For anyone that has worked in the wedding industry, either as a vendor, or in my case as a web designer that works with people in the wedding industry, pretty soon you will come across someone that has, or wants to add background music to your website. We understand why you want music on your website. You are trying to invoke emotion, where people can envision themselves using your services. But, that being said, there are several reasons why you may not want to use background music on your website. I go over this in the video below and even offer an alternative to background music on your website.

Reasons not to have Background Music on your Website

Music that autoplays can be a bad form for many reasons. If someone comes to your site at work and all of sudden has music playing, everyone around them, including their boss now knows they aren’t working. More often then not, web browsers will close the page instead of trying to find the on/off button for music, that is even assuming you have one. Many sites have no way of turning off music. For mobile users which could be up to 60% of your users, you should never have auto-play music. You don’t know if they are already listening to music which you are interrupting, plus its another thing to load on mobile, which reduced load times, and finally, bandwidth. I know I only buy a certain bandwidth package and I hate sites that autoplay because it is using my bandwidth for music I don’t want to listen to.

• Higher Bounce Rates
• Slower Load Times
• Less Shares
• Less time on site

A better alternative to background music

A better alternative to having music on your website is instead do a slide show video. If you are a flower shop, do a slideshow video with pictures of all your bouquets and then overlay music, upload it to Youtube and then embed the video on your website. This works from a ton of reasons.

• Won’t autoplay on mobile devices
• Give a more visual element with music. Better display of what you do.
• With the proper description that Youtube video can act as a great SEO tool for ranking and marketing.

Copyright of Music

One thing to be careful about is not just using any old music. You can’t just rip a CD and play it on your website. Instead you need to have a license to use that music. Most people use what is called Royalty Free Music. As an example, the most popular music, assuming you can get a license, might require a yearly fee, or a “Royalty” per 1000 plays or even in some cases, a percentage of revenue! Instead, find royalty free music you can buy with a one time fee.

Too many Options to use Background Music

I hope this gives you a better alternative to using background music that also helps your customers and you. Leave a comment below if you want another video using something like iMovie to create a slide show video. Or, if you create a video using the above method, share your site so we can check it out!