Do you need a Website for your Acting Career? by Tony Nation
In today’s ever-changing market, every working actor needs a website for their acting business. Trying to perform in NYC with any regularity? A website offers a fantastic tool for you to be able to showcase instantly to agents, casting directors and the industry who you are as an actor, what’s unique about you and what you do as talent. But if you’ve never had a website, where do you start? When do you need one? Should you pay to have someone build you one? What needs to be on your website?
First off, if you’re a working actor you NEED a website. It’s important that you are searchable via the web (Google, Yahoo, Bing etc). With a website, you can control the content and how you’re pitching yourself as a performer. You also want to make sure that everything you’re putting on the web is material that you would want the Industry to see. Anything that you might be embarrassed by i.e. Facebook postings, Youtube videos etc. you want to remove instantly. I also think that if you’re currently using Facebook for your business of acting that the page you are using is solely for that purpose. Keep your private life separated from your business life.
Start a Website
In starting a website, first you need to look at do you have the time and technical skills to build one or do you want to have a web designer or company create one for you. If you can operate a computer and know programs like Microsoft Word, you can actually build your own website for FREE using online resources like Moonfruit or Wix. In using their services for free, ads will be placed on your website. If you don’t want the ads, you can upgrade for a very low fee.
If you don’t have time to build your website or you’re not tech savvy, I recommend Reproductions and ActorWebs as two outstanding and reasonably priced companies that specialize in building websites for actors.
Once you’ve determined which way you want to go, you will need to purchase your domain name from a company like GoDaddy.com. Your domain name should be YourName.com or close to it i.e. Your-Name.com, YourNameNY.com etc. Once you’ve purchased your domain name, you will attach it to your completed website or give the information to your design company and they will do it for you.
Content and Examples
As far as the content of your acting website, you can start off with something basic that includes your homepage, a photo gallery page, a resume page and a contact page. From there you should add demo pages/clip pages. If you need references, look at actors websites who you know or name actors.
Here are some examples:
The most important step is to start gathering the materials that you want to use to SHOWCASE yourself and begin the process! Break a leg!
