(Every Monday will be Site Review Monday. Each review will be full of ideas, tips and inspiration to help you make your website as effective as possible. Click here if you’d like to submit your site for review.)

Today’s site review features the web site of Paul Guerra. Paul describes his music as “acoustic rock” and his target audience as the 30 something crowd. His website can be viewed here.

Overall, I found the site to be straighforward and fast loading with a simple, clean design.

MUSIC

Is it within a click?
No, the music on this site is not within one click. In order to listen to music I had to click on a link called “Sounds” and then select a song to listen to. That link contained a .m3u file which opened my iTunes and then played the clip.

I recommend a flash music player right on the front page of the site. A music web site should have music front and center.

Are they full songs or clips?
There are two song clips. These should be changed to full songs. Music isn’t meant to be experienced in clips and unless a musicians music is in heavy rotation on the radio, it needs to be in rotation on their website.

Is there a free download?
No, there isn’t a free download. Providing a free song gives your audience something to talk about, something to share and independent artists need that viral marketing to succeed.

NAVIGATION

Is the navigation simple and clear?
The navigation is easy to locate and quite clear for the most part. “Sights” and “Sounds” should be changed to music and photos for maximum clarity, though. I also recommend that “News” and “Notes” be combined.

AUDIENCE AND CONTENT

Is there a prominent tagline?
There isn’t currently a prominent tagline. The site could definitely benefit from a more obvious header/name image as well as a prominently placed tagline so that visitors immediately know what site they are at and what kind of music Paul plays.

Interesting and frequent content for fans?
While the content is a bit more fresh than many other musician’s sites I’ve visited, I recommend a monthly or weekly update. It doesn’t have to be entirely about your music. You could post about your family, interesting websites you’ve come across, recent and upcoming gigs...anything to give your audience a reason to come back.

Frequently updated photos? Fan photos?
Paul has some photos on his site, which is great. To maximize the use of photos, he might consider having someone take pics at every gig and post those online. Again, fresh content is vital to making a website “sticky.”

Is there a full bio and a bio summary?
Paul’s bio is an excellent length. I don’t think he needs a bio summary. Many musicians have a very long “print ready” bio that is too long for the web. In those cases I recommend having a short “Bio Summary” in addition to a full length bio. In either case, though try to use subheaders on paragraphs whenever possible as web readers are more likely to scan a page than actually read it. By providing subheaders, you’ll increase your chances that they actually read your bio.

Here are a few more ideas that Paul may want to consider adding to his site:

• Downloadable press kit for journalists
• Promotional graphics for blogs / myspace users
• Video journals
• Podcast or audio journals

DESIGN

Is it simple or distracting?
The design is simple and not at all distracting. It’s clean and elegant.

Does it reinforce the artists’ style?
Yes.

COMMUNICATION

Newsletter?
Yes, there is a newsletter.

Is there an incentive to sign up for the newsletter?
At this time there doesn’t seem to be an incentive to sign up for the newsletter. I recommend a store discount, a free song or some other incentive for people to register for the newsletter. I think this is especially important since the site doesn’t have a blog, forum, or frequently updated content thus not giving people a reason to visit often. The newsletter is the primary way that Paul will be able to communicate with his audience, so every encouragement should be made to have them register.

Simple contact method?
Yes, via email.

STORE

On site store?
Paul uses Indieheaven.com for his online store. Since the store link sends people away from his site, he needs to have some sort of introduction sentence letting visitors know that they’ll be sent to the Indieheaven site.

Simple purchase process?
The purchase process at Indieheaven does seem to be straightforward.

Song clips in store?
There are song clips at the indieheaven page, but I also recommend song clips on Paul’s store page as well.

Recommendations / Reviews on Store Page?
No, there are no recommendations or reviews on Paul’s store page.

Video welcome / thanks on store page?

Money back guarantee?
There is no money back guarantee. The key to selling is to remove risk on the part of the buyer. By offering a money back guarantee, artists show confidence in their music and remove any remaining hesitation that visitors may have.

TECH DETAILS

Load time?
The site loaded quite nicely. There seemed to be some sort of splash page redirect that is a bit confusing.

Broken links?
I didn’t encounter any broken links.

BARRIERS / CONCLUSION

I didn’t really encounter any barriers on this site. It’s simple, clean, elegant and straightforward. It’s certainly one of the better indie websites I’ve come across simply because it doesn’t try to do too much. I think that with a few tweaks it could be significantly more effective for Paul, but it is a solid starting point.