I just did a major MAKE-OVER on ours.
starlightdanceacademy.net

www.dancercise.com

I had a design agency create the template using Adobe Dreamweaver (uses CSS - Cascading Style Sheets so every page by default uses the same) then I use Adobe Contribute CS3 ($150) which makes it very easy for me to change content, add pages, add video, flash, music etc. I am also happy to share what I've found with respect to adding music (if, like us, you write and create your own music).
I also used Volusion (www.volusion.com) for our web store which while new we use to sell downloadable music to the parents of our kids (or studio owners for that matter). store.dancercise.com
Learned lots of tips and tricks for websites the hard way (many late nights) and happy to share them!

Wiltishs - your website looks great congrats!
Thanks for the link to where you run your online store. Just wondering about how you sell your music downloadable? i don't really understand that? THANKS

OK, so there's a lot to this depending on how detailed you want to get. Volusion (my shopping cart software) has the facility to set up downloadable purchases. It's a bit primitive in some ways, and really designed for software (in fact, the automated e-mail the purchaser gets says "Click here to download your software"). But basically it allows you to upload a whole catalog of products which you can define in a spreadsheet. What is also allows you to do is to use HTML and Flash in the product descriptions. So what I did was (with some very late nights and lots of help from Google) was: create clips of the songs using Audacity, and upload them to my website. Then I found an open source flash music player that allowed me to skin it with just the play button that you see. In the HTML I map each one to the song clip, so you get to play a clip of each song. Then in Volusion's interface you set up the name of the fully downloadable file, and update the product. Next you upload the full mp3 file to a specific place in your website, and then automagically it becomes a product that's downloadable. The customer adds it to the cart, checks out, then gets an e-mail with a link back to the site so they can download it.

It's quite complicated but once I figured it out it was easy to replicate for both the music that we have, and the video clips of our curriculum for dance studios, which you will also see there. I'm pretty proud of it - feel free to buy some music from me

And I just realized that you may have been asking me a different question - not about technically how it's done but how or why I get people to do that. If that's the case, I guess the answer is: "it could take many years and costs millions of lives" to get it on iTunes. I figure my buyer audience is a big more specialized and I could do it myself without having to get a formal record deal. I have dance studios that buy the music for their own choreography, or perhaps buy the whole curriculum. Either way, I figure that people want instant gratification so I chose to make it downloadable rather than the more traditional CD purchase, since virtually everyone can burn a CD these days. In fact in our studio, we play all of our songs on an iPod through a speaker system, so we don't even bother with CDs anymore.

The Dance Difference, Ohio

thedancedifference.com


Angelina32

mine is:

pepinyourstepdancestudio.com

just a note, i got my website set up for free. check out a local tech school to see if anyone needs to set up websites for their portfolio and for experience. i didn't get EXACTLY what i wanted, but it still looks great! best part is, i don't ever have to pay for any updates or anything that she does to the site. i pay about $12 per year just to host the site. that's it!

the downside to this is that i feel guilty asking her to change or add things. i bought her the software that she needs as a gift, but it still doesn't feel like enough for a lifetime of website maintenance!

heavenlyrhythm.com

I'm in the midst of re-vamping it, and I would love opinions!

Autumn
Heavenly Rhythm Dance Studio

Just released our new website. Still need to add some video in strategic places and some additional content but it's done more or less (for now).

www.wagnerdancearts.com

Thank you Mandance.

Just thought I would add ours to the list! I have not seen anyones yet, so I hope as the creator, I am within the "basic" standards I used freewebs.com

www.AxisPerformingArts.com

Excellent idea.

bigbirdsballroom.com

I'd appreciate your comments and ideas, send them to steve@bigbirdsballroom.com

Thanks

www.steppinoutandturningpointe.com

just got ours done.let me know what you think!send me a PM for a faster response

Check out our website on www.BarriskillDance.com in Durham, NC

Check out our website on www.BarriskillDance.com in Durham, NC

I love soul2sole's website....it is quite entertaining

I love soul2sole's website....it is quite entertaining

all of these dance studio websites are cool to look at, and its fun to see everyones.

We are in the process of building a new one. A parent made this one for us, and we don't like the look.

DanceEndeavors.com

mabiclark wrote:

We are in the process of building a new one. A parent made this one for us, and we don't like the look.

DanceEndeavors.com

yes, you need a new one... but I love your studio wall idea on the picture!

heartnsouldance.com We are still working on it.

Thanks to kyladance I found freewebs.com and set up a great website, and it was soooo easy! freewebs.com . . . please check it out and give me any feedback you like.