Starting A New Website
If you are a band and don't have a website, or you are even thinking of starting a band, get a website as soon as possible. The longer you're up with a website, the more it gets picked up by search engines, and the more other folks link to you. If your band was coming out even in a year from now, it's best to establish your web presence immediately. Even if you have little content, there are directories that try to track all bands on the web, and they will all want to link to you even if your site is just getting started. Get it out there now!
Domain Names
A domain name is the address of the website, such as beatnikturtle.com for our band, Beatnik Turtle. Yours should be the name of your band as well. In order to get a domain, you must register a domain of your own.
You will want to lock in a domain name for yourself that matches your band name exactly, if possible, rather than having to tack a "music" or some other moniker at the end of it. If you are fortunate enough to not have a name yet, you can now choose one that doesn't yet have a web domain taken. You won't have to settle for a dot-net or dot-org address.
Most web hosting companies will offer to register your domain for you. We recommend registering it yourself, because some web hosting companies will register your name to their business, making it difficult or impossible to leave them. Keep it under your control, and register it yourself at a domain registrar. We use godaddy.com, but any of them will do.
Web Hosting
One of the first things that you are going to have to do when building your site is to get a web hosting company. Your choices are going to be different from the average person who wants to build a website because you will invariably want to showcase your music on your website. This means that you need to have a high limit when it comes to the amount of data that you can transfer every month because your average visitor will download music.
If you can find one with a content management system, or CMS, you should consider it unless you wish to build your site yourself, or have a web designer. A CMS will allow you to edit the text on your website from anywhere, within an administrative part of the site that you can log-in to.
We personally use Hostbaby.com, which is CDBaby's web hosting site. We actually use it even though one of the band members has a webhosting company, because their services and side benefits are quite nice.