Songwriters work hard: they’re continuously thinking up melodies, combining chords, and composing lyrics. Having a website allows you to combine those talents in one place online. It’s helpful in getting more song placements and writing partners, and in reaching your fans.
Think of your website as an online portfolio for your music, and use it to attract more work.
Choose a songwriter website template
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and unsure of how to create a design, especially if you’ve never made a website before. When you’re designing a great songwriter website, using a template is a good place to begin.
Selecting a songwriter template guarantees that you have a good base to start with, combining complementary colors and fonts with page structures that pop. From there, you can customize the look to match your music.
Although you’re probably most comfortable constructing songs, creating a music website is easy once you get organized. Let’s take a look at the pages you need to build out your songwriter website:
Homepage
Your songwriter website’s Home page should act as an introduction to who you are and what you do. Make a great first impression here by using a powerful header image that conveys your art at a glance. If you’re a more behind-the-scenes type of songwriter, consider adding imagery that shows your instrument of choice, or your sheet music.
Your homepage should also include your name front and center. You can accomplish this using text in a color that contrasts your image, or by adding a logo image. Your menu should also be clear on the page, providing an organized structure for your visitors to easily navigate.
To direct your visitor’s attention, include a call-to-action. This could be to listen to your latest song, to purchase your new album, or to check out your licensing page. In addition to getting your visitors to take a certain action, it also adds a nice balance to a large image, especially if you choose a text color that is reflected in your content area below.
Artist: Kellie Loder
About page
For songwriters, it's important to create a focused About page that succinctly tells your story. When you set up this page, the first thing to do is write a strong artist bio. Start with a quick roundup of your experience, then highlight your songs and any awards you have won or been nominated for. You can also talk about song placements in TV and film, any residencies you’ve attended or workshops you have led, and any notable songwriting you’ve done with other artists.
Add an image to this page as well - of yourself, or something that represents your style of music. An Image and Text feature is a nice way to create a stylish layout that will render well on your About page.
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Artist: Taylor Crawford
Music page
Start by adding a music player, allowing your website visitors to preview, play, and buy your tracks. You can also include lyrics to each track. Remember, too: with a songwriter’s website, you can add much more than just music.
Let people in on your process, describing any songwriting collaborations with other artists, and post the resulting songs. Include lyrics on this page as well, to show off your writing skills alongside your track player. This encourages a deeper connection between you and your fans, and shows how much work and effort you put into all aspects of your music.
When you design a Music page on your website, keep in mind that you’ll want to balance out the header image with album art imagery. Select a simple background to offset multiple colors, and use a clean, easy-to-read font – this way your album artwork takes center stage.
If you’ve written and recorded multiple albums, consider creating a discography. Display each album, and link the covers to a more in-depth page about each release.
Adding Smart Links for your music is a nice touch as well, making it easy for people to hear your music in their preferred way.
Artist: Bob Spring
Song placements / credits
If you’re a prolific songwriter, make sure to add a page to your website that includes your credits. List the places where your music has been licensed and played. This gives more credibility to your songs, and engages people’s curiosity.
You’ll want to add broader details on this page as well, from the genre of music you compose to how people can contact you. If you primarily write music that’s ideal for commercials, note this here. If your songs have been placed in films or TV shows, or have received awards, or have been recorded by famous artists, talk about those accolades on this page as well.
You may end up with a fair number of placements as time goes on – keep an updated list on your songwriter website with the years listed, to show that you’re an active artist. Adding logos or images to show the places your songs have appeared is a great way to add visual elements to the page.
Artist: Nat Jay
Store page
Adding a Store page to your songwriter website is vital if you release music regularly. It gives people a way to support you, and shows you’re a productive songwriter with lots to offer.
When designing this page, keep your end goal in mind: Have you recently added new music that you want fans to buy? Do you have leftover merch you want to put on sale? Or are you hoping to advertise your songwriting services?
With your goal in mind, add your store items in a grid view so that they cascade nicely on the page, and set a great image for each item. Even if you’re just listing a deposit fee for reservations on a songwriting workshop, a photo will make your store item pop.
Artist: Nikia Yung
Press kit
If you’re a performer in addition to a songwriter, it’s a good idea to create a press kit on your songwriter website. This will help you get more work – be that for writing, playing shows, or both.
You’ll want to include a short, concise bio on this page, keeping your goal in mind. If you’re hoping to book more writing work, talk about your experience in composing songs and mention any placements you’ve had recently. If you offer songwriting workshops, mention how successful those have been and include some quotes from participants.
Think of your Press Kit page as a way to advertise yourself and your craft to someone who may not know you as an artist (yet!). Add a few photos and music samples as well.
A press kit is one of the best ways to promote yourself as a songwriter, so be sure to check back on this page often and keep the information up to date.
Artist: Brigid Kaelin
Fan subscriptions
Website subscriptions can be a powerful tool to deepen your connection with fans. If you have a loyal following, it’s likely that your fans would be eager to pay a small fee per month to have access to exclusive content. This could take the form of videos you record of you playing your favorite songs, or sharing new lyrics with your subscribers, or offering songwriting tips and exercises to get their creative minds flowing.
It’s important to first decide whether selling fan subscriptions is the right model for you - after all, it does take some extra work. If you decide that member subscriptions are a good option for you, the opportunities to deepen your connections with fans are endless! Plus, your subscriber pages and perks will automatically match the design you’ve already created for your songwriter website, so you can just add new content regularly.
Contact
Last but not least, you’ll want to add a simple Contact page to your songwriter website. Depending on your preference, you can use a contact form or place your email address or phone number directly on the page. It’s also great to add your social media icons, in case your website visitor wants to follow you on another platform.
A mailing list sign-up form on your Contact page is another good way to encourage connections with people - remember that your mailing list members are some of your strongest allies.
Beyond that, add a simple image, but don’t get into too many details here. The Contact page is the last stop on your songwriter website after someone’s read about you and sampled your music.
Once you’ve added all of the content and pages to your songwriter website, and you’ve customized the look and feel to match your music, you’ll be all set to book more songwriting work.
With your wide range of abilities, be sure that your songwriter website is simple yet concise, and tells a story about you, much like your music does. From there you can let your website do the talking online while you unplug and get back to composing melodies, playing your instrument, and writing those all-important lyrics.
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