but everyone knows what kind of site it is... amazon.com is a prime example.

There are somethings to avoid also when registering your domain name; avoid having 'and' or '-' in your domain. These can make it hard to remember a domain exactly. Make sure its easy to say and try and keep it short and to the point. It should roll off your tongue.

The suffix is another important aspect of domain name purchasing. .com .net and .org are the top level domains (TLD's) of the web, followed by country code top level domains such as .co.uk .nl etc etc.

The most important thing to remember is the objective of your site... do not swerve away from your main aim as it will render everything you do completely void.

There are many companies through which you can purchase your domain, some offer domains for free or very cheap, but you need to be weary of these for several reasons including legal ownership and certification through Nominet (international organisation for the control of domain registration). Some cheaper companies do not use nominet for legally tying a domain name to the person that buys it. Also some retain the right to take your domain at any time and others can be just down right unreliable when it comes to the uptime of your site.

There are others that are slightly more expensive when it comes to domain registration but these usually offer some extra services such as domain expiry reminds and more customisable control panels to help with the administration of your domain, as well as certification from NOMINET that you are indeed the rightful owner of your domain name.

You also have ot watch some companies as they will analyze the domain searches you conduct on their site and some will register those for themselves and sell them on for a profit, thus duping you out of a domain and then loosing it to someone else who had not necessarily thought of buying it.

I won't list any recomendations but a quick search on Google for domain registration will bring up some companies for you to look at. Best bet is to register through a company based in the same country as yourself, that way you know the law in the country you live applies to the company that you deal with.