After a successful week 2 it’s time to begin week 3…
This week is all about optimizing my website and once again, this is something I have spent a great deal of time on. However, I feel my site is very old school (Web 1.0 as Ariel would most likely label it). So let’s see if this weeks Music Success in 9 Weeks lesson will help me discover a few tweaks to improve my site so it becomes interactive and relevant in today’s new web 2.0!
Week 3 – Day 1… First to do is to change my header images to display my new pitch! – Done
I also created a newer fresher website header logo. Ariel also believes all my sites and pages should load fast. (less than 3.5 seconds) and I completely agree. No Flash!
Next my sites and pages should have a consistent look and feel thought the net and I’ve done that as best as I can however, this for me, is a massive job as twitter, facebook, myspace, wordpress themes, etc… are all a bit of a learning curve to understand just how to change edit each of them. The other task is to create a Give Away for an exclusive MP3 as a gift for joining my email list. Fortunately I already have this in place so it’s time for me to venture on in my Music Success in 9 Weeks journey…
So what’s next in week 3?? I have to create easy to find links to myspace, facebook, my blog and twitter from my website!
Week 3 – Day 2… Ok time to create my easy find links! I’ve created links from my website home page and working to interlink everywhere else. This is a lot of work!
BTW… Since creating my blog and being a little bit more active on twitter, facebook, myspace, reverbnation, youtube, etc, etc… I’ve increased my web traffic to an extra 100 hits per day. (I’m averaging 200 to 250 hits per day) My goal by the end of the year is to be around 500 per day. (we’ll see??)
So to all the fellow artists out there… Keep building your on line presence and working your way through a workbook such as Ariel’s Music Success in 9 Days. You must have a blog and you must be putting up original content and interlink everything. It’s a ton of work but all it takes is a little everyday. Also extremely important is your mailing list. I use a program called Email Sender Deluxe. It’s a great and easy to use program to send out emails to your subscribers. Before this I could only send out a few emails at once or my internet service provider would stop my mailout suspecting I was spamming. Email Sender sends out my email to everyone with one click. (btw… I don’t work for the software company. It’s just a lifesaving program that worked for me and I’d like to share the info. I spent months trying to find an affordable solution to sending out info to my fans and clients.)
My next task for this week is to finish setting up phplist. It’s a free program that is the industry standard for using and tracking email lists and subscriptions. (It’s a big learning curve however, I’m a musician on a no budget, therefore knowledge and hard work is the only way) As an alternative, you could just pay someone such as reverbnation a monthly fee to make it easier for you. (so many $$$ per month based on how many subscribers (fans) you have) However all those little monthly fees can really add up.
Week 3 – Day 3… Today I’m working on phplist. There are a few good youtube video’s around to help anyone out that may be interested in using phplist to manage their mailing lists. I also found a good website with instructions to help you set it up. It’s an extremely powerful email application and the best thing about it is it’s free! http://www.webreference.com/authoring/email/phplist/
Week 3 – Day 4&5… Still working on phplist. What a headache!!! Trying to upgrade to phplist 2.10.12 because my old version 2.10.10 is buggy and is causing some issues with setup. I hate it when so much time is consumed with software issues when I’d much rather be writing and recording more music. Or better yet networking. However, these things are a necessary evil and must be done. phplist is to powerful for me to ignore.
Week 3 – Day 6… Still working on phplist and I have to hang it up for the moment. Not by choice and here’s why…
The problem with not having a lot of cash and being an indie artist is that you have to work extremely hard 24/7, have a TON of patience and NEVER GIVE UP!
Here’s my current road block. (That I will overcome!)
After weeks of trying to get phplist to work for me, I have to give it up (which I really can’t do because it’s such a powerful an application) or I have to change everything over to a new website host and start over.
My current website host is running an old version of mysql (mysql is a database management software commonly used to store information for use on web sites) Anyways, my website host provider (Netfirms.com) tells me they and I can not upgraded it, therefore I can not upgrade phplist from it’s old version 2.10.10 (which is buggy and not allowing me to delete attributes, etc…) to ver 2.10.12.
I have spend 2 solid days with netfirms tech support and doing research to upgrade to phplist 2.10.12 and when I finally got everything in order to install I find out I have to upgrade my database (mysql) which I now learned I can not do because
every client at netfirms shares the same mysql database which is an old version (2.10.10) that can’t be currently upgraded. Netfirms tells me I’m out of luck or I can stay with them and they may upgrade in the future. (what kind of a dinosaur web hosting service is this??)
For what good it will do I sent netfirms the following comment…
I can’t believe after weeks of work I can not upgrade phplist that you offer with the service I’m paying for. The version of phplist you offer your clients is buggy and needs to be upgraded!!! NOW!!! Just one more, upon so many problems and issues I’m having with netfirms. Once again I’m just letting you know my disappointment with your hosting service. Please resolve these problems or don’t offer a mysql database or phplist or webstasts that can’t be maintained or upgraded by you or your clients!!!!
So now the only way I can move forward is to change webhost providers which I believe will be a massive task and it means my sites will be down for a few days and
of course netfirms will not refund the money I’ve paid for hosting to the end of the year.
I’m posting this to my blog so maybe others thinking of signing up with netfirms may think twice. Unfortunately if you are new to all this tech stuff we just blindly sign up with whoever we run into and away we go.
Now I’m going to step away from the computer and play my guitar before I pull all my hair out.
BTW… I’m considering moving everything I’ve created to Hostmonster.com I’ve heard a lot of good reviews however this will be a really be task as I stated before and I’m going to do a ton of research before I take this next leap! If anyone with web tech experience can advise on Hostmoster.com or knows a very good webhost, I’d love to hear from you.
It’s been a frustating, but very educational week. (my success journal will read… I learnt A LOT today!! and that’s not so bad)
Time to move on to Week 4 and I’ll use my current email software until I’m with my new webhost provider.
