3 “Must Have” Pieces of Music Studio Website Content (and Others That Can Wait)

Preparing website content can be a daunting task. You visit other musicians’ sites for inspiration and you immediately feel overwhelmed and demoralized because their site is full of useful information, witty blog posts, artistic photos, and professional sound recordings.

It’s a this point that I might be inclined to put off this task until “tomorrow.” The day that never comes. But that nagging feeling that I should have a website doesn’t go away.

Well, kids. Take a deep  breath. Today we’re going to tackle this  daunting task.

I put together a list of information/pages a prospective student might be looking for on your site. Then I prioritized it and broke it down into phases, based on what information is most important.

You don’t need to have a perfect, 100% complete website content from day one. (This was mind-blowing to me.) As soon as you have the “Must Have” list complete, make your site live. Then gradually work your way through the other phases, adding only those pages that are relevant to your studio.

Must Have

• About Me – a bit about qualifications, why you love teaching, a glimpse into who you are as a whole person and hobbies you enjoy outside of teaching.
• About the Studio – what students can expect to learn, how lessons are structured, studio location (or teaching radius for traveling teachers).
• Contact Info and/or Contact Form – Phone number, email address, studio address (or general location if you teach from home and don’t want your address out there for everyone.) You can also link to your social media profiles here. (Beware that once you post a social media profile you are inviting people to contact you through that platform for professional communication. If you want to keep Facebook purely personal, I suggest leaving it off.)

Should Have

• Testimonials – These are kind of a must have, but if you haven’t started teaching yet, you may not have any testimonials and that shouldn’t hold you back from publicizing your studio website. Getting a solid testimonial is high priority as soon as you start teaching, though!
• Media – Picture of you and your studio, pictures of students performing (always get written permission before posting!), sound recordings or videos of you or your students performing.
• Other Services – If you also perform or work as an accompanist or soloist for weddings and other events, include a page with that information.

Helpful to Have

• Blog – If you can commit to writing regularly, consider publishing a blog on your website.
• Resources page – Do you find yourself referring students to the same sites over and over again?
• Online payment collection – Some people still like the good ol’ checkbook, but its days are numbered.

Awesome to Have

• Online Store – To sell resources or music you create for your studio!
• Student Portal – To share a studio calendar, policies and other pertinent documents.
• Anything else your creative self comes up with!

Want more help with your website? Learn more about my self-paced, video WordPress course!