Website Builder
Creating a website for your music and brand is easy with the Rhythmic Rebellion Site Builder!
In this video, we'll be showing you how to build a sample website using the Site Builder functions & features.
But, before we get into building a website, take note of our Help Feature. Click on the blue question mark at the bottom right corner of your Rhythmic Rebellion page and search for answers to any questions you may have. You can also send an email request directly to our support team if you can’t find what you are looking for!
Before you start building your website, you'll need to create your assets. Click on the Assets tab to create Songs, Albums, Videos and other things you'll use on your website. Under the Fans tab you'll find the Artist Premiere, Crowdfunding, and the Gift Codes creator. This is also where you manage your fan Mailing List.
To get started building your website, click on the Artist Site Builder. Don’t confuse this with the Songwriter Site Builder in your Songwriter Account. Build your Artist Website after you’re done with creating all your content in your Songwriter Account. If you’re a singer-songwriter, you must create all your songs in your Songwriter Account first. If you're an artist, inside your Artist Account, your SRT's will connect back to those songwriter Song Compositions that you've previously created.
If you've started a website, you'll see your current website displayed. Click on Themes to view our easy-to-use template themes or select to start and design from scratch. Note that if you click on Start from Scratch and apply it, it will erase any current website content you have.
Now that we have a blank site, let’s add some pages. Click on the Pages menu. The Home Page is already established as the first page, so let’s add another. Click the + button, and Page 2 will be added. Click on the menu dots and you can rename the page, copy it, make it your home page, delete it, or simply hide it from view. Hiding your page allows you to publish changes to your existing pages without publishing the pages you're not finished with. Now let’s click on our Home Page again, so the Site Builder knows that this is the page we want to start working on.
Next let’s choose our palette and background the Styles menu. There's a list of predetermined color palettes that work well together. Once you click on a palette from the list below, the palette will show up at the top. If you want to change one of the colors in the palette, simply click on that column, and select another color and that color will added. For the background, choose to have it as a color, a gradient, an image, or a video. For now we'll just choose a color from our palette.
Now that we have the foundation of our website set up, let’s review some key functions of the Site Builder. One thing to keep in mind is that 90% of your viewers will be looking at your website from a mobile device, so be sure to switch between the desktop view & mobile view while creating your site, to make sure the formatting looks correct. There are also “safe areas” of your website - you can see the edges of the safe area marked by red lines. While it’s fine if colors and backgrounds expand past the safe area, you should avoid having any text or important content extending over the safe area line as it could be cut off when viewing your website on a smaller screen or tablet.
There is also an option to build your website to a grid. Simply click on the gear icon next to the Desktop / Mobile Display buttons and then click on grid. This will display an alignment grid to help you build your website in a balanced way. You can also change the amount of grid lines that are shown. Click on snapping to have features you add snapped in place along the grid. If you don’t have snapping enabled, you can see how you can easily place items anywhere on the grid. There's also an option here to choose whether feature names are displayed when you're building your site and you can also view Keyboard Shortcuts. Take some time to review the Keyboard Shortcuts, as they could help you build your website more time efficiently!
Another function that can help you is the ability to Copy & Paste Features. When you add a feature and hover your mouse over it, there will be an icon that looks like two pages on top of one another, clicking this will ask you where you want a copy of this feature to be placed. Choose the page you want it to be copied to, and click apply. This is useful if you want to place the same feature on multiple pages that has already been formatted and customized to your liking. Since we have a feature added, let’s take a look at some more standard feature options. If you click on the PIN button, this will pin a feature to your site so that when you scroll up and down on a page, that feature will stay “pinned” to that location - so it will always be in view. Next is the button for changing the order of layers. This is important if you have multiple layers of backgrounds, blocks, or other features on your site and you need to change the order of appearance. For example, you don’t want a gallery image to be in front of a text feature, so if you add a gallery image after you already created the text, you can click and adjust the layer order to move the image behind the text. Simply click the layer button to move the selected feature to the bottom or “back” layer of the site, move the feature down by one layer at a time, move the feature up one layer at a time, or have the feature move to the top most layer. The next button is a gear icon that simply brings up the settings for a feature, and then finally we have the trash icon that you can click to delete a feature.
The last thing we will go over before we start adding features is how to shorten or lengthen a page. To change the length of a page simply hover your mouse over the dotted border line at the bottom of your page, outside of the safe area. Your mouse icon will change and then you can click & drag to either shorten or lengthen your website page.
The first feature we are going to add is the Menu Feature. Click and drag the Menu onto your site. You'll see your existing pages displayed as the menu. You can also click and drag the corners to resize the menu if you’d like. Click on the Link setting to the right and then click the plus icon. You can add links to external websites or create new pages for your site in the dropdown menu. Next in the View setting, you can enable or disable the background, and change the color of the background as well as the opacity. You can also change the alignment of the menu items within the menu bar. There is a Fixed Menu option here that enables you to have the menu stay fixed to the screen while you are scrolling up and down the website.
Next is the Button setting. Here you can change how your menu buttons look and function by changing the text color, hover color, the background, background hover color, the radius of the buttons as well as the spacing. These next few settings are applicable across many of the features of the Site Builder. You can add a border, change its color, and choose what sides it appears on as well as change how the border reacts when a mouse hovers over it. Next you can add a drop shadow and adjust the color and location of the drop shadow by changing the values in the appropriate fields.
Now let’s add a banner image using the Gallery Feature. Click and drag the Gallery Feature from the Feature Panel in your Site Builder down to your website. You can either upload an image or use one that you've previously uploaded. If you’d like, you can use more than one image in your gallery.
Next, let’s add some Text that welcomes users to our site and briefly introduces us. There are many formatting options for your text and we have gone over them in further detail in a dedicated video. Now let’s add some Sharing Icons and Social Media Features. Clicking and dragging the Share Feature places a block of sharing links to your website. This enables a visitor to share your site via different social networks or by simply copying the link to your website and sharing it manually. The Social Button Feature enables users to like or follow you on the social media platforms they are currently signed in to. The Social Feed Feature enables you to add a content stream of your social media pages to your account. For example, I can add a Facebook feed to my site by adding my URL and then selecting what content I’d like to have appear.
Next, let’s add a Video Feature. Click and drag the Video Feature from the Features Panel and then select from a list of videos you've previously uploaded to your account. If you don’t have any videos uploaded, visit your Asset Manager and you can upload the videos there. Like many of the other features, you can click & drag on the corners (points) to resize the feature.
Now let’s add a Playlist. Click and drag the Playlist Feature to your site. You can either select a pre-existing playlist or create one here. You can also create Playlists and Albums in your Asset Manager but you must have Songs and Albums uploaded to your Asset Manager beforehand in order for them to show up inside of the website features.
Next let’s use the Block Feature. The Block Feature is an extremely useful tool for building your website and maintaining it. Any features you place within a block will become a part of that block, allowing you to move blocks or sections of content around your website with ease. There's an individual video tutorial on the Block Feature that explains the functions in depth. Let’s take our Block Feature and make it the width of our page and change the background color. Next, let’s add a Mailing List Feature. This feature is useful in creating mailing lists so that you can inform your fans when you have new music, tour dates, or any updates you’d like to share with them. Let’s place the Mailing List Feature within the Block so that it becomes part of the Block. Now you can easily move the Block and Mailing List around as one unit on your site!
One thing you might want to consider adding to your site is a Next Page button at the bottom of your pages. Click & drag the Button Feature to your site. Choose the Link setting and select what page to link to. You can then rename it to “Next Page” or whatever you see fit. This allows viewers of your site to easily click to the next page of your website without having to scroll back to the top of the page. You can also add more buttons for other pages on your website if you’d like. There are many more features you can add to your website, and there are dedicated to articles and videos on those features to guide you on using them. Feel free to mix and match features to see what looks and works best for your site.
If you are looking to save a little time, you can also build a website using one of the pre-designed themes. Simply select a theme and then choose to either preview the theme to see what it looks like or you can apply it to your site. Note that when you do this, any pre existing work done to your website will be erased. Now that you have the theme installed, you can easily go through the website and change the finer details of theme as well as the sample content. For most features simply click on the feature and then click on the gear icon to access the settings or double click on a feature. From there, simply replace any of the pre-existing content with items from your own Asset Manager. For example, to replace a gallery feature, click and open the Feature Settings, then click on the Gallery item you’d like to add, then scroll down and remove the theme’s preview photo. Then click Apply. Now let's take a look at replacing an Album. Access the Album Feature's Settings, then click Un-Attach. Then you can choose an album that you have in your asset manager to replace it. Don’t forget to create your album in the Album Assets from songs that you've previously created in the Song menu within the Asset Manager. If there are items within the theme that you don’t want, simply delete them by clicking on them and clicking the trash icon, or clicking once and hitting delete on your keyboard. If you delete items from the theme, you will most likely have empty space and need to decrease the size of your website. Simply click on the dashed lines outside the safety area and resize your website page.
Whenever you're working on your website, we recommend saving every few minutes to make sure any progress is not lost. At any time you can click Preview Page to see what your website looks like without publishing it. Once you Publish your website, it is live and available for anyone to see. Each time you make changes to your website you must click Publish again to publish any new changes. After you publish your website, you can click on the View Website link and review the live version of your site. When you're viewing that page, you can copy and paste the URL and share it with your friends and fans!
Having a website is a great way to boost your online presence and to interact with your fans and we hope this video helped you in crafting your own Rhythmic Rebellion site! There are more videos available for the individual features in the Site Builder, so if you're looking to find out more about a feature, there are more tutorials available in our Knowledge Base!
A Site Builder is a Way to Build a Website
A site builder is a program that allows you to build a website online. The Site Builder for Rhythmic Rebellion was built to allow Songwriters and Artists alike to create websites. They can use that website to do a variety of things like:
- Sell their music to fans
- Give paid access to private content
- Crowdfunding opportunities
- Gift codes
- And other ways to monetize their music!
You can find our Site Builder on the toolbar at the top of your screen inside your Songwriter or Artist Account.
Click into the Site Builder and you'll find a variety of features that can be included and input right into your own website.
These features include:
- Themes - Used as templates so that you can directly input your information into an already created website making the entire process much easier!
- Pages - This feature allows you to control what's on each individual page of your website. For instance, an Artist will have a Home Page, a Music Page, a Shows Page, and possibly an About Me Page. These pages can each be customized so that your website is as robust as you want it to be!
- Palettes - Palettes are just the color choices for your website. With every change to the palette of your website, the colors available will be different but will match well with each other.
- Background - This feature will change the entire background of your website.
- Features - Here you'll find all the various features your can put onto the different pages of your website. To input a feature onto your website, simply click & drag it to where you want that feature placed, then drop it. From there, you can customize what the feature does or how it looks. You can also move it around the page to see how it looks in different places on your website.
