Ideas for nightclub websites

You don't have to have a website but a website could make it easier for people to find information about your nightclub. If you don't have one review sites will pop up instead. A website for your nightclub will help your nightclub look more professional.

How to get a website?

Usually you would contact local web designers if you don't have a website. This could be expensive at first but the cost will lessen after the initial set up.

How much does a website cost?

This varies greatly and you expect to pay between a few hundred to few thousand dollars.

What can a website for a nightclub have on it?

It can have pictures of people partying on the front pages. You will probably want to display your opening hours.

Putting information on your happy hours or drink pricing could be a good idea. To avoid confusion make sure the information that you display is current.

If you serve food you could display your menu on the website and your cut off time for orders if you have one.

Many websites have contact information such as a phone number or Email address on them. You could choose to have a contact form instead; this allows people to contact you without an Email address displayed on the website.

You could have a map by Google directly on your website to allow help people find the venue. If you do this you're sending information about the person who visits your website to Google so you're legally required to display a notice telling people this.

Also it could be a good idea to have a section on the accessibility features of your venue such as whether it's a ground floor venue, where the ramp is located, whether there's accessible parking nearby. Read more about how to make a nightclub accessible

Links to your social pages such as Facebook or Instagram can be added to your website. If you tell visitors to your websites to follow you on social networks they may be occasionally reminded about your venue.

You may want to put social share links on many pages. People can use them to share your page to their Facebook timeline for example.

You may want to do a write-up on your history in the area. If your nightclub hosted major events these might be worth mentioning.

If you have regular performers at your bar you could have their names, pictures and facts about them on the website.

You can list upcoming events too. Include the date and time. It could be a good idea to list the performers and display a description of the event.

It's possible to just post the event posters as a quick way of updating events. However it's better to additionally type out key information about the event as this can assist some people with disabilities.

Read more about promoting a nightclub and its events

If you rent out private rooms and/or have bottle service you could have a booking form it's possible to give out payment details so they can pay sooner. It's best to include information on what you and your cancellation policy.

You can highlight past events on your website by posting pictures. The same pictures can be posted on Facebook too or you can post more on Facebook if you're included. Pictures can display your logo.

Be mindful that the manager or a staff member will have to take pictures, sort through them and post them to the website. You could also have a photographer on contract to do this.

Some people put their personal opinions on their business website. The upside to this is people can get to know the person who's running the nightclub. On the other hand your beliefs may not be relevant to those seeking out a venue for dancing.

Regulations

Usually commerce regulations require the information on your website to be accurate and current.

You frequently see cookie notices on websites. My advice would be to not collect cookies in any way so you don't have to display the notice. If you display advertisements from a network like Google or using sending information to social networks like Facebook then you need a cookie notice and privacy policy.

If you're just putting plain social share links without loading graphics from the social network on your website you should be fine. However if you load anything from another site or have advertising pixels then you need a cookie notice and privacy policy.

Also if you collect email addresses or cell phone numbers for sending people promotions you need a privacy policy.

Logo and colour scheme

You would probably want the logo of your nightclub to be clearly displayed on your website.

You would probably want the website's color scheme to partly match the inside of your building. Black is heavily featured in many web designs for nightclubs.

How soon do I need a website?

There's no good answer to this. You could budget one in when you launch your nightclub or wait a few months. I know of a nightclub that has been open for years and has no functioning website.

Should I maintain the website or contract maintenance out?

Some companies would charge $40 USD to make small updates to your website. If you don't want to pay that you will have to learn how to make changes yourself or have an employee do it. Ensure that you fully trust the employee that does it otherwise they could cause problems for you.

The website doesn't have to be updated often unless you want to keep your website updated with the latest events.

What are advertising pixels?

Advertising pixels tell Facebook, Google or another advertising pixels when someone visits your website. You then can display advertisements for your nightclub to people that previously visit your website.

If doing this you need to comply with various regulations: You need to display a notice telling people that information is getting set to the advertising network(s).

If you want to take advantage of advertising pixels it needs to be set up on your website. You could alternatively search the web for "How to set up Facebook advertising pixels" for set up instructions. Just replace Facebook with Google if you want to use Google instead.

Ongoing costs of a website

You need to pay an ongoing fee to keep your website open, just like you need to pay for rent. If you don't need lots of support you can expect to pay $10 per month and another $10 per year for your domain name.

What is a domain name?

A domain name is just the address of a website. For this website the domain name is "nightclubadvice.com". The main domain name for Google is "google.com"

You can get domain names that end in different country codes. Again let's use Google for examples; their domain name for their website for people in the United Kingdom is "google.co.uk" and for their website for people in New Zealand is "google.co.nz"

Say you have a venue called Fictional Nightclub in Las Vegas, its domain name could be "fictionalnightclub.com" or "fictionalnightclublasvegas.com". If the same nightclub was located in London, United Kingdom its domain name could be "fictionalnightclub.co.uk" or "fictionalnightclublondon.co.uk".

Ultimately you can choose the domain name of your bar.

You can change the domain name but you should probably just choose one and not change it unless your venue changes the name. If you change your domain name it can cause confusion and extra work.

Register on local directories

After your website is built you may want to register your website on directories and other websites that list nightclubs. Sometimes this is as simple as filling in a form. If you spot blogs that lists local nightclubs you may want to contact the author and tell them about your nightclub.

Google My Business

An additional step you can take is setting up a Google My Business. This allows more information about the nightclub to be displayed in the Google search results. Just type "Google My Business" into Google.com and you will get instructions.

Search engine optimization

You may want to hire a professional search engine optimization company. The purpose of hiring one would be to get your website on the first page of search results in Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo etc. They may do other tasks mentioned above for example setting up a Google My Business or getting your website in directories.

If you're a nightclub in Brisbane your S.E.O. specialist would make sure your website shows up when people search "Brisbane nightclub".

If you're doing S.E.O. yourself and are using WordPress it would help if you get a S.E.O. plugin like Yeost SEO.

If you want to rank for "Brisbane nightclub" then you need to make sure the text "Brisbane nightclub" appears on the page. You should make sure that the text appears at least once, but putting the text in the page titles too could help.

Another example would be if you want your website to show up when people search for Trance events it might be a good idea to make a separate page with Trance events on your website.

Images on websites have hidden descriptions associated with them, this is called the ALT text. I believe that a good S.E.O. company would make sure that most images have ALT text and they would find ways to put relevant phrases in the ALT text. The main purpose of ALT text is to help people who can't see images, it's important that the ALT text still remains helpful to these users.

A S.E.O. specialist would probably know how to utilize technologies such as XML sitemaps and Schema to help give information to the search engines. If you have a small website I don't believe that an XML sitemap is essential.

You may want to look up how to implement Local Business Schema if you're doing S.E.O. yourself. If you're listing events on your website you may want to research how to implement Event Schema.

It helps in search engines such as Google if your website looks good on both desktop computers and mobile devices. It will also help if your website has a SSL certificate and loads quickly.

Some hosting providers offer a pre installed SSL certificate. This means that you don't need to do anything to get your website secure, and you don't need to understand what a SSL certificate is if you take this option.

If you want your website to load quickly and are maintaining the website yourself you can research "responsive images" and "lazy loading".

Some S.E.O. companies would get other relevant websites to link to the nightclub's website. Getting links (also known as backlinks) can help make your website more powerful in the search engines. Paying to get backlinks is against Google's terms of service but many websites do this.

Breaking a search engine's terms of service is not illegal. However doing such a thing can get your website banned from appearing in search engines.

Not all S.E.O. companies are created equal; some are good but some are so bad they could make your website disappear in Google. You need to be careful when hiring people for S.E.O. services

Thanks for reading

I hope that my article has given you some ideas for your nightclub's website.