My initial impression of the Bandvista website builder
I am someone who has been building websites for small businesses since 1999. I’ve also taught website design to artists and small business owners for 11 of those years. I care about things like search engine optimization, themes that are usable by your site’s visitors, and interfaces that are easy for you, the person building the site, to learn and use, so in this review of the Bandvista website builder, I’ll have a look at all of these features and have a look at their pricing structure.
I last reviewed the Bandvista website builder in 2013. At that point in time, I wasn’t particularly impressed with a few things, like mobile-friendly themes or search engine optimization features.
Now, in 2016, it is clear that Bandvista is very much still alive and kicking and improving their services and pricing for bands. Their band-specific features are about the same (and they were good before). Their pricing, if you get a yearly contract, is about the same, but now they have a slightly lower-priced entry point at $9.95 month (if you pay yearly); I felt their pricing was very reasonable before because of all the features they had to offer and I still think it is fair.
I would like to see actual live sites made from the Bandvista website builder. This would add to my confidence about what the tool can and can’t do, but other than that the features are clear and their video tutorial on how to use the website builder makes me believe this is an easy-to-use, up-to-date website builder.
Would you like some free help preparing for your site? Cool. Here’s a free download I created just for you.
Bandvista website builder is industry specific
There really aren’t many website builders focused on just one industry, but Bandvista is. Bandvista is designed for people who have bands. What does this mean? Well, the first themes that you can see before signing up for a free trial are clearly designed to showcase the artist, which is super important in this industry; this is a huge contrast to a lot of the business-based themes I work with that can allow for images and slideshows but then aren’t combined with designs that lead the eye to focus on the photos. These designs really do feel like what you’d imagine a musician or band to have. Good job, Bandvista.
Also, the features Bandvista gives you are specific to musicians. You can upload your music and have a music player; admittedly, I’d prefer to see that they connected with Soundcloud or Bandcamp. Perhaps they do that to. Why Soundcloud or Bandcamp? Because they are more heavily trafficked and are is searchable. It’s nice to have your media more than one place, so in a perfect world you could upload your music to Soundcloud or Bandcamp and then embed it at Bandvista. Maybe they let you do this and it just isn’t emphasized. Lastly on this note, I noticed in one of their testimonials that you can link to iTunes and embed YouTube videos; this is a huge plus in my book.
Another feature is they let you sell your music and merchandise. Nice!
Go here for the full listing of Bandvista’s features.
Bandvista website builder free trial
Bandvista will let you try out their product for free for 30 days and it appears you don’t have to put in a credit card number to get started, which I like a lot.
Bandvista website builder pricing
It appears Bandvista wants you to sign up for a yearly contract. Most website builders do. The biggest difference I see here compared to other website builders is that Bandvista isn’t specifying what your prices are if you can only swing month-to-month payments. Usually month-to-month is higher and sometimes people just want to try a service for a few months before committing to a year, so it would be nice to know the pricing difference.
Bandvista website builder has three pricing tiers: Silver at $9.95 a month, Gold at $10.85 a month, and Platinum at $15.85 a month; all pricing is based on an annual commitment. The difference in the three plans has to do with how many pages you have on your site, storage, how many email accounts you would like, and how many newsletter fans you have.
So here’s the thing, most people can get by with what the Silver plan has to offer. However, I don’t know if the 10-page limit includes blog posts. So if you are a band that is regularly posting to your website about each show you have, you will easily go over the 10-page limit if each post is counted as a page. The good news is that the Gold plan is less than a dollar more a month and gives you up to 100 pages; so if each page and blog post counts towards your page count, you will move into the Gold plan quite quickly. What about posting on Facebook, you ask? Well, the problem with Facebook is when you post your content there it isn’t easily accessible long term. I recommend posting your content on your website first and then sharing that post on your social media channels; this way you always have your history easily accessible on your own website. This gives you a live resume, if you will, and the search engines will recognize your website’s activity and rank you higher than if you rarely posted anything on your site. Moral of the story? You’ll probably end up in the Gold plan. And if you are an epic poster, you’ll be in Platinum, where you can have unlimited pages. No big; it’s a fair price for all they have to offer you.
Bandvista’s pricing can be found on their features page; just scroll down a bit.
Is Bandvista website builder mobile friendly?
Yes, it sure is! In 2013, Bandvista didn’t mention whether they were mobile-friendly or not, but they say they are now.
Does the Bandvista website builder off search engine optimization features?
They totally do. It looks like you can modify the URL to your website and add custom meta information for each page. Very nice. I didn’t see if you could put in Google Analytics tracking, however.
Does Bandvista have a blogging feature?
Yes. They have a blogging feature. As a side note, I find lots of clients have fits over figuring out a calendar for their website. With Bandvista, they already have a calendar built in.
Is Bandvista website builder easy to use?
Their interface looks very straightforward. It is drag and drop and very similar to other popular website builders. You don’t need to know code and it looks like you will be up to speed with how to use the tool very quickly.
Can you use your own URL with Bandvista?
Yes. I think you have to have a paid account in order to activate a custom URL, so you’ll need to end your free trial to enable this feature.
Final thoughts about Bandvista website builder.
Bandvista appears to be a fairly robust tool that’s easy to use. The musician-friendly tools they have built into Bandvista make sense and it looks like this website builder is being updated on a regular basis to keep up with other website builders. As always, I’d recommend comparing at least one other website builder by trying to do similar things in each so you can see which tool makes the most sense to you. I was very impressed with their introductory video and feel confident that tech support will be easily accessible and helpful. This website builder has come a long way in three years, which is another big plus in my book. I would totally encourage those who are musicians to give this website builder a try.
Click here to grab my free download to help you get all your ducks in a row before your build your site.
Even though I made it for people who are getting ready to hire a web pro, 80% of it will help you if you are building your site on your own.
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