HOW TO BUILD A WEBSITE THAT WILL LAND YOU ROLES

Your website is an opportunity to craft a cohesive, uninterrupted experience of you. Since it will be available around the world, 24/7 it is important to cover your bases. Your goal is to keep people engaged for as long as possible – to the point where they want to know more. Not only are you influencing what people think about you, but how they feel about you as well.

“People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.” –Maya Angelou

Think about how you like to make a first impression in person. Now try to align everything about you on the internet so that your personality virtually radiates, without you being in the room. You want your site to be welcoming, uplifting, funny. Never intimidating, egotistical, etc. This can be achieved from three different angles.

Technical.

  • Domain name. Ideally, your domain is yourname.com. If this is not available, try yournametheactor.com or castyourname.com. It is also a good idea to buy the .net and .org – usually, it’s only a few extra bucks per year – to catch anyone who might be searching for you. You could even dedicate one of these pages to your reel so that you can send a direct link to casting directors.
  • Website hosting. We like WordPress primarily because it’s easy to use. It also offers a lot of customizable templates to further instill your brand image into the heads of your visitors.
  • Loading time. The worst thing that could happen is to have someone go to check out your site but then land on a page that won’t load. To avoid this test your website on all browsers for Mac and Windows and on Wifi and Cellular connections. This is easy to find out with a resize my browser tool. If you uncover pages that load slowly, resize images and post older, text-heavy pages in an archive folder.

Aesthetic.

As we talked about in our Social Media for Actors post, consistency is everything. It builds trust. When choosing colors – no more than three – it works well to complement your headshot. This is another aspects of your site that will drive home that consistent image.

Content.

There are several things you can’t get away with not including on your site. Most importantly:

    • Contact info.
    • Resume, with PDF download available. Do not rely on IMDb for your filmography. There are too many distracting ads, and you will lose control of how others experience you.
    • Headshot. You can have a variety of other images throughout your site – but not too many – and only if they are consistent with your brand.
    • Concise bio.
    • Social media links. Connect all your accounts! Keeping in mind from our post on Branding, there’s no need to connect inactive accounts.
    • Reviews or testimonials. This can be from other actors you’ve worked with or casting professionals!

Of course, share your website URL whenever you can! Your URL should be in the signature of your email; the bio of your IMDb, LinkedIn, social media profiles; and any website you have a membership to. Put it on your business card and embed it on your resume – nowadays most people view this on a computer anyways. You might as well make it as easy as possible for a potential employer – or casting director – to get to your site.  Remember, people are inherently lazy. Make yourself accessible!