It can be very useful to have Improved Initiative so that your party get's the benefits of the song a round earlier than they otherwise might.
As others have mentioned, I find bards make very good archers as well. Point blank, precise shot and rapid shot, likely in that order is a good path to follow. Taking some levels of fighter for extra BAB and more feats can be helpful as well, but that will greatly slow your spellcasting, so I'd exercise some caution there.
I haven't seen any successful melee bards yet, though I haven't seen many of them either. I suppose you could make a fencer style bard using rapier with weapon finesse and so forth, but his damage will likely trail the fighters and he's going to get rolled by any attacks that land since he's only wearing light armor and only has those puny d6's for hit points. Seems that expertise will be key in keeping up AC, and maybe the whole dodge, mobility, spring attack feat tree can help, but that's a lot of levels worth of feats for this class.