How to design a great songwriter website

Being a songwriter takes a lot of focus, which means you probably don’t have much time to be fiddling around with building a website. The good news is, you can get a professional songwriter website up and running in minutes.

We previously showed you examples of other songwriter website designs, but now it’s your turn. It’s time for your work to shine. Using our songwriter website templates you’ll have a place to showcase your portfolio.

Besides just adding songs, there are a few other pages that you need for a successful songwriter website. Let’s explore the essential pages you need to get started.

Home

The homepage is your introduction and tells the visitor what you do. In fact, there’s a concept in website design called the 5-second rule: you only have a 5-second window to let the visitor know what the website is about. If it’s not clear, they won’t take the time to stay.

This is where your title and call-to-action (CTA) come into play. The title is your name but it can also include your profession. Listing ‘songwriter’ at the top of your page lets visitors know what type of website they’ve clicked into.

A call-to-action is a directive giving the visitor something to do while they are there. Join my mailing list! Download my album! Watch my video! - These are all examples of a CTA. This is illustrated nicely on the website of singer-songwriter, Taylor Crawford.

To take your homepage to the next level, consider using a video header next to the CTA like songwriter Hayden Greyson has done.

About

Lyrics have a way of touching the deepest parts of the listener. As fans get to know your style they will inevitably want to know more details about you, the writer. Your about page should give a full picture of you and your songwriting journey. Singer-songwriter, Abby Ahmad, has a good example of this.

She starts by letting people know who she is and that she is multi-talented. She describes her musical style, then shares some awesome accomplishments.

[How to Write an Effective Musician Bio (with examples!)]

It’s always a good idea to include a few images of yourself on the about page. This breaks up the text a bit and makes the page more visual.

Songs

The songs page is the heart of a songwriter’s website. This is where you get to show off your writing skills. This is also a good place to let folks in on your process. People love that kind of stuff!

Peter Apel is an amazing songwriter. He focuses on children’s music and has a great time doing so.

Using a page called ‘About the Songs’, Peter goes into detail about both the current album and each song. This gives life to each track. He sheds a light on the nature of the song, what it’s good for, and keywords (which is excellent for SEO!)

Doing this for each album is an excellent idea. It’s also a plus if you add lyrics to each song (in our music player) or to its own page. ‘Lyrics’ pages provide insight to visitors, and are great for sharing and linking.

Discography/Music

As a songwriter you’ve probably amassed a nice collection of songs and albums. So how to you best display them on a website? This example by Bob Spring is a nice option.

He adds an image of each album with buy buttons underneath. Fans will know the album title, release year, and where they can purchase the album. If they click the album cover it takes them to a page with more info on the album. It also lists each track so fans can preview each song.

With our music feature you choose the length of the preview and also if you want to sell singles. If so, you have a variety of options including free download, free in exchange for email address, fixed price or fans pay-what-you-want.

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

Placements

Getting your songs placed in television, film, or other projects is a major accomplishment! If you’ve been fortunate enough to get placements, prominently show them off on your songwriter website.

To see how impressive this is, take a look at the film/tv page of songwriter/producer, Diona Devincenzi.

Adding the logo of the project you worked on quickly identifies you as a legitimate player in the songwriting game. Another great option is to add a music player or video under each logo so fans can hear the tune that went with the project.

Having a placements page also lets other companies know you have experience. You can even add a testimonials section if you’ve received positive reviews of your work.

Press Kit

Industry professionals are always looking for great talent, but their time is limited. Make it easy for them to learn about you and your work with an electronic press kit (EPK) page. This is one page on your website that summarizes all the other pages.

Our preset EPK page is setup with the essential features you need to make industry folks stop and take notice. Britt Dignan’s press kit page is a good case in point.

The page is thoughtfully organized without too many things to clutter the page. Remember, you only have a small window of time to grab the visitor’s attention. Make sure you only put the most relevant and popular content on your EPK page.

[Create an electronic press kit for your band]

Store

As a songwriter you may think you can only get paid through performances and placements. Not so! You have several other ways to make money with your songwriting skills.

A wonderful idea comes to us from award-winning singer/songwriter, Douglas Haines. He offers site visitors the opportunity to create a custom song.

Over the past 15 years, Douglas has written custom songs for almost 3000 people! Imagine how cool this is for weddings, engagements, birthdays and so many more occasions. People love this sort of thing, and because you have the skills you can offer this too.

If you have a spirit of teaching as well, consider offering co-writing sessions and songwriting mentorships. These can be sold in blocks of time on your store page to increase your income.

Contact

The final stop on any music website is the contact page. This is where visitors can get in touch with you for questions or writing opportunities.

This page needs three things - a custom form, a mailing list signup form, and social media links. Experienced songwriter and music therapist, Tom Rossi, shows us a functional contact page.

Although we offer a built-in mailing list sign up form, you also have the option of using outside mailing list services like Mailchimp or Constant Contact. The benefit to using ours is, it’s part of your paid plan.

We have mail templates, mail stats, and tools so you can send at a later date or to a specific region. With all the available features it’s easy to keep fans and industry pros informed of all your new tunes.

These website examples are just the tip of the iceberg! You can see many more website design examples on our Examples page and the Beautiful Band Websites section of our blog. For even more insight check out our blog post - 10 principles of great music web design. Give it a try and before you know it, you’ll have an awesome songwriter website!