Music teacher’s websites are valuable assets for any private music teacher’s business, and these days, it’s essential that you have one. The best music school websites act as a hub for all online marketing activities (including FaceBook ads), an authority site for your music studio and you as a teacher, and an open door through which you welcome students who are searching for your services. Additionally, they can act as a portal for your students to book and reschedule lessons, make tuition payments, and for you to communicate with your studio community.
You’re going to need to do something that helps you stand out from the crowd. A website design that ranks in the search engines, catches the attention of potential music students, and prompts them to take action.
So, where do you start, especially if you know nothing about building websites? Is it possible to learn enough about how to build an attractive and attention-getting website from information you can find for free on the Internet?
Well, it is possible …
Individuals with expertise in all sorts of disciplines have built websites for their businesses and some have recognized much success with these sites. It will take some new knowledge, your creativity, lots of patience, and an investment of your time to get your site started and then up and running!
This article will discuss the basic design of music teachers websites, if you wish to build your own, as well as other options if you are looking for help to build the best music teachers website in a short time.
How do I get started?
Domain Name (URL)
The first thing you need for building a music teachers website is a domain name, which can be bought reasonably cheaply from any number of domain name providers. Choose a name that reflects your studio well.
Hosting
Then you need to host your website with a reliable hosting company. There are also many options available for this. Many domain name registrars also provide hosting, so this could be an easy solution to get started.
Install WordPress
Once you have your domain name and hosting, you need to set up WordPress on your domain. WordPress (from wordpress.org) is the best way to build a website if you are new at it. WordPress websites are generally quite user friendly and don’t require any coding skills to operate.
Upload A Theme
After WordPress is installed on your site, you will need to activate a theme. WordPress comes with free themes built in, or you can search for other free website themes if you wish to find one you might prefer to use. Alternatively, there are paid themes you can purchase that may meet the needs of your music school website more accurately. Doing some research into this will help you find a website theme that works for your music website. You may discover a music school website template that works perfectly for what you have in mind.
Design Your Website
Organizing anything usually starts with having a plan … and having a template from which to work on your website is, essentially, that plan.
A music teacher website template should look something like this (though you can certainly feel free to add other pages you think are pertinent):
Have a Unique “Home” Page (or Landing Page)
This is often the first page searchers see when they click on a link to your website. Hence, it’s quite important. Besides providing essential information, it also needs to be visually interesting to those who are searching for a music studio like yours.
A good rule of thumb for homepages is to include the important information about you, your instrument and your studio location that students will be looking for. When someone is searching the Internet for something in particular, they are initially looking for brief, concise information.
So, on this page you should include a professional photo of yourself (a headshot, preferably, or a photo of you with your instrument), as well as a simple 3-to-5 line biography that hits all the important points – information about you, your instrument and your studio location (i.e. 25 years’ experience, located in the city center, specializing in piano lessons for adults, etc.). This can be done in paragraph form or via bullet points.
Other photos might include pics of you and your students (during lessons or perhaps at past recitals) as well as photos of you as a performer. Remember, however, to get permission to post photos of anyone who is recognizable in the pictures.
If you blog, you might also include your blog on your landing page, perhaps off to the side. This gives a reason for interested students to come back again and again to see what you’ve written this week!
Have an Informative “About” Page
The best music teacher websites include an about page that provides comprehensive information about you – the teacher. This is information that prospective students want to know, including your instrument, education, your teaching and/or performing experience, and anything else you deem pertinent. If you think it’s important to include that you have 2 children and a dog because it makes you “relatable”, go ahead and make that information part of the description as well.
This time, you can write in paragraph form rather than bullet points (or a combination of the two), but be sure to keep the paragraphs short and easily-readable. People looking at your website for the first time are just looking for the information that’s most important to them and don’t want to sift through long paragraphs.
You can also include “testimonials” on this page. These testimonials will serve as great references from satisfied students or their parents. (You should cite the person who wrote the testimonial, but use initials instead of full names.)
Pricing and Policy Information
You’ll find that music teacher websites handle this page differently from one to another. Some list no details at all, preferring to ask prospective students to call for more information on policies and pricing. This is usually because there’s worry about scaring away students if they think the prices are high or the policies too strict. Some teachers prefer to discuss this in person, over the phone, or in an email.
But many private music school websites do indeed include this information, preferring to “weed out” prospective students who don’t like the prices or the policies.
So, if you do go in this direction and include such a page, you’ll need to list:
- Length of lessons and prices for each
- How students can pay (monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, etc.) and by what methods (check, cash, credit cards)
- Policies about cancellations
- Policies on make-up lessons
- Studio holidays
Be specific and spell out your policies carefully. You can even make this a printable page that students can sign and bring to the first lesson, acknowledging that they’ve read and understand your parameters.
FAQs
Question and answer pages are popular on music teacher websites and often eliminate the need for excessive phone calls or emails, which take time on both ends.
Some FAQs you might include on your website will likely be answered elsewhere on your site, but such a page puts all the questions and answers in one spot so that potential students don’t need to go searching for the answers. Questions might include:
- How long are the lessons?
- What kind of payment do you accept?
- What if I have to cancel my lesson?
- Must I give a certain amount of notice if I wish to quit?
- Do I need to buy a piano (guitar, violin, etc.) to get started?
- Will it cost extra for books, supplies, etc.?
- Can the teacher come to my house?
It’s likely that as you receive more questions from curious students, you can add those to your FAQ page, too.
Contact Page
You can’t have a music teachers website without including a contact page, of course. This can simply be a page that lists your name, address, phone number, and/or email, or it may be a contact page that the potential student will complete and then send to you via a click of their mouse. Then you can answer it with an email or phone call. Such automatic contact pages are available through most website building programs.
Can I use wix, bandzoogle, wordpress.com, musicteachershelper, mymusicstaff, or another free website builder to build my music teachers website?
Well, you can use free website builders for music studios, BUT not if you want website to do any of the following:
- Actually own your website and content
- Be found easily by the search engines (and therefore be found by new music students!)
- Be able to change the look, grow and add features to your website easily
- Be safe from hackers and be able to backup your website, just in case anything does go wrong (website security is really important!)
- Eliminate advertising from another company that draws your visitors away from your site (you definitely want to protect against this!)
… Then your best option is to buy your own domain name and hosting and build your own music teacher’s website using a WordPress.org theme. That way, you own the domain name, the content and everything else you put on it, no one can advertise in your space, you can back it up and protect it, and you can easily change and adapt your website to meet your changing needs as your music studio grows over time.
Owning your own website is an investment into a very important asset for your music teaching business, and the best music teachers websites will repay you many times over for your investment. Quality web design for music teachers projects a powerful image of your music studio to the online world and is an open door that draws qualified quality students into your studio.
What if I’m not creative?
Are you worried that your website won’t look like some of the best music teacher websites out there on the web and that students won’t be inspired by what they see?
Remember, you don’t have to be super creative to build a website. Our Music Profits program offers plenty of tips on building an interesting and attractive site. Additionally, platforms like WordPress have themed templates that help, too. For example, there are WordPress music school themes that are offered with their services and include photos and other graphics that are ideal for anyone building a site that involves the performing arts.
What if I’m not technical?
If you are not comfortable working on the Internet, but would like a website for your studio, then your best option is to hire an expert to build your dream website for you. Finding a trusted web designer, with high integrity and thorough knowledge of your needs as a music teacher is a must. The right website designer will save you time and money, and deliver a quality website that will be an asset to your music teaching business for years to come.
What if I don’t have time to build my own website?
Building a quality website can take quite some time, especially if you don’t have any prior experience in web design. While you can certainly learn how to build a music website yourself, you may find that the time you need to invest to make it really work well for you may outweigh the benefits of the money you can save by building a “free” website yourself.
In addition, there are many aspects to ensuring a website ranks well in the search engines and brings your ideal music students to your door, which are beyond the scope of this article.
Web design solutions for music teachers
Music Profits Web Design builds custom websites for music teachers. The beauty of what we do is that we combine thorough knowledge of the needs of music teachers, proven marketing knowledge to attract your ideal students, website design that looks beautiful and, like the best music teacher websites, is built on a strong foundation of research that allows your website to rank well in the search engines. Contact Music Profits Web Design if you would like a free consultation and assessment of your website needs for your music teaching studio.
Conclusion
If you are building your own music teachers website, you can follow this plan to create a quality music website for your teaching studio.
However, if you read this article and feel overwhelmed by all there is to know about web design for music teachers, rest assured we understand … Providing great solutions that work for music teachers is a core aim of Music Profits.
If you need a more detailed guide to building your own music teacher’s website, you can find training on all aspects of growing your music-teaching studio (including your website design!) in the Music Profits Program. Additionally, the support aspect of the Music Profits Program means there will be an expert at hand to help if you get stuck!
Alternatively, we can use our extensive knowledge of web design for music teachers to build the best music school website for your teaching business, that will prove to be a valuable asset for many years to come!
Empowering you to move forward with your music school website is just one way we can help private music teachers grow your income and influence as a quality music teacher. You can have an amazing music teachers website that proudly calls to your ideal students and draws them to you in the large and growing online world!