by Amy Lotsberg, Producer, Collected Sounds.com

This started out being a review of a CD and when I couldn't access the artist's website I got a little ticked. I began writing this as part of the CD review, but then I realized that this is not the first time I have come across this in my journeys on the Internet and doing research for this site. So I decided I'd make it an article for artists with some advice (non-solicited, I realize) on web site design. With a few exceptions most of you are musicians primarily, and not web designers so a few slip ups or unprofessional looking pages is understandable…not desirable, but understandable. But sometimes it goes so far as I can't even access it. This is a problem. For me and for you.

If you are an artist one thing to know about having ME review your CD is that you get two critiques for the price of one. When I listen to a CD I usually go visit the artist's website, read a little about her before and while writing the review. Being a web designer, some of the things that bother me tremendously is when the website is all flash, no content (see my review for Jerra), does not take into consideration that some people do not use Internet Explorer, use frames heavily, or the sites are just plain non-functional.

I started to work on a CD review and while attempting to learn more about the artist I hit a roadblock. I couldn't access her website. Seems her web designer (maybe she does it herself, I don't know, I bet I'd know if I could get to the site!) has decided it's a good idea to alienate a very good portion of the Internet population who use pop-up blockers. The entire site is in a pop-up. The instructions (a site should never need to have instructions) suggest that you to disable the pop-up blocker then reload the site. Well, I tried this, 4 times and it still did not work. I suppose I could have shut down Mozilla and opened up Internet Explorer, but dammit, I won't be bullied. Especially not by someone who wants help from me to further her career. I just simply don't have the time and energy to work that hard to get information that should be very easy to access. I know I am not the only one. Maybe I'm missing out on some good stuff, but I don't know, and frankly don't care. Because to me it says 'if you are not willing to try hard, you don't get to learn about me' and to that I say. 'Ok, that's fine…bye' I've got 30 other artists I have to research and do CD reviews for.

But the artist might care that reviewers and (listeners alike probably) are writing her off due to the fact that they can't learn any information about her.

It's not just Indie's either. The last time I visited SarahSlean.com it was the same thing. Only she didn't just use pop-ups, she used flash too. I was a member of her discussion list and when that site went live, many people were irate. These are fans and friends of the artist who refused to visit her site! Imagine if they didn't already love her. There's no way these people would have attempted to visit her site or even bothered to comment about it were they not already fans.

Her designer took note and created an HTML version of the page. Now everyone is happy. Yes, it's a lot of work; yes, it's even double the amount of work (if you create two sites, one flash/pop-up and one HTML). But that's how you get the most visitors. Do you want 50 people visiting or do you want 1000? It's up to you.

With the downfall of the music industry, you artists are on your own. You have to promote yourself or get people like me to help. This means you ought to make it as easy as possible for as many people as possible to have access to your music and your information. Creating a website that alienates half the Internet population is just non-sensical. Don't even bother with a website if that's all you're going to do with it.

If you want people to take your music seriously you have to take your marketing strategies seriously, every aspect of it. From the CD packaging and press kit to the website. It's all very important. Where you show thoughtlessness or disregard, you show you don't care enough to get your word out there, making those of us who need to hear you, less interested. If you're not invested in this, why should I be?

Now, go out there and make a pretty website that actually has content and is functional!