Are You Taking Advantage of These “Hidden” Features in AudioTheme?

Not everyone gets excited about reading documentation or changelogs, so we’ve assembled a list of “hidden” features in AudioTheme that you may have missed.

In this post, we’ll cover some aspects and features of our products that are often overlooked by customers.

Hidden Features in AudioTheme

If you haven’t been keeping up with the changelog for the AudioTheme plugin, it’s easy to overlook some great new features that have been added to the last few releases. There are also some other, lesser-known features of AudioTheme that have been around for a long time, but are not well-known.

How to control who sees your pages and posts

WordPress Content Visibility
Do you wish there were a way to add content to your site so that only certain people were able to see it? Maybe you’d like to reward fans for signing up for a mailing list, or share an electronic press kit with a booking agent. We’re often asked by customers if there is a way to hide certain content, while giving a select group access. What many people overlook is that control over WordPress content visibility is actually built right in.

On each page and post, WordPress gives you the option to change the content visibility. Let’s walk through each of the available options and a few scenarios in which they might make sense.

Organizing Websites With Archive Menus

Most musicians have several different types of content to display on their site. This can range from media categorized by different bands they perform with, to different kinds of music, or even different types of performances. We’re often asked for advice on how to best present multiple kinds of content in a way that makes sense to site visitors. Utilizing archive menus is one of the easiest and most intuitive ways to organize a site’s content.

In this post we’ll cover what archive menus are, which of our themes have them, some possible uses, and how to configure them.

How to Change Your WordPress Theme

One of the greatest advantages of using WordPress is being able to quickly and easily change the look of your website. While this may not be super important to everyone, it’s a huge selling point for musicians who often want to change the look of their site to promote a new record, video, or tour. In this post, we’ll cover how to change your WordPress theme.

Changing a theme is pretty simple, but there are a few things that you’ll want to make sure you understand before you make a swap. In this post, we’ll walk through the entire process from start to finish.

How to Host an Online Concert

Live streaming is quickly gaining popularity in the social media world, and for good reason. We can now instantly connect with an unlimited number of people. For musicians, hosting an online concert is a great way to interact with your fans.

When you think about the fact that a band can only be in one place at once, live streaming is kind of a no-brainer. Several bands live stream their concerts directly from the venue, but overlook the opportunity to play online concerts for their fans.

In this post, we’ll cover how to host an online concert that get your fans involved.

Should You be Playing for Free?

“You sound great, we’d love to have you come out and play! The only problem is our budget is stretched pretty thin and we can’t afford to pay you anything.” These words can put musicians in a pretty tight spot.

If you’re anxious for a chance to play, you may be inclined to take the gig in exchange for dinner and a few drinks. But, you may also hear the words of fellow musicians echoing in your head about how playing for free cheapens the whole industry. Is it true that if you play for free, you’re lessening the value of live music in your community?

This is one of the most difficult questions for musicians to answer. The truth is, there might not be a “correct” answer. In this post, we’re going to try to take an objective look at the pros and cons of playing for free.

Using Facebook Events to Promote Your Band’s Shows

There are 1.7 billion people on Facebook and, most likely, you are one of them.

Facebook has become more than just a means to keep up with your best friend from high school or a way to say “hi” to your aunt without actually having to call her. You can actually use this world-wide platform to post your upcoming gigs or create event notifications about your next tour.

Facebook Events is making it unbelievably easy for musicians to spread the word and promote their music. All it takes is a few minutes to set up an event and all of your friends and followers know where you will be playing on Friday night. They can then share the event with their friends, let you know whether or not they will be there and even buy tickets. In this post, we’ll walk through the process of using Facebook Events to promote your band’s shows. We’ll cover setting up an event and explain some of the lesser known features.

A Primer on SSL Certificates
You may have heard the news that Google Chrome will soon mark more websites with SSL certificates as “not-secure.” The change comes in Chrome version 62, due out sometime this month. Until now, Chrome has only shown the “Not Secure” warning on sites that request passwords or credit card information without an SSL certificate.

Of course, unencrypted connections should never be used to send sensitive data. With the rollout of Chrome version 62 however, the browser will begin labeling websites with any user input fields as “Not Secure.” This includes common text input fields, like contact forms, comment forms, and email subscription forms.

These changes are coming because Google wants to warn users about sending unencrypted messages over the web, even if they don’t contain sensitive information. If you aren’t using a contact form, accepting comments, or collecting newsletter signups on your site, you may not need to worry — yet. Google has confirmed that they will eventually mark all regular HTTP pages as “not secure.” Ultimately, only HTTPS sites will be considered secure. Other major browsers are expected to follow Google’s example.

In this post we’ll cover exactly what an SSL certificate is, how it works, and why you may want to consider installing one on your site.

How to Sell Albums and Individual Tracks on WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the most popular ecommerce plugin for WordPress. Many bands and musicians use it to sell physical merchandise and digital downloads on their website. As we mentioned in a recent post, WooCommerce does not have the capability to sell both a record and individual track downloads in the same product listing.

This means you’ll need to add each track as a separate product, which can lead to a very cluttered catalog page. Fortunately, if you’re using our Cue Pro plugin, there is a workaround that will allow you to sell individual tracks and the full-length record on the same product page.