Category: WebsitesCategory: Websites

Got this from musician Dom Aversano on a recent live stream (edited for clarity):

“I was thinking about recreating the recommendation aspect (on my website), which is what social media tends to excel at. I remember when websites used to have links to other sites… My issue with websites is they can feel lonely sometimes — not in terms of traffic, but more in the sense that they tend to be about individuals rather than groups. My sense is that social media is popular partly because it feels like a party.”

Most of our websites are mullet marketing – business up front, party in the back.

We invest all this time and energy in the social media space – interesting videos, fresh updates, lively banter, etc. That’s the “party in the back” part of the mullet. Fun, fresh, exciting (for the 10% of your audience that even get to see it).

Then, when anyone does end up on our website, they see your head shots from two summers ago, seven month old blog posts, and twenty links spread across the header and footer for someone to make sense of.

I’m not even saying you have to stop posting on social media. I’m just saying put some of that same material on your own damn website. Stop the mullet marketing.

And to Dom’s point – yes, talk about other people! Link to other projects! I linked to Dom’s website at the top of this post – go check out his work! We’re in this together, learning as we go, and there’s no reason we should be doing this alone.

I recently did a Substack live with Elin Petronella, an independent artist based in Paris who’s been building a creative business on her own terms for the last ten years.

She’s got half a million followers across Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest, and she’ll be the first to tell you that’s not even the point, as she recently walked away from monetizing on Substack, dropped her bestseller badge, and has been focusing on something more sustainable ever since.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t retain ownership this whole time. All the links are always going back to my own site,” Elin Petronella

All those followers across all those social media platforms is great and all, but if you’re not pointing them to something that’s more permanent, or if you’re not giving curious fans something to explore, you’re leaving money on the table.

As Elin explains, she has 200K followers on Instagram, and a single post might still only get 3,000 views. But if you can get just 1% of 3,000 click to your website, that’s still 30 people.

“How are you doing it before you had the idea that you wanted to monetize it? What are you already doing when people are not watching? What is your natural way of creating before you start thinking about eyes watching it or monetizing it? Double down on that,” Elin Petronella

When we start paying attention to how other people are doing things and assuming that that’s the way to do it, that’s where we can get in trouble. Trust your gut. Get back to the things that you enjoyed when you started making the work that you’re making.

In last month’s “LET’S BUILD AND HOST A WEB PAGE IN 90 MINUTES” Focus Escape Pod Zoom call, we did what we set out to do: we made a web page, and we got it up on the web (most of us).

We actually had fun on a mid-week Zoom call – just look at what some people said:

“I just impressed my 16 year old!”

“I’m going to experimenting more, I remember how playful this is!”

“Finally I get it!”

“This was awesome!”

So, maybe we’re not replacing our Squarespace or WordPress site next week, but maybe we can think about ditching LinkTree, or make a better looking sales page for our latest offering.

We’ve got confidence now. Maybe we can publish to the web without paying big corporate platforms for hosting some simple HTML pages. And we did it together, as a group, rather than try to figure things out by watching a dozen YouTube videos.

Want to learn with us? We’re doing it again later this month.

Wednesday, April 29 – https://luma.com/v5yvyvi2
Saturday, May 2 – https://luma.com/n73cc7yo

Social media platforms make it easy, right?

Easy to sign up! Easy to find your friends! Easy to post a video! One click purchase!

People LOVE “easy” on the internet.

How are we making it easy for our readers with our newsletters? Our websites? Our booking pages?

How many clicks are required to book you?

How many clicks to pre-order your new album or book?

This from Aral Balkan on Mastodon (via Pixel Envy):

When you post things on Instagram, Facebook, and X, this is what they look like to people who don’t use those platforms.

Take note restaurants and coffee shops and tattoo shops, etc. Folks who don’t use those platforms anymore might not be able to see your hours of business, your location, or your contact info.

A domain name from Hover (affiliate link) + a one page website can cost less than $200 a year, and it’s viewable by anyone with a smart phone.