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My Music Staff Web Hosting

My Music Staff Web Hosting

 

Piano studio website landing pageFor my piano studio website, I’ve been using WordPress for years, paying a hefty annual fee for web hosting. Recently, I decided to stop that and try the website builder that comes with My Music Staff, which I’m already paying for. Here are some thoughts after setting up a studio website in that ecosystem.

Creating a website with My Music Staff is extremely simple, so that’s a big plus. The downside is that the design options are severely limited.

Despite that, I think the website I built using My Music Staff looks acceptable, at least viewed on a mobile device. (You’re welcome to judge for yourself: https://www.lightpianostudio.com.) But I must say, the limitations are bound to be a drawback for many.

The layouts seem primarily designed to look good on mobile devices. That makes sense given that a high percentage of my website visitors are using mobile devices. Displayed in a desktop browser, the website I created definitely looks more clunky.

Here are some limitations I found frustrating:

  • As of today, there are only a few templates you can use, and you’re simply stuck with whatever layout options they offer.
  • There is no option to insert a single photo on its own. All photos are restricted to being presented with some sort of text or in a gallery of photos with a prearranged layout.
  • Most photos have to be square. There are a few overlays that give the illusion of other shapes. As a photographer who generally takes horizontal or vertical photos that I frame carefully, it can be annoying to have to present them as cropped, square photos.
  • Photos are often placed in the center of a large void with no option to tweak their placement, creating trapped white space that sometimes looks clumsy and unprofessional.
  • There is no native option to include videos, but it can be done by embedding videos hosted elsewhere (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.) in an HTML block. If you want to control the alignment, you’ll need to use a bit of HTML code. There’s no button for aligning to center or for taking up 100% of the horizontal space, etc.

Before now, these limitations were absolute deal breakers for me; but as the deadline to pay for another year of webhosting drew near, I decided I would attempt to use My Music Staff web hosting, despite the limitations. My goal is to use it for at least the year ahead.

Maybe My Music Staff will make improvements during that time? One can hope, right?

What service do you use to host your teaching studio website?

Selecting Bluetooth Speakers

Selecting Bluetooth Speakers

I recently added a pair of Bluetooth-enabled, nearfield studio monitors to my piano studio. Every time I use them I think, “Why didn’t I do this sooner?”

They sound fantastic!

Figuring out which speakers to buy can be overwhelming though, and that’s why I hadn’t done it sooner. The discovery process seemed daunting and tedious, so I put it off.

Finally, I was desperate for better sound quality and did the research to figure out what would work best for me.

When the Colourful Keys Blog asked me to write a guest post recently, I offered to create a short guide for choosing Bluetooth speakers based on what I had learned in the process of selecting mine.

That article was published today, so if that might be a helpful resource for you, head over to https://colourfulkeys.ie/speakers-piano-studio/ and have a read.

Have you tested your contact form lately?

Have you tested your contact form lately?

I rarely think about the contact form on my piano studio website. I had set up a new one several years ago, tested it extensively, then just left it alone. I’ve received many inquiries and new students via that form.

But last summer and through the following school year, I noticed I wasn’t getting as many piano lesson inquiries as usual. I was still able to fill all of my teaching slots for the school year, but it didn’t happen in early June as it usually does. What I failed to notice was that none of the inquiries I did get came through my website.

A few weeks ago, a gentleman interested in piano lessons left a voice message via the SpeakPipe widget on my contact page.

“I sent you a message a few days ago,” he said, “but I haven’t heard back, so I thought I’d try a voice message.”

I had not received his earlier message, so I went to my website and tested the contact form.

Fail!

Messages sent via the Contact Me form were not reaching me! Aaack! How long had that been going on? It could have been for an entire year or more.

Boy, did I feel stupid. I wonder how many potential student families have written me off for being a jerk because I failed to respond to their inquiries. I’m embarrassed; but, like always, we have to learn from our mistakes and move forward, so that’s what I’m doing. I’ve set a reminder in my Google calendar to test my contact form on the first day of each month going forward.

I thought if I shared this little story, someone might avoid making the same mistake I did. Please don’t just assume the contact form on your website is working. Test it periodically!

And maybe it wouldn’t hurt to include a second method for contact, like the SpeakPipe voice message widget. I’m just using the free plan. If I hadn’t had that, who knows how long my contact form would have remained broken before I discovered it?

Below, you can see the SpeakPipe voice message widget I mentioned. I use the free version and found it very simple to configure. Feel free to try it out and leave me a message!