Building music websites

[AndrewMeronek]

Does anyone know of reviews of site builders like Wordpress as applied to music-related products? Or maybe some folks here might be nice enough to opine about their own experiences?

I have a Wordpress site that I'm basically only using as a blog. There are "upgrade" options but it can be hard to evaluate whether a particular upgrade is worth the $$$ without some good independent reviews and comparisons - or whether it's more worth it to try a different platform.

[SwissTbone]

I have made good experiences with WordPress. You can invest in a good template but you don't have to. Most plug-ins are free or very cheap.

[AndrewMeronek]

Plug-ins are not free when their use requires a subscription to the service (i.e., Wordpress itself, not the plugins specifically).

[hyperbolica]

I've run several WordPress sites for years. You can configure them as blogs, galleries, basic sites, store fronts or others. A lot of the maintenance is automatic, which is nice. Also if you need customization or special help, consultants are easy to find.

I also have a phpbb site (trombone chat is based on phpbb), and its less fun to work with and for me has required more consultation.

[harrisonreed]

WordPress is free, and a lot of the e-commerce plugs are free as well. Make sure you are using .org and not the .com version of WordPress.

[AndrewMeronek]

WordPress is free, and a lot of the e-commerce plugs are free as well. Make sure you are using .org and not the .com version of WordPress.

Ah, I had forgotten that was a thing.

[harrisonreed]

What is your site going to be about?

[AndrewMeronek]

What is your site going to be about?

Making myself money, and self-promotion of course.

I have a website that I haven't really worked on in a while. I thought it would be a good idea to revisit my assumptions. Some of the things I'd want to do improve my site due to wordpress.com shenanigans involves spending some $$$ due to their plan structure, to be able to use some of their plug-ins.

FYI one thing that may justify the Wordpress.com costs is the included security, which can turn out to be pretty important when things go wrong. Still, I'm not sold yet.

[harrisonreed]

I think an SSL should cost between $6.00 to $100.00 per year for a basic, small e-commerce commerce site. Anything more than that is overkill, especially if you are processing payments through square or PayPal, which redirect through to their own much more sophisticated security. Nothing against the WP .com model if it makes it easy for you, but when I was shopping around nothing they wanted you to pay for, aside from some of the nice high-end themes, seemed worth the scratch. You could save a lot of money going the .org route and securing a domain and hosting yourself. Once you do, the plugins are mostly free. And you can buy the fancy themes if you want for the .org version too.

If I had a lot of money or was making a lot on my business, paying more to make it easier to keep the site running and updated might be worth it. There is something nice about letting someone else worry about hosting and maintaining a site, and not needing to know anything about how to code a website. The SSL, though, is probably not where the value is, and it is a rip-off that they charge you a lot more just to enable otherwise free ecommerce plugins. Time and ease of use might, though, are worth it for sure, especially if the business is earning enough to make the ecommerce tier fee seem like nothing.

Things have come a long way. I think that even the .org WP application is mostly drag and drop now, where that was something people would happily pay for on WP com, and that set it apart in the past.

[AndrewMeronek]

To answer the question about what my website is about a bit less sarcastically, there are three main things I'd like to have:

- a public event calendar, just so I can post what of my schedule people can go to in an environment that isn't behind an authentication wall (i.e., Facebook) - mostly for my family and friends, honestly.

- maintaining some nice music theory essays I've written that I and no one else likes.

- selling sheet music. Mostly jazz orchestra, and some smattering of classical and microtonal music that no one cares about.

As far as the commerce goes, I figure I'm doing well if I end up selling more than 1 chart per year. It's a labor of love.