Music Teachers Blog

Many music teachers wonder what they should put on their teaching studio website.

To answer this question, the first thing you need to ask yourself is, “What is the purpose of my website?” Are you using your studio website mainly as a place to attract new music students, to showcase your experience and abilities, or to service your existing students? (Or a combination of all of these?)

This post will cover how to attract new students to your website, and also how to get them to become new students once they get there.

Attracting New Students

If you want to attract new students from your website, your main goal will be to get the visitor to either call you, or to fill out the registration form on your studio website. Each page on your site should have a link to the registration page with reminder that encourages new students to register.

Here are some ideas of pages that can be helpful in encouraging new student registrations.

• Testimonials: If you don’t have testimonials from your students yet, ask your students or their parents to write a testimonial about how they’ve been pleased with your teaching, and post this on your website. If you can include photos of your students, that’s even better! You can have a testimonials page, or you can intersperse it with your other content.
• Photos of you and your studio: If you can show that you teach in a professional and clean environment, this can help improve the student’s perception of the quality of your studio. Your studio website includes a “photos” page specifically for this purpose, or you can put photos along with the text on any page. A nice photo of yourself goes a long way, too.
• Why take lessons?: Have information about the benefits of taking music lessons, including the mental, physical, social, and emotional benefits. Tell stories about how you have helped students achieve something worthwhile, or better yet, let your students tell it in a testimonial. Also, make sure you explain why taking lessons from you would be more beneficial from the next teacher down the street.
• Post your rates - or not?: The benefits of this are debatable, but most students and parents appreciate knowing your prices upfront. This also helps save both you and them time by making sure only those who are truly interested contact you.
• Keep News Up-to-date: Make sure to show upcoming events and activities in your news area. This helps students see that you take your teaching business seriously and that you have opportunities for the students to learn in different ways. You may even want to showcase or spotlight a student who has done well at a recent performance.

For more ideas, you can see other teacher’s studio websites by visiting our Testimonials page at www.musicteachershelper.com/testimonials and clicking any of the website links underneath a teacher’s name. (You may have to scroll down a bit).

How do I get students TO my website?

Of course, there is also the question of how to get students to your website. There are many ways to do this, including both on-line and off-line advertising. Make sure that all your off-line advertising (newspapers, magazines, etc.) contain a link to your studio website. Most people would rather visit a website than make a phone call, these days.

Search Engines

If you want your site to be found in the search engines, one of the most important tips is to get other websites to link to your website. This helps improve your rankings and also helps others find you through the referring sites. Also, if your students see that other websites are referring you, they may see you as being more credible.

If you want to be found under searches for a particular keyword, then make sure people are linking to your site using the keywords you want to be found under. For example, if the link text says “click here”, the link will do you little good. If the link includes your name and instrument, or city (or whatever keyword you want to be found with), it will be much more effective.

Use Keyword Phrases in Your Content

A big part of good search engine optimization is to use your chosen keyword phrases in the pages of your text many times. It can take months for search engines to find your website, but you can speed up the process by submitting your site to Google at http://www.google.com/addurl/
Learn more about search engine optimization at www.seomoz.org.

I hope you have found these tips helpful. All of the options for your studio website can be found under the “Home” tab -> “My Studio Website” menu. Click the “Website Pages” option to add to new pages to your site or update existing pages. Updating your website is as easy as using a word processor.

You can also watch the studio website video tutorial under the “Help” menu for detailed instructions on how to setup your website. If you need any help, feel free to contact our friendly and knowledgeable support team.

Posted in Promoting Your Studio |