need help with website idea

hey everyone. I have a website for bands. Each band has their own page with a little information, a few pics, a link to their official website or myspace page and maybe even an mp3. I was going to charge each band a very small fee to have the page up and then an extra fee to have the mp3 play on their page. I am having problems with bands signing up but i'm wondering if it's because of the design of my website or if bands just don't want to pay for this service. The actual service i provide is i target each band in ppc advertising. so they get people that really want to know about them or hear their music. I was wondering if maybe i should just charge for the mp3's or if there is some other way to compensate for the advertising and bandwidth usage. I was thinking that i could add a forum to the website with each band having their own category and having a link on their band page to that category in the forum.

what do you guys think would be the best way to make this website profitable?

 

If the website you are talking about is the one in your sig, then the design is brutal. It reminds me of the free geocities page (the goo template) with it's bright neon green and 90s look.

Why not have the bands put their music on your site for free and then have a link to itunes or amazon mp3s - make money off commissions. (I'm not sure if iTunes has an affiliate program or not but amazon definitely does).

 

I agree with TheNoose that the design is hideous. Also, I don't know why a band would pay to be on your site when they can have their own MySpace and/or Facebook page for free. Plus, if you're playing their music, you should be paying them, not the other way round.

 

I agree with TheNoose the site is very harsh on the eyes.

With your site being new (assuming it is new your home page isn't even cashed yet with google) you may want to offer some of your first bands a free pass.

I would honestly work on your site it looks like you need a lot of work(SEO and design.)

 

Yikes...

Ok, there is clearly some cash involved in this suggestion but this can be designed for fairly easily.

http://www.jamroom.net/
http://www.jamroom.net/Demo

it does alot of stuff so not all templates have all features running but the demo page should give you a good idea of what you can do with it.

This would also fix a range of your current issues right out of the gate.

hope that helps,
Nigel

 

Better is to make it free and use advertising to optimize..
or may be sponsored bands (gets special mention)..something like that

 

use advertising to optimize.
Maybe you can post a personal review/special mention
for some money..

 

what about paying for the bandwidth used for the mp3's being played?

 

What are you doing for the bands? Do they benefit from being on your site? These are things that you need to think about before you start asking bands to pay for something.

 

yes i'm advertising for them. and their page on my website has a link to their site or myspace.


so how do you guys think the best way i could make money doing this?

 

Well the question then becomes, what are you doing to get people to see their pages? Is there any reason for them to choose your paid site over the free options like Myspace? I guess what I'm getting at is that you need to make sure that you are offering them something of value, above what they can get for free.

If you find that you are, then you need to figure out a way to show them that you are.