Social media may be in vogue, but websites are timeless. Just like e-mail, the website has lasted through seismic shifts in Silicon Valley and changes in the way people browse the internet. It’s able to do this because websites are versatile and adaptable – think of them as digital putty in a fickle world of ones and zeroes. Your website is only limited by what you want it to do, what content you want it to have, and how you want that content to be presented.
In this piece, we outline five reasons why having your own DJ site is crucial for your DJ career.
5 Reasons To Have A Website:
1. It makes you appear more professional and authoritative
No matter how long you’ve been DJing or how successful you are, a website helps legitimise you, especially if it’s slick and looks the business. Your website should have content about who you are, what you sound like, when you’ll be playing next, and where you’ve gigged at. By having all of these on your site, you’re giving potential clients and promoters reasons why they should book you.
If you don’t believe this, just take a look at how many DJs past a certain level of proficiency and career achievements have their own website. All the pros have it – shouldn’t you have one too?
2. It helps you land bigger clients and shows
A well-maintained homepage inspires confidence in potential clients because it shows your dedication as a professional. It conveys how serious you are about what you do, and how passionate you are. A Google search of your name (or DJ name, if you have one) where your personal website shows up is always a good thing.
A website with your name in the domain can get you higher Google search result rankings – this alone is more than enough reason to have even a very basic website with your name in the URL. Otherwise, the worst thing that can happen is if someone googles your name and the homepage of someone totally different shows up (especially if that person is a criminal / murderer / serial killer).
If you’ve already got a site but don’t pay much attention to it, start doing so. A regularly maintained website implies your dedication to DJing – it’s not a good sign if the last piece of “new” content on your site is from 2015. Always keep things fresh: it doesn’t have to be updated daily or weekly, but make sure there’s some new material on your site a couple of times a month at the very least.
3. You can do (almost) anything you want
By hosting your images, audio, and written material on your own website, you gain true ownership of the content. It’s rare for a homepage to be taken down or removed (unless you’re hosting illegal material or you’re a torrent site). SoundCloud users that have had their accounts deleted know how painful it is to lose years of work, and even though you had thousands of friends on MySpace and Friendster, no one cares because those services are dead. Such is the nature of the internet and social media.
With your own homepage, you can also make it a repository for all your tweets, YouTube videos, Instagram photos, and others. Pool them all together on your home page (using either a plugin to do so, or by manually embedding each post) and you’ve got a constantly updated site that’s fuelled by your social media activity.
4. It showcases your creativity beyond music
All the leading social media sites more or less like to keep their interfaces uniform. This is how sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram keep things “branded”.
Having your own site, on the other hand, gives you full control of your brand: you’re able to manage your “image”, or the way you want to be perceived, with more freedom. Want it to look like a contemporary minimalist masterpiece? Go ahead. Want it to look like a 90s throwback complete with “baby devil” and “flame” GIFs? By all means, do so.
You’re only limited by your creative imagination, and it’s a great way to explore the fringes of your comfort zones as an artist: for example, I’ve always been terrible at drawing, to the point that even my handwriting is very poor. It’s when I started designing content for my site that I learned how to “see” what a good layout looks like and how to execute one. I now design just about everything about my DJing, including my live shows and visuals.
5. It helps you stand out from other DJs
How many DJs in your friends list have Facebook Pages? Great, now how many have actual personal websites? Having your own homepage lets you cut through the noise and get ahead by being able to offer an outlet for content that others simply don’t have the time, proficiency, or interest to create.
Not ready to make your own website yet?
Microblogging sites like Tumblr, Medium, and Ghost give you more control over the look and feel while being on a socially connected platform, saving you from having to go through the effort of building a site from scratch. You can simply buy your domain name and redirect it to your microblogging site of choice.
You can also try hosted sites such as WordPress, or if you already have the material for your site (eg graphics, text…) but you don’t have any HTML / coding knowledge, services like Wix and Squarespace make it easy.
Finally…
Before social media became the norm, websites were called homepages because they are your online home. Facebook and Twitter may be hot right now, but no one knows what they’ll be like or where they’ll be in the next 10 years.
Your personal website is the closest thing that you’ve got to “forever” as far as the internet is concerned, and you owe it to your music, photos, blogs, and other content to give them a proper repository online that’ll last.
Do you have your own website yet? If not, what’s keeping you from making one? If you do have one, any tips for keeping it updated that you’d like to share? Let us know below.
Joey Santos
