What up homies, I’ve been making websites for about 8 years. Doing anything from helping people put together their online store to working for large advertising films to market and make the use out of email marketing, search engine optimization ( basically means works good with google search ) and many more like that.
I figure this could help out a lot of you dancers, especially the ones that hit me up for advice on how to put together their own website. So here we go, this is how to make your own website for dancers! This will be a long read, but my goal is to give you a general understanding of how to put a site together and hopefully make you less scared of making one. This will not be a step by step. But just giving you the tools you need to do your own research or a starting point to know what you need to do.
Why having your own website is important?
Websites are incredibly useful when making you as a brand come together in one place. Let’s say your name is bob. Instead of telling everyone to follow your social media platforms at @bobthedancer on instagram, facebook, youtube, tiktok, twitter, blah blah blah, you can tell people to check out your website at www.bobthedancer.com. Easy, all in one place. It also makes you look more legit when you’re trying to get a gig or show a potential client that you are the real deal. It’s also nice because you can link all your social media platforms on your site, giving people the opportunity to click to get there instead of searching. It makes it more convenient for people to find your brand and follow it.
Email marketing
There are also tons of benefits that you can utilize like email marketing. Instead of praying to the algorithm gods of social media platforms. You can market directly to your audience through their email service provider inbox. Again, the most important thing to do is provide an easy and convenient way to let your following know what you’ve been up too.
Blogs
Blogs are amazing for two things. One to show your following or potential clients or talents scouts that you are a busy person. Blogging about all your #danceislife adventures can make people get a better sense of who you are and what you are up to in the dance world. It’s important to keep some type of documentation about all your achievements because that essentially is your dancer portfolio. When studios ask to see your resume or record of experience you can show them your blog so they can get a better sense of who you are.
Second thing blogs are great for is they are search engine optimized. Blogs have a better chance to show up on search engines especially if you blog often. Google has robots that are searching for websites that are always updating and changing. And if you have high traffic to your site, you have a even better chance up getting up there on the list if someone searches for BOB the Dancer.
There are so many more benefits like the selling your shirts aka what I’m doing right meow. Check out the shop if you have a chance. So many other benefits that social media can’t give you. But to avoid making the blog ultra long, I will leave the benefits there. But you should do a google search on how having a website benefits you.
First you need a domain name and hosting
Ok, so let me explain what those are. If we look at this through an analogy, think of a domain name as the address to your house. In order to use google maps to find your location, you need the addy. If you need to find the next session spot, you need the addy. If you need to find out where the next jam is, you need the addy. The domain name is your addy. It tells browsers like chrome where to go to find your site. example. www.bobthedancer.com
The hosting is the house or location of where you put your stuff at. So the school gym of where the jam is located. The house of where you live. The spot in the part where the session is happening. Basically the hosting is where you put your stuff. Your digital house or host.
The best place that I have seen so far that offers you a pretty affordable deal and isn’t too complicated in setting up is siteground. I’ll post an affiliate ( it helps me out if you use this link to sign up ) link here: https://www.siteground.com/index.htm?afcode=c52c5f0f6540f6c7cbffb606949f57d8
I’ve used a ton of them in my life, including godaddy, hostgator, etc. But siteground is the best.
Then what?
I use this website builder called wordpress. It is used by 30% of the internet. This site here is made using wordpress. with siteground, you can set up a wordpress site by literally hitting a button. It’s pretty crazy because I had to do it manually back in the day and it would take me a couple of hours to get wordpress set up, but now you can just hit a button. I’m mad. You all are spoiled. WordPress may look a little complicated at first especially if you are not very tech savvy. But there are a ton of tutorials on youtube on how to use wordpress. But I’ll break it down for you real quick.
wordpress
You have a menu on the left when you long in and content on the right. The left is more important because it takes you to all the pages you need to edit and the right is where you make the edits. So I’ll tell you what to pay attention to on the left.
- Post ( this is where you make blog posts)
- Pages (this is where you make your landing pages, changes where will only effect that page and not the whole site)
- Media ( this is where all the images, videos, audio, your crap will live)
- Appearance ( this is where you customize the colors and interaction. Changes here will affect your site as a whole or globally)
- plugin ( under appearance > Plugin. Plugins are the things that make the magic happen. Any interactive parts of your site like a form can be implemented by installing a plugin.)
- Setting ( is important but not as important as the rest look up some tutorials on how to use that)
That is basically it. There is a small learning curve with this, but honestly you should be able to get it within a couple of days. WordPress is recommended to be used on a computer, but you can make changes and work on it from your phone. But it’s a little harder that way.
What can you do with your website?
Honestly, your only limited to your time and how much effort you put into your site. But you can typically put a site together within a few hours. If you are just looking to make a personal portfolio site, pick a template, change out the content, and your done.
But if you are trying to make it a ecommerce store or something bigger, that is going to take more time and I would suggest finding a developer that can help you do that. But those cost money, so if your willing to learn how to do that yourself, google search is your best friend. WordPress is the most documented website builder in history. There are tutorials and plugins to do everything.
Last words
Let me know if this is helpful, or if you would want me to put together a video or something like that. I think the people that would benefit the most out of having their own website are OGs in popping. There are only a few OGs today that benefit from popping and this dance. But I’m sure there are many more out there. You can set up your own private lesson website. Sell your tutorial videos. And much more. Hope you all find this helpful and I will chat with you all soon.
Koi Roi Designs is a clothing brand specially made for Street Style Dancers. We create designs that get you ready for jams to ensure that you are battle ready.
