5 Simple Must Have Features for Your Studio Website
Are you wanting to refresh your website? Or do you need some new ideas to draw in clients? Summertime is the perfect time for a fresh new look! Listen in to hear 5 great ideas to update and renew your website!
Enjoy This Week’s Transcript!
I have a great idea for you. This summer, you are going to update and refresh your studio website! Now, I did not say sometime this year or in the next two years. We're going to do this in this summer. So you have the next couple of months to take a look at your website. You're going to say goodbye to the old photography, the old blog posts from ten years ago, and all of the PDF downloads for your students. Your new website is going to be up to date, modern, and really convey that you are a professional teacher in every single way.
So where do you start with updating your website? First, what you'll need to do is take a look at your current website and decide if you'd like to move website builders, get a new domain or keep what you've got and just work with that. I would say if it has been 5+ years, then it might be worth getting something new. If you're using something like BlogSpot or MyMusicStaff, it was a great start, but you don't need that anymore. Having a fresh website is going to be a perfect place to send potential clients and referrals that you're getting from other people. It's a space that you are proud of, for others to learn about you and to get an instant impression of who you are as a teacher. Even if it's just used for that, to show who you are, what you do and how professional you are, we might need that to help convert potential students over into actual students.
So today I'm going to walk you through some steps for building your website. I'm going to focus specifically on five must-have features on your website, if you're kind of at a loss as to how to update your website. And I know it sounds really overwhelming, you probably have already thought of this, this is not a new idea for you and it might even feel like the absolute last thing that you have time for. But if you are planning on teaching music online for years to come, this is a must and should be at the top of your priority list. That's why I am assigning it to you now to do over the summer. And really, it's not going to take you that long, if you have the right guidance.
Inside Teach Music Online, I walk you through it step-by-step with 20+ video lessons, showing you how to build your studio website from scratch. I even provide examples and specific templates for building your website so that you don't have to think too hard. And I'm actually really proud of these templates because I give you a template for every single page of your website as a studio owner. It'll show you how to write out your Lesson Information page, your About page, your Videos page, your contact form, all of which you need. And I talk about the things that you don't need and you can just eliminate from your website. This course, along with many others, will save you countless hours trying to figure it out on your own. The course is called Studio Website Builder and it's inside Teach Music Online right now, so our members get access to this bonus course in addition to all the other materials and coaching inside TMO. Okay, let's dive into the five must have features on your website. You can use this checklist as a mini audit and then come and join the course to get the real how-to and finally have that killer website that I know you've been wanting and I know you know you need!
First, use a direct call to action on your home page. This is also sometimes called a CTA. A call to action is a phrase and button that allows people to see that you are accepting students. Consider phrases like ‘Schedule your trial lesson today!’ or ‘Ready to learn? Start lessons today!’. Without a call to action, your potential students may browse your entire website and never take the next step. You cannot expect anyone to go out of their way to reach out to you, because people have a lot going on, and you just have a few seconds with them on your website before they are out of there. They're gone. So make sure you have that call to action very clearly visible! Whether it’s in the top right corner, or on the side, they shouldn’t have to scroll to find it or they won’t try to find it.
The second feature is beautiful photography that reflects you. I'm sure you have a friend or a family member who has a nice camera or maybe even a student. You just have to find somebody with a camera other than a cell phone. Phones are okay for social media posts, but for your website you must have new, updated headshots. Go and get them done. Just go find a local studio, find wherever you do your recitals, in person recitals or anywhere with a nice piano. If you play a different instrument, maybe you can do it in your house. Anywhere that you can pose next to your piano or instrument.
I would also add, look up some natural ways to interact with the photographer so that your pictures don't look too stiff. I want you to call somebody today and get this scheduled. Schedule a time to have somebody come and take some photos of you. Maybe you have to pay $100-200 to get them done. But if you can get a set of photographs for your business, you'll be able to use them in a lot of ways, not just on your website, but on social media. It's just nice to have some fresh updated photos. Website photography is the number one thing that will set you apart from competitors when someone is shopping for a teacher. So using nice headshots, along with pictures of you inside your studio is going to be really helpful.
I know a lot of teachers are hesitant because they just don't like having photos taken of them, period. But here's the deal. Your students are going to be taking lessons with you. They want to get to know you and your personality a little bit. And you can't just completely hide yourself before they even meet you. Just be yourself and try not to put too much pressure on it. Just have fun.
Third is a video demo of your studio. Yes, you are going to record yourself talking about your studio. The best way for others to learn about what you offer is hearing it from you. Video marketing is the number one way to win new clients and it's a great opportunity to really show off what you've got! So set up your camera and start recording. You can even use your phone for this. I would recommend using either a phone or an iPad for the next level because those are more HD or 4K, rather than your computer camera, which likely isn't. So set up a camera, make a little welcome video and practice smiling and being excited, then put that video on the homepage of your website so people can instantly get to know you. You could also post it on your YouTube channel.
Fourth, add a button for scheduling lessons with you. This is a must-have. Make it as easy as possible to onboard a new student in your studio. And this is something I go through in depth inside TMO. I make it very clear and give you all kinds of templates for how to onboard new students without ever having to contact you. So that means they can find you, they can set up a trial lesson with you and they could even send over a registration form without ever having to, you know, schedule that time with you one on one, where you're going back and forth. Set up your automated calendar and scheduling today with an app like Fons that will allow you to put that button on your website. I will add a link to Fons in the show notes where you can click through and do a trial with Fons if you haven't used it yet. Basically, you can set up what's called a meet and greet automatically that syncs with your calendar. So let's say, on Fridays from 3 to 5, you have that time set aside for meeting new students or potential students. You can set it up so that they can go straight there and sign up for a time, and you just have to approve it, and it's that easy.
The fifth feature is a clear, concise, and easy to understand Information Page. Please do not hide your prices. Be loud and proud about what you offer and how much you charge. I don't think there are very many people who go to your website and look for pricing and then they're like, “Oh, it's okay, I'll just reach out to them and figure it out”. I think having your pricing is really a good idea. There are a few circumstances where you might not, like if you offer different packages, or maybe if it depends on their level. That might be the exception. If not, though, your pricing should be very clear. This makes it easier for people to make quick decisions. Also, keep your lesson information short and to the point. They just want to know what you include as a part of your studio experience. So make it sound really good. You can use bullet points or something so that they can quickly skim. And again, I give a million examples of how to do this inside the course. Also, I give you a template to fill out so if you're listening and you don't have a website at all, and you're starting from the beginning, those templates could be so helpful, because then you don’t have to start from scratch. I want to make it as easy as possible for you so that you can really shine on your studio website.
Let me go over those five features really quick again, as a quick recap. The first one was to use a direct Call to Action or CTA. Number two is to have beautiful photography that reflects your business and your personality. Number three is to share a video demo of you and your studio. Number four is to make sure you have a button for scheduling lessons with you. Number five is an easy to understand information page. This checklist should help you quickly identify which areas of your website need improvement. There's probably at least one of those that you heard that you either don't have or that you need updated on your current website.
I love helping teachers proudly showcase their studio through a website. So this is going to be a big game changer for you. And I'm serious. If you need to work on this, the time is right now. It's not next year, it's now. It's right now. There are so many awesome website builders out there for you to choose from. My preference is Squarespace. I think they have the best templates that are really easy to use and quickly learn how to design. And that's the website builder I use inside the Studio Website Builder Course, where I actually have videos of me building a website that you can watch so you can quickly learn how to use it. Wix is a close competitor. I've built a website with them before and they also have those templates that are super easy to use. Again, if you need help with this, the fastest way is to join TMO and use our Studio Website Builder Course. This is where you'll learn how to design your site and create every single page you need. I even walk you through this with video. Though it feels overwhelming, it's not going to take you that long to update your website or create a new one. You can get started inside TMO again with the Studio Website Builder Course, and I'll help you learn how to use Squarespace, but you can also apply everything I teach to any other website builder that you're currently using or one that you want to switch over to. So I hope you're excited, I hope that you feel motivated, and I hope that you understand that a website for a studio owner is not complex. It should not have a ton of text. So it really is more about narrowing down what you want to convey as a brand, and that is what takes time, is your branding and kind of figuring out how you're unique and how you can stand out and then piecing it all together in a way that looks beautiful and is exciting.
When people land on your website, you want them to go, wow, this teacher is professional. They have testimonials from students they are excited about teaching. They include all these awesome things in their studio. I think it's worth doing a trial lesson with them or doing a meet and greet. You want to do all you can to get them to think that the moment they learn about you and land on that website. Thank you so much for listening. I hope that this was helpful and please feel free to reach out if you have any questions at all or if you want further help with building your website.
Link to Fons: https://fons.com/
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