How to design a great folk musician website

Folk music isn’t just about banjos and fiddles, it’s about creating a sense of camaraderie through good music. To do that you need a place for your fans to gather. We recommend doing that through your website.

It may seem daunting to create this atmosphere on the internet, but don’t you worry, we’re here to help! We have many folk musicians who’ve created beautiful websites with no design skills. Stick with us and we’ll give you a few pointers on how to set up your personalized folk musician website with ease.

[Website Design Inspiration: Best Singer-Songwriter websites]

Home

From the moment a visitor arrives to your website, you’ll want to welcome them as if inviting them into your home. The homepage acts as the living room where a newcomer can sit for awhile and get acquainted with you and your music.

Alternative folk singer-songwriter, Jack Pine, sets a fine example of this on his homepage. Using our Encore template, it displays a large image of Jack. This is like a nice big “Hello friend, thanks for coming over” message.

Next, he adds our new call-to-action feature to the header area. A call-to-action is the focus of what you’d like fans to do once they land on your website. In this case, he’s asking them to join his mailing list. This is a smart idea, as a mailing list is the best way to stay in consistent contact with your fans.

[The Complete Guide to Email Marketing for Musicians]

The rest of your homepage should provide a little bit of what they’ll be able to find on the rest of your pages. You can include latest news, social media icons, a song or two and a video.

[How to build the perfect homepage for your website]

Once they feel comfortable, you can invite them on a tour of the rest of your house, or in this case, your folk music website.

Bio

To forge a great relationship you’ll want to open up and let fans know more about you and your music. Fill your biography page with tidbits from your past, present and future. Share what inspires your music, your accomplishments, and any upcoming projects you’re working on.

If you are part of a folk band, you’ll want to have a band bio, plus short bios for each member in the band. Folk female trio, The Traveling Mabels, give fans the inside scoop on who they are and what they’re all about. This makes them more relatable and friendly on their folk band website.

[How to write an effective musician bio with examples]

Music

Your music page is a place where fans can kick back and relax for awhile. Make it cozy by including some reading material, your tunes, and some nice artwork. Do this using our Music feature by adding context about your album/songs, streaming previews, and adding your album covers.

Our Music feature makes it easy for fans to buy your music from your site (commission-free!). You can set a price, or let your fans choose what price they want to pay. Or if you want to give your music away you can set it to free download, or free in exchange with an email address.

Folk powerhouse duo, The Small Glories, shows us how it’s done with the name your own price set up. Their store page is well organized and gorgeous. This page lets fans know it’s all about them which creates a sense of comfort and ease.

[How to create to perfect page to sell music on your website]

Photos

No home would be complete without pictures on the wall, and the same goes for your website. Your fans love you and want to see what you’re up to. Adding a dedicated photos page to your site gives them a sneak peek into the life of a folk musician/band. It’s exciting for them to see your recording sessions, tour fun, and what the band does during the day.

Eli Lev paints the picture of his days by including a variety of photos as well as his instagram feed. This keeps his photos page fresh with the latest in the life of a nomadic musician.

[25 ways to get more fans for your band using Instagram]

Events

There’s nothing like a lively show to get your fans smiling, but first you gotta get ‘em to the gig. The first step is to promote your show by adding it to your website. You can easily do this with our built-in Events feature. There you can add all the details, as well as share the event to social media.

The next step is to make it easy for fans to attend by selling tickets from your website. Modern folk band, Cabin Creek put this into practice on their Shows page. Using our new Zenith theme, they’ve hidden the header on this page to make their events the focal point.

With our tickets sales feature you can sell tickets for shows commission-free, so fans can purchase and print tickets ahead of time. On your end you’ll receive a list of attendees to give to the door staff at the venue. This works well for your fans and saves you money from using other ticket retailers who charge high fees.

Create your own folk music website that’s mobile-ready and easy to update anytime! Try Bandzoogle free today!

Press Kit

One audience you don’t want to forget about are the ones who can give your music a boost - industry and media. This can be a blog writer, magazine editor, radio promoter, or a record label executive.

When they hit your site you only have a couple seconds to grab their attention. They won’t take the time to browse all your pages which is why an electronic press kit (EPK) page is a must.

An EPK is like a one page resume. It includes a little bit of everything to give media pros an at-a-glance of who you are and what makes you unique.

Canadian-based folk trio, The Redhill Valleys, has a nice EPK page. It includes some music, press quotes, a video, and high-quality images. The key is to keep it uncluttered and make it easy for the media professional to find what they’re looking for.

[The 8 things that should be in every band's digital press kit]

Contact

The final page you’ll want in your menu is a Contact page. You’ll want to keep it simple with three things; a contact form, a mailing list signup form, and a few social media links.

For the perfect example of this, check out the contact page for alt-folk band, The Ragged Few.

The page has great colors, is friendly, and straight to the point. You’ll notice they don’t list their email address on this or any other page, as this would lead to spammers using it to inundate your inbox. The custom contact form is all you need for anyone to get in touch with you from your website.

Now it’s your turn! Take what you’ve learned here and choose your own folk musician website template that fits your style. If you need a little more inspiration you can also check out our sample band websites and our blog category dedicated to nice example sites.

Once you get started you’ll not only see it’s easy, but actually fun to make your own folk musician website design. No matter what, we’re here to help if you need a little hand holding along the way!