Why Use Content Management Systems
If you want a professional website that has high traffic and retains visitors, please don’t put background music on your website. It’s a good rule of thumb to stick with. There are always exceptions, but for the most part, you should take this small tid-bit of wisdom to heart.
Cases when playing background music would be considered acceptable
1. If you sell music, your visitors will want to hear a sample of your product before they buy. All of the popular online music sites offer this feature. Visitors to those sites expect it, and they know that they will have to wait for the short download to begin playing.
2. If you’re a musician or in a band and are creating a website about your work, then it would only be reasonable to have some of your songs playing in the background. Those who like what they hear can contact you for more information, and when they do you will know they are serious since they liked what they heard.
3. If you have an establishment or events that revolve around music – Playing music might help set the mood of what to expect at your establishment or event.
4. Personal Websites – Personal websites are off the table. Express yourself freely with whatever song you like if this is what you wish to do.
In most other cases, music is a bad idea. Why?
1. Mostly Unprofessional – When unexpected, music usually seems out of context and unprofessional. Unless you are selling music or musical services, your visitor is not coming to your site to listen to music – they are coming for another reason: to make a purchase, to read a story, to learn a skill, etc.
2. Repeatedly Annoying – When repeated, music becomes annoying. If your visitor is spending time on your web page (which is a good thing) and your web page is playing the same little tune over and over again, it quickly becomes annoying. You don’t want to drive your visitors away.
3. Large Files – When large, music files can take a long time to download. Not everyone has a high speed connection, and if the music files associated with your page is large, it can take a long time for your page to download for some users. Most will not stick around.
4. Legal Issues – Do you have the legal right to broadcast the song you want play as background music? If you don’t, you might get away with it for a while, but if you plan on your website ever having any amount of significant traffic, be warned. The more popular your website, the more likely you will get noticed playing songs illegally. Litigation, fines, and law suites are no fun unless you composed and performed the music, you probably need permissions and rights to put the music on your site.
5. Taste In Music – Everyone has different tastes in music. What songs you like, others may detest and the last thing you want to do is drive people away before they even look at your content.
6. Music Already Playing – Now days, people spend a lot of time on their computers. Because of this, they often have music playing from Cd’s, MP3s, Internet radio, etc. on their computer to help pass the time. How annoying is it when you visit a website and it starts playing music that mixes in with your music? Nothing fun about trying to listen to two tracks at the same time. The quick fix will be to leave your website.
7. Public Computers – Nothing like being at work and hitting a website that all of a sudden starts blaring music at 300 decibels. It’s highly unlikely you will get many return visitors if that happens!
If you feel its appropriate to play background music on your website
Be sure to give your visitors the choice of listening or not. Display PLAY, PAUSE, and VOLUME controls on your website in plain view so that people can have the option to turn it off or lower the volume. In addition to being a welcome choice for users, it can also help to make your page load faster. So in other words, don’t pay music automatically when the page loads.
Hope this helps 🙂
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