Back when I was working on A Hole In His Heart I learned a lot about how powerful a website can be if properly designed. Just to give you an idea, 20% of the people who visited our website wound up getting a ticket. That's a phenomenally high ratio, and I used a lot of the same concepts when designing a site of my own. I figure a lot of other actors, singers, and artists would be curious, so for this blog post, I present you with a bullet point list on how to create a website:
- Adobe Dreamweaver - Dreamweaver is the best web design software on the market. It's an industry standard. In addition to creating complex sites quickly and efficiently, it has an array of other great features - like a tool that will help you resize your site to look good on mobile devices such as an iPhone or iPad. Dreamweaver is not cheap (and there's a learning curve as well) but it's an investment that will pay you big dividends in the future. I also recommend getting Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere. With these tools you'll be able to design your own art work, retouch your own photos, and edit your own reel. That way you won't be dependent on anyone else for your marketing materials.
- Choosing a Good Color Scheme. Some people have a gift for matching colors. Most people (including myself) do not. Fortunately, there is an amazing tool called "Kuler" that does the work for you. Go to http://kuler.adobe.com/ and you'll find a catalog of great looking color schemes that match each other perfect. And if you have Adobe Illustrator, this tool is already built in. Pick a color scheme that matches your personality and that goes well with your media.
- Know Your Audience. A personal website is something that you'll be showing to agents, casting directors, and other players in the industry. That's a very different audience than say, TomCruise.com, which is a website devoted to his fans. Think about what your "audience" is looking for when they visit, and let that guide you.
- Keep It Simple. Agents, CDs, etc are very busy people. And every day they are inundated by submissions from aspiring artists. If they look at your site, they will have a very short attention span. Probably one or two minutes. The layout should be simple and easy to navigate. You should have a short bio, a reel, a handful of photos, your resume, and a link to some sort of site where you can post updates.
- Don't Make the Font Too Small. There's a good chance that people with bad eyesight will be visiting your site. And some people aren't too tech savy and don't know how to navigate through your site. Using larger fonts will help with that. To give you an idea, my menu bar is an 18 point font in uppercase bold, and most of the text is a 16 point font.
- Only Use Your Best. A personal website is not a catalog of every single photo you've ever taken or every single film you've ever done. It should be your best work. You do not want an agent or CD to see anything other than your best work. One great photo is far better than twelve mediocre ones. One great reel is far better than two hours of film showcasing all your work.
- Make It Very Easy to Contact You. Back when I was working on A Hole In His Heart, we made a simple change to the website that dramatically increased sales. We put a large "Get Tickets" button on the top of every page. I was blown away. How could something so simple make such a big impact? What it means is that a lot of people wanted to buy a ticket, but couldn't figure out how to find the small ticket page at the bottom of the screen (and after fifteen or so seconds they gave up). It's a lesson I'll remember for the rest of my life.
Now apply this same concept to a personal website. What do you ultimately want them to do? You want them to contact you and bring you in for an audition or job. So make your contact information large and obvious, and put it at the top of every page. If you're represented by an agency, their contact information should be at the top of every page too. And make sure any email address is a clickable link.
- Posting Updates. It's a good idea to link your site to some sort of blog so you can post updates about your career. I'm using blogpot, but there are other sites (such as twitter) that are just as good. There are also ways to embed your blog in your site, and so long as it doesn't look tacky, that's fine too. Word of warning - if you're going to use Facebook, make sure you keep it professional. If people in casting see a post about how bad your date was last night they won't take you seriously.
