Here’s a slightly uncomfortable truth: people are going to Google you. Promoters, festival programmers, conductors, journalists, fellow musicians, the person deciding whether to put you forward for a competition. They will type your name into a search bar, and whatever comes up first becomes their first impression of you as a professional.
The good news is that you get to decide what they find. That’s what a website is: the one corner of the internet you fully control. Instagram and TikTok are wonderful for reach, but they’re rented space, governed by an algorithm that doesn’t care about your career. Your website is the room you own. It’s where your bio lives, where your best performance sits at the top of the page, where someone can find out how to actually book you without having to slide into your DMs.
And here’s the reassuring part, especially if you’re early in your career: a great first website doesn’t need to be big, expensive, or technically clever. It needs to be clear. The strongest young-musician sites I reviewed weren’t the flashiest. They were simply the easiest to use. So before you commission yours, or fire up a website builder at midnight, here are the ten things worth getting right.
1. Make your homepage understandable in about three seconds
When someone lands on your site, they should instantly know: who you are, what you do, what makes you you, and what to click next. That’s it. Name, instrument or voice type, one short sentence about your artistic focus, and one clear button.
Think “British cellist specialising in concerto, chamber and recital work” paired with a single strong photo and a “Watch featured performance” link. If a visitor can’t work out who you are within a few seconds, the page is already losing them. Web-credibility researchers have been saying this for years (first impressions online form astonishingly fast), and the best musician sites quietly put it into practice.
2. Lead with one brilliant clip, not a media avalanche
You want people to hear or watch you fast. But there’s a trap here: the temptation to upload everything. Twenty videos with no hierarchy is worse than one perfect one, because the visitor doesn’t know where to start, so they start nowhere.
Pick your single best recent performance or recording and put it near the top. One “listen first” moment. Then, below that, build out a small, curated library grouped by context: concerto, recital, chamber, new release. Curate like you’re programming a recital, not clearing out a hard drive.
3. Show that your career is actually happening right now
Nothing signals “working professional” like a list of upcoming dates. A short “Upcoming” or “Selected engagements” block, listing venue, city, who you’re playing with, and a tickets or “more info” link, is one of the strongest trust signals you can offer.
You don’t need a packed diary. Three to six current dates beats a sprawling, half-empty news archive every time. A modest but current calendar says “I’m active.” A stale events page from eighteen months ago says the opposite, loudly.
4. Write two bios: a short one and a proper one
One biography can’t do every job. So give yourself two. A short version that someone can scan in ten seconds, and a fuller one that presenters, writers, and competition panels can lift straight into a programme. Cover where you’re based, your key achievements, and what makes your playing distinctive.
If it suits you, add a brief artistic statement or personal note as well, a sentence or two in your own voice about what you care about. Done well, it humanises the whole site without making it feel unprofessional. It’s the difference between a CV and a person.
5. Make your credibility visible (without showing off)
Programmers and collaborators often make quick, comparative decisions. A few well-chosen proof points help them say yes. Selected press quotes, competition results, notable collaborators, labels, festivals, orchestras, venues: pick two or three and put them where they’ll be seen.
This isn’t about boasting. It’s about reassurance. You’re quietly telling a visitor that you already operate in recognised professional contexts, so they don’t have to take a risk to find out. Early in a career, reducing doubt is half the battle.
6. Build a real press kit (it’s rarer than you’d think)
This one is a genuine differentiator, because surprisingly few young artists do it. A proper press kit makes life dramatically easier for exactly the people who can advance your career.
Include high-resolution photos (with photographer credits), a short bio, a long bio, a handful of press quotes, and ideally a tidy one-page PDF, all bundled into a simple download. When a promoter or journalist can grab everything they need in one click at 11pm before a deadline, you become the easy artist to work with. That matters more than you’d guess.
7. Make getting in touch completely effortless
A professional opportunity should never slip away because someone couldn’t figure out where to write. Put a clear contact route on every serious page, and use the same wording site-wide, such as “Booking enquiries.”
Be explicit about how it works. If you have management, name them. If there are regional agents, list them. If you handle your own enquiries, just say so and give a direct email. No cleverness required: the only goal is to remove uncertainty.
8. Let social media support the site, not take it over
You can’t ignore Instagram, YouTube, or Spotify, and you shouldn’t. But link out to them — don’t build your homepage around embedded feeds. A wall of social posts clutters the experience, and those widgets quietly slow your pages down and drag in extra cookie-consent headaches.
Simple social icons in the header or footer, manual links to your latest release, and maybe an email sign-up for the audience you own (rather than the one a platform rents you). Your website should be the destination your social bios point to, not a mirror of them.
9. Get the boring technical basics right
Not glamorous, genuinely important. Most people will find your site on a phone, whether from a social link, a programme note, or a ticket page, so it has to look great on a small screen first. Beyond that: clear text headings (not words baked into images), a sitemap, Google Search Console connected, properly sized responsive images, and structured data for your profile and events.
You don’t need to understand the mechanics. You just need a site builder, or a developer, who does. These are the invisible things that help search engines understand who you are and help real people use your site on the device in their pocket.
10. Treat accessibility and the legal bits as part of being professional
This is publishing responsibly, and it reflects well on you. Captions on performance videos, transcripts where they make sense, no autoplaying audio (everyone hates that), keyboard-friendly controls, and readable contrast. Add a clear privacy notice and honest cookie information.
And one that catches people out: make sure you actually have the right to use your own photos, films, and recordings. Copyright in a photograph usually belongs first to the photographer unless it’s been assigned to you in writing, so get permissions sorted in writing, and credit your collaborators. It’s good practice, and it keeps you out of awkward conversations later.
A simple structure is usually all you need
If you take nothing else away, take this: a small, sharp website that you actually keep up to date beats a grand one that quietly goes stale. A sensible first-site structure is just Home, About, Media, Calendar, Press Kit, Contact. Add Repertoire, Projects, Teaching, News, or a Shop later, but only once each page will genuinely serve a purpose and stay current.
None of this depends on being famous yet. In fact, young artists arguably benefit most from a well-made first website, because it closes the gap between promise and professionalism. It tells the industry you’re not only talented, but organised, credible, and ready to work at a high level. That’s exactly what a first website should do.
At Knight Classical, we build websites for artists at every career stage, from a first site to a full rebuild. If you’d like a hand getting yours right, I’d love to hear from you. Get in touch at martin@knightclassical.com.
